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We are coming up on the one-year mark of the L.A.L.A. Society’s inception. It has been a very slow roll-out, but I’m not sure if that’s a bad thing. While it’s nice to have a project take off right away, there is something to be said about being deliberate. Taking the time to watch and listen. Being patient with other’s schedules and priorities. Creating a solid foundation and clear vision that will sustain the efforts of all involved.

We are excited to be at the Festival of Books next month (find us at Booth 830). It will give us the chance to meet even more booksellers and readers, and get to know more local authors. We look forward to a summer of exciting events and celebrating several book releases this fall and winter.

If you haven’t signed up for the newsletter yet, please do. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. We want to get to know you and hope to see you at the Festival of Books.

The first L.A.L.A. Society event, “Coming to Terms with Amy Dresner and Sandra Ann Miller,” is in the books. Much gratitude to Sandpiper Books in Torrance for hosting us, and for the wonderful readers and writers who attended. It was exactly what we hoped it would be: A conversation. The interaction and laughter were wonderful. We feel it was a great success.

Of course, that leads to the question of What’s next? That would be meeting more of you, Los Angeles Local Authors. We need to get together to see what events we can create around your work, pair up authors to center conversations on, and find out how best we can engage with readers and booksellers.

Recently, Publisher’s Weekly posed the question, “What’s Wrong with Fiction Sales?” They stated:

“The most commonly shared view is that it has become extremely difficult to generate exposure for novels. Fiction, more than nonfiction, depends on readers discovering new books by browsing.”

That exposure is exactly what the L.A.L.A. Society wants to create. Instead of browsing pages, let’s help the readers of Los Angeles meet its authors. Because L.A.L.A. events go beyond a book launch, we can keep that conversation going (as well as that back catalogue), create a community of readers, writers and booksellers, and foster those important connections.

With that, we respectfully ask you, kind author, to introduce yourself to us. Please reach out through the Contact page or join the email list (that pop-up is around here somewhere). We only use the list to announce events, and we hope to grow those to monthly gatherings. If possible, we’d like to pull one together in November to hear your thoughts on what’s needed, what you would like to do and how we can help make that happen. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, too.

We look forward to meeting you, having fun and expanding our successes.

About six months ago, I was in that in-between space of releasing one novel and starting the next, wondering how I was going to keep the promo/release/write/promo/release train going. Writing is hard and can be isolating. Promoting one’s work (and oneself) is hard and can feel humiliating. (Not a lot of writers are extroverts, you know?)

Growing one’s audience–without a huge stroke of luck and/or a full-time publicist–is the biggest challenge for most authors. There are a lot of books out there. How does one get the word out and still get out new work?

It occurred to me that there is a strong population of amazing authors in L.A., and there’s a rabid nation of avid readers in our fair city looking for books by new (to them) authors. Why doesn’t someone introduce all of these wonderful folks to each other?

Of course, that happens weekly. There’s always a reading for a new release at your favorite bookstore where you get a chance to ask that author a question or two, have your book signed and then wait for the next release. But what about that pesky in-between? There are months (years) between book releases for most authors, leaving the already-written tomes hiding in plain sight.

But what if there was a group of authors who did events for readers? Not just for new releases, but an ongoing conversation writers and readers could (should) have. Wouldn’t that be something unexpected in Lala Land, when so many believe we only read screenplays and movie reviews?

That’s the idea for the L.A.L.A. Society. A place for it to start, anyway. If you are a local, Los Angeles author, an aspiring writer, book lover or someone who keeps meaning to read more, please join us. Let’s get to know one another.

Sandra Ann Miller is an author and publisher (SAME ink), native of Los Angeles and a founding member of the L.A.L.A. Society.