The Value of Writer's Conferences

By B.D. Tharp

This weekend was the Kansas Writers Association "Scene" conference at the Wichita Hyatt. Friday night's event was a Pitchapoolsa, and it was unbelievable. Everyone who attended was given one minute to pitch their book. Some of our author attendees were awesome, dramatic, precise, and very well prepared. There are an amazing bunch of stories in the making. And the editors and agents were gracious, encouraging, and positive. Who could ask for more?

Saturday started early, the first speaker began at 8:00 AM. Some of the topics included:

• Story Structure to Rivet the Reader
• Ebook and Traditional Publishing, Advantages & Disadvantages
• Finding the Right Agent or Publisher
• The Art of the Pitch
• Promotion, Media, and Branding

Subjects were presented by a host of fabulous industry experts:

• William Bernhardt, Author & Teacher & Keynote Speaker
• Mark Coker, Founder of Smashwords
• Agent Helen Zimmermann
• The Book Doctors, David Henry Sterry & Arielle Eckstut
• Dan Case, editor AWOC.com Publishing
• Malena Lott, Executive Editor Buzz Books
• Amy Shojai, Author
• Andrea Feodorov, Silver Gear Web Design

I'm exhausted, jazzed, and ready to try the things I learned to better promote my novel FEISTY FAMILY VALUES, and find a home for my next novel, PATCHWORK FAMILY.

Like the cherry on top of the parfait I thoroughly enjoyed the great group of attendees from Kansas and surrounding states. Writers are readers and we know and share in the challenges and joys of being authors. No matter how much your family loves you if they aren't writers, they don't understand the writer's life. It's a bit of a roller coaster ride.

To find out about conferences in your area try Shawguides.com. I usually try to attend one conference a year, and if there are a couple in the Midwest that aren't too far a drive and I can share expenses with someone, then I try for two. They're intense and well worth a writer's time. Write on, my friends.

From an Agent's Perspective

At the RWA National conference in Orlando, I heard Ethan Ellenberg speak. He talked about Book Marketing from an Agent’s Perspective. Since my historical novel, The Tapestry Shop, comes out this fall, I was especially interested in what he said about sales and how they affect your career. He packed a lot of information into that one hour.

I pass this along, for those whose goal it is to be on the NY Times best-seller list. He said that the initial sales number is most important, and that when books sold before the release date, it had a negative impact on the numbers, because the sales, for rating purposes, go week by week. Thus, if a bookstore sells a book before the release date, it will minimize the sales the week of the release. By way of explanation, he said best-sellers might be number 4 one week, and number 257 the next, so if an author’s sales are dispersed over a period of weeks, his rating will stay down. Before this, I never quite understood the ratings.

Mr. Ellenberg, contrary to what we all hear, said he believes an author should spend 90 percent of their time writing, and 10 percent on marketing. That may be fine for Palin or King, but most publishers have cut their budgets and an author is expected to take an active part in marketing. In fact, most of the burden has now shifted to the author.

Someone from the audience asked how much of the print run needed to be sold in order to be deemed successful. He said that 50 percent of the print run was the usual dividing line. Less than 50 percent sales is considered unsatisfactory. Fifty percent is “okay”. If your book sells above the 50 percent mark it’s doing well.

Print runs are frequently between three and six thousand, with big houses printing fifteen to thirty thousand.

As for the demise of printed books, he believes there will always be physical books and readers to buy them. They make beautiful gifts, they stay on your shelves, and don’t get read and deleted. He emphasized that our goals as authors should be a presence in all markets: audio, print, and digital. Like TV and radio, the industry will evolve and thrive.

Why you should start saving your pennies for a writer's conference

I know, writer's conferences are expensive. Not just the conference itself, but the transportation to get there, lodging, food and of course, the irresistable shopping expeditions on the side. But if you're a writer looking to renew and re-inspire your writing, if you're looking to hone your craft, if you're hoping to make contact with agents, editors or published writers who might act as references, the writer's conference is the place to be.

Last week, I had the honor of participating in two panels at the Backspace Writer's Conference in the Big Apple. During the three day conference, over twenty-five agents attended. That's a lot of agents in one place, and they were all looking to help authors develop stories the agents could sell!

There were writers--multi-published writers. Writers who have been in the business for decades, like Gayle Lynds . And writers who have garnered a boatload of professional praise, like Hank Phillippi Ryan. (The picture is of me and Gayle Lynds connecting at the book signing.)

And agents didn't just wander around looking superior with wine glasses in their hands (although wine glasses were never far from view!). They offered their valuable time in workshops where authors could present two pages of their manuscript for agents' critiques--all anonymously!

Those sessions were the stars of the show! Here's some of what authors learned:

* In what part of the opening did A.E.G.O. (Agents eyes glaze over). For some, it was after the first paragraph. Great! Those writers knew it was back to the keyboard. For others, after their two pages were read, an agent would scream, "Whose is that? Send me that manuscript, tomorrow!"

What a thrill for those authors!

More of what writers learned about querying an agent:

*Don't be cutesy, ever, in a query letter. No adorable fonts. No watermarks with your name in elegant script. No flowers around the border. This is a business letter. Keep it that way.

*Avoid telling agents your book is funny, interesting, amazing, suspenseful, soulful, powerful, chilling, bittersweet or sure to be the next best seller. Use exact descriptions to tell them about your story. Study how successful queries are written. (And there are enough resources available for several posts on that topic!)

*Don't overwrite. Don't try to impress with using obscure vocabulary words and over-abundant descriptions. Take out unnecessary character movements, dialogue and physical description. Grab your reader with a story that won't let go!

A conference can get a writer that valuable one-on-one time with an agent or an editor. An extra expense?Yes. Priceless? Absolutely!

The Selling Synopsis

A lot of authors postpone writing the synopsis until, well, they can no longer avoid it. Many agents and editors require a synopsis with a query or submission, so alas, it can’t be postponed forever.
For myself, I’ve learned a little trick that helps. You may want to try it. Before you begin your story, write the synopsis. Impossible, you say. I’m a pantser. Well, I am too—a crossover, really, because I plot and it gets changed so much that it’s unrecognizable. However, the real advantage in writing a synopsis first is that it allows you to spot any weakness in the plot, before an agent sees it and sends a form letter your way.
A synopsis is not meant to be a chronicle of events, but rather a distillation of the novel. Forget anything but the main characters. The agent/editor only wants to know about them and the event that changed their lives. It’s like a book blurb without the hype, if you will. And always tell the ending.
For those of you who resist writing the synopsis first, an easy way to distill your novel is to make an outline of the finished book in Word. That will remind you, if you don’t have a detailed plot, what happens when. From there, you can strike what’s essential, and whittle it down that way. Sometimes I think I write better synopses than novels, because I get requests followed by a form letter, but again, that’s part of the business.
I’d love to know when you usually write a synopsis, so leave me a comment. I’m guessing most wait until the story is complete, but you may find writing it earlier serves as a guide and eliminates a sagging middle—which is another blog subject entirely.

Are Contests Worth the Price?

As writers, we’ve all either entered contests or been tempted to. Most contests have an entry fee, and it’s sometimes difficult to justify the expenditure. In addition to the fee, there are shipping expenses, and sometimes, if you final, you have additional expense. Most contests do not accept digital entries, which is understandable. Who wants to read from a monitor?
As an author, I’ve been on both sides of the table. I’ve judged the South Carolina Writers’ Workshop entries, and more recently, the Pikes Peak conference entries. I’ve also entered contests throughout my writing career. From the judge’s side, I’ll tell you I’d much rather sit down with a cup of tea and read through entries, than stare at the same monitor I’ve worked at all day. That said, I understand why contests ask for hard copies for an entry.
As a writer, yes, my early entries didn’t reach the mark. But after many workshops and classes on the craft of writing, I saw a sea-change in the scores.
Now on to the wisdom of entering contests. A writer, unless you’ve won the lottery, should be selective about contests.
First, do a little research to see if this is a legitimate contest or simply a scam. It’s pretty easy to find out. If the contest is sponsored by a legitimate writers’ group, like an RWA chapter or Historical Novel Society, or by a state association like Florida Writers, you know it’s legit.
Next, read the details to see who is judging. Don’t look at the prize money or the award. Except for the most prestigious awards, the prizes aren’t big. The real win, the biggest reward, is that you can use a nice win to catch the eye of an agent or editor. Most admit that contest wins get their attention.
Thirdly, look to see if the contest returns comments, or only scores. That’s one objection I have to entering the national RWA contest—no comments, just numbers, and from whom? Published? Unpublished? You have no way of knowing. On the other hand, if a contest offers feedback (which most every RWA chapter contest does), it’s like getting a mini-critique.
An aside, and one worth noting for published and unpublished writers: strangely, there are contests which do not take ARCs. Your professionally-edited book can/must be entered in unpublished, if the release date falls after the contest-entry deadline. This seems to me a bit unfair to an unpublished author who has to compete with your edited book. I don’t really understand the reasoning for not accepting an ARC.
Recently, I entered a small local contest. To my surprise, all three finalists’ entries were sent to places like HarperCollins, Medallion, etc. for final judging. Not only that, the contest offered a breakdown of genres, so that my historical wouldn’t be lost in the Mainstream category, or bunched in with SciFi.
To my delight, both my two entries finaled. One went to Medallion, the YA went to HarperCollins for final judging. After reading comments from both editors (one of whom gave me First Place for my historical, The Glass Partridge), I went to work and revised according to their suggestions. No, I didn’t get a contract, but now, in a query letter, I can say “an editor at Medallion gave this story First Place in the final round of judging”. How cool is that? Feedback from an editor, and bragging rights, all for forty-five dollars. If anyone’s interested, the contest, Do it! Write, was sponsored by the Pasco chapter of the Florida Writers Association. It was opened to non-members, too. So look at local and regional contests. I know, it’s like buying a lottery ticket, but you can’t win without trying.

Contest Announcement

We're kicking off our new Author Expressions blog with an awesome prize. The winner’s name will be drawn at random from those who leave a comment. Members of our blog group, of course, are not eligible to win. The prize is a set of jewelry (example to the right) designed by a glass artisan. Wait! If a man wins, there is a whole list from which to choose: gorgeous wine stoppers, letter openers, and other things.
The contest for this prize ends next Friday, April 23, but I won’t be drawing until Monday. I’ll be at Pikes’ Peak Writers Conference, where I hope to learn from all the workshops and faculty. They have Cold Read sessions with agents and editors. That should be fun.
Just today I learned that I won a copy of a book I’ve wanted to read. I have never won anything, except a bottle of champagne one New Year’s Eve, and I don’t care for champagne. So winning this book made my day.
Most of my future blogs will probably be about a historical figure or event, because I love history.