Today is the thirtieth in a series of posts by San-Diego-based writer Thomas Shess who has decided to keep a journal on his journey to find a publisher for his novel.

Conference Bound-Next week, I'm off to the annual Southern California Writer's Weekend (Feb. 18-20) in San Diego. One feature I like about this particular conference is the fact they offer an "Early Bard" discount off the $375 fee if you sign up several months in advance. This year, I applied the half C-note savings into a one-on-one meeting with Scott Miller of the Trident Media Group, LLC in Manhattan, who will discuss with me the first few chapters of my recently completed first novel. Frankly, I don't know what to expect. But I am looking forward to meeting Scott to pepper him with a long list of questions. Bottom line is it's terrific that Scott and the other agents agree to do this each year, but coming to San Diego in February isn't lame. Lately, it has been 75 degrees and the golf courses are empty of tourists.

Born Again Networking-I would have missed this year's San Diego Writers Conference if my fellow novice novel writer, Tom Basinski hadn't reminded me to sign up. Thanks to him I was able avoid being shut out as most of the slots for advance submissions to agents have been sold out. I met Tom years earlier when we both played on the same slo-pitch softball team. He was a DA Investigator at the time and as a spouse of a prosecuting attorney I made the team, too. But, it wasn't until last year that I discovered Tom had completed two manuscripts. One was a detective novel and the other a true crime non-fiction.

Pay Dirt-Last year, Tom's non-fiction manuscript was picked up by Berkley True Crime, a division of Penguin. The advance cover for a May 3, 2006 publishing date says "No Good Deed" is a shocking True Story of Jealousy, Rage and Murder. Tom's career is vast in law enforcement. He's been a street cop in Flint, Michigan, where crime was invented (his words) and later on as an officer with the Chula Vista Police Department (city south of San Diego) and eventually a DA investigator. He honed his writing as an editor and contributor to various law enforcement publications and San Diego Magazine.

More Networking-Tom called me the other day asking what I knew about how publicity departments of publishing houses work. He was nervous that he hadn't heard from Berkley's PR gurus. I suggested he call one of the other published authors on the Berkley roster and ask them the same question. One writer in Berkley's stable said the publicity team contacted him two weeks before publication date. Novice or not that's not a lot of time to make hay given how short the windows are for new books.

Teaming Up-In between editorships, my career has involved writing for PR shops on a contract basis. I've learned some fundamentals about how the publicity mills work. I volunteered to help Tom compile a press kit-so when the publicity house did call that he'd have a fundamental press kit ready for them to look at. The theory being if the publisher didn't have create a press kit form scratch then they could spend more time contacting reviewers etc. etc. We're burning some midnight oil now and it is energizing. For my help in PR, Tom is going to look at my new novel with an eye to the "cop" scenes. I value his experience. And, I really want the several police characters in my novel to ring true in words and in actions. If he finds a landmine in my work-I couldn't ask for more.

Meanwhile back at The Zoo, I'm still looking for a publisher or a literary agent for my
recently fine tuned first novel, a thriller based in San Francisco loaded with plenty of suspense, a damn good story and a plot that works-Drop me an e-mail for a pithy synopsis.