Sooooo, Wena Poon was there and since I was pretty much there, I figured I’d go listen to her talk.
It was an exclusive to RP talk anywho which was pretty cool since she had the time to come here. In any case, besides promoting her book Lions In Winter (her blog is at: http://lionsinwinterbook.blogspot.com/ ), she talked about reading and local writing in general.
Some tips she had that, when you publish a book it does not stop there. If your publisher sends you to the radio station to do an interview, you do it. If your publisher sends you to the tv station to talk on a morning show, just do it. In any case, you need all the publicity you need so just ACCEPT it.
And even more interestingly, she talked about local books here and oh man were the sentiments similar to mine. Apparently Wena knows also that the majority of people here think it’s crap. HOWEVER, she brings up a good point that when you see our local books it’s by a limited number of people and genres.
As compared to in the US, there are more people and hence more variety of books. The main point is, not everyone likes Harry Potter (oh gasp!) but there’s STILL a number of people who like it.
In summary since the above was in “Sarah-speak”, there’s too little books in the Singapore section of different types that most people get turned off by it since it’s not in THEIR favourite genre.
And aww come on admit it people, drama, drama, ghost stories, detective? There’s a lack of fantasy and sci-fi and okay there’s bunches of romance too but it’s still not enough.
In her words, if you don’t like what you see in the shelves, why don’t you write one?
So… really, I think that’s the most sensible advice ever (besides the go everywhere your publisher asks you to bit).
Heck that! Just write a book and then publish it then maybe we’ll have more variety and then people will just start to drift more to the Singapore section of the bookstores and stuff!
So go forth and do it!
There are people here who WILL help you get your book published if it’s good enough.
