Back To College

Last Friday, March 23, 2007, was my first experience at the Colorado Independent Publishers’ Association CIPA College. It was also the first time their awards annual banquet was scheduled to follow the sessions that day, a good and effective change.
I had a blast at CIPA College, and at the banquet that followed. It helped that my book, published by Filter Press, Unsinkable: The Molly Brown Story, was selected as a CIPA Award Finalist receiving 2nd place in the Juvenile division. Beyond that, I spent a most worthwhile day, soaking up information and networking with some great people in the book world.
I have been a serious author for more than a decade, a pre-press and graphics professional for a quarter of a century, and a writer all my cognitive life. Although I’m fairly road-tested by now, I don’t presume to know it all, nor even know a good portion of it all. From that standpoint, much of what I saw and heard was already familiar, but there were plenty of ideas and bits of wisdom I was pleased to learn and to add to my arsenal.
My biggest thrill was meeting John Kremer. This is THE marketing guru who wrote the book I picked up some 25 years ago entitled, 101 Ways To Market Your Books. The book and Kremer are still going strong, and his latest version is called 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. I am trying to catch up on my reading so I can study the other 900 ways to market my books. CIPA College’s rotating roundtable format allowed me to talk one-on-one with The Man himself. Wow. I hope my rock-star hero worship wasn’t too apparent.
At any rate, I consider my day at CIPA College a huge success and an injection of inspiration, especially in my weak areas of marketing. I appreciate the folks who brought together these professionals so that we could benefit from them. And thanks to them for the recognition of our work with a much appreciated CIPA EVVY finalist award! Check out the rest of my books at www.lohseworks.com .
My great experience at CIPA College made me anticipate the WWW Conference at the Marriott Hotel in Colorado Springs this fall, Oct. 19-21, 2007. It was a huge success last year and promises to be even better this year. Can't wait to see everybody again and to get that surge of inspiration, wisdom, and fun.