Neither Here Nor There...

 By Charlotte Bennardo

Photo by Julia M Cameron, Pexels

    

    I love author visits/events where I get to read or talk about my book, other books, and answer questions. With the pandemic, I HATED doing the virtual/Zoom events because there was no interaction. I was talking to a screen and sometimes the connection wasn't the greatest. I know some people love them because of the no traveling, but to me they weren't worth the effort. I'd spend all this time creating a presentation and if it was recorded, I never knew if anyone actually watched the presentation. And then I hardly made few, if any, sales. Those were two, three hours of my life wasted. Zoom presentations had some interaction, but it's not the same as meeting people. I can see, by watching their faces, if they're starting to get bored, or if they're waiting to ask a question or that I should just wish them a good day because they're not interested. Now that things are slowly coming back, like the Collingswood, Poughkeepsie, and a few other book festivals/events, I feel energized. I feel like we're coming back to normal. If you can, I urge you to drag everyone out to these events to bring them back up to the level they were pre-pandemic. Author visits in schools are back up- and from what I hear from my picture book and middle grade author friends, they're still doing mostly virtual events, although that may be changing. Maybe with the new school year, more authors, especially midlist ones (you know, not famous but still great authors), will get more bookings because it can be the lifeblood of their career. I love doing author visits but I'm at the stage where I'm no longer doing them for free (and no one should ask an author to do that). So invite an author in for a visit! 

Charlotte writes MG, YA, NA, and adult novels in sci fi, fantasy, contemporary, and paranormal genres. She is the author of the middle grade Evolution Revolution trilogy, Simple Machines, Simple Plans, and Simple Lessons. She co-authored the YA novels Blonde OPS, Sirenz, and Sirenz Back in Fashion. She has two short stories in the Beware the Little White Rabbit (Alice through the Wormhole) and Scare Me to Sleep (Faces in the Wood) anthologies. Currently she is working on several novels for both children and adults and her MFA. She lives in NJ with her family, two demanding cats, and a crazy squirrel couple who just moved into her backyard oak tree.