Thrillerfest kicked off yesterday at the Grand Hyatt Hotel here in New York and I had the pleasure of attending the full day — I’ll be back tonight and most of Saturday — meeting some great people, picking up some interesting books, and taking in some insightful information on the publishing game from the perspective of successful authors in the thriller genre. Prior to attending, I considered myself a fan of thrillers but quickly realized the genre I tend to enjoy most is classified more as mystery than thriller — marketing semantics that, according to several authors, means more money for the thriller genre — the difference being the former’s focus on figuring out what happened while the latter emphasizes something that’s going to happen and the clock is ticking.
Lawrence Block’s Scudder series, my hands-down genre favorite, definitely falls under crime mystery, while Charlie Huston’s Thompson and Greg Rucka’s Kodiak series are thrillers, though neither author is in attendance at the show nor represented in the Barnes & Noble bookstore on-site, presumably because neither is a member of the sponsoring organization, International Thriller Writers. Inspired by the energy of the conference, I picked up four novels by authors I’ve never read before, including Kathleen Antrim (pictured, right), Steve Berry, Andrew Gross and David Liss, all but the latter I saw or met yesterday. I’ve started reading Antrim’s Capital Offense, which she describes as “What if the First Lady was plotting to kill the President?” and so far, it’s a brisk read that hits all the right notes expected from the genre.
The first session of the day, Learn How to Pitch Your Book (conducted by Antrim & Bob Mayer), was particularly fascinating for its breakdown of the process of developing a 25-word summary of your book that serves not just as your pitch to agents and editors — the only two influential people who will have actually read your entire book before it hits the bookshelves — but when done well, will represent it all the way through the sales process, internally and externally.
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Thrillerfest