Blogger: Rachel Kent
Location: Books & Such main office or sitting in court as a juror.
the decision to go to a writers’ conference is an investment in your writing career. Be sure you know what you want to get out of the time and money you spend.
Tip #3: Put together a checklist of your questions and “must-do’s” before the conference so you can see and check-off your conference goals.
One amazing aspect of Writing for the Soul (WFTS) is that Jerry B. Jenkins, author of more than 170 books, takes approximately two hours to answer ANY and ALL questions that are submitted to him. You can get answers from an experienced, New York Times best-selling author who has a thorough understanding of the Christian publishing industry. If you aren’t at the WFTS conference, you can still get answers to your questions through appointments with industry professionals and during meal times. At almost all of the conferences, editors, agents and experienced writers host tables during meals and are there to help answer the questions you have.
Of course you should be reasonable with your goals, but use them to push yourself to make the most of your investment.
What have some of your conference goals been in the past? Did you achieve them?
The WFTS conference sounds like a gem. What a great opportunity to learn!
I had three goals at the last conference I attended. One was to pitch my book to an agent and an editor. Another was to learn more about the publishing industry through selective workshops. And the final one was to meet other writers.
Conferences motivate me and I’m hoping to attend another soon!
The last conference I attended was my first. My main goal was to see if writing was something I should be doing as a career. I had been writing for a long time, but basically as a hermit in a cave. I was completely disconnected from the industry and had no idea if anyone besides my mom would like what I was doing. I came away with an answer to that question and so much more that I couldn’t even have anticipated. I’m looking forward to having some slightly more focused goals at the same conference this year. 🙂
I had specific goals for the weekend, and they were blown away, because of today’s post and yesterday’s.
Set your goals, but maximize your time available. If your goal is to contact 2 publishers, once you’ve done that and there’s time, Keep Going!
Afterthought drop in discussions about magazines led to interest in several queries and an invitation to skip the query and submit the article directly to a group with HUGE circulation.
Set your goals, but give God the opportunity to do so much more!
I am starting off small this year. There is a conference in East Texas that I will be attending. It is close to home. There are workshops Friday and classes all day Saturday and a contest. I am hoping by next year I will have enough in my “porfolio” to go bigger, ha! This week’s blog has helped me prepare and to know what will be expected. Thanks!
My goal was to find someone to publish my book. Not an entirely realistic goal as it turned out! I also hoped to connect with writers and maybe learn something. I’ve been to a secular writer’s retreat and to a Christian conference. Let me just say that the Christian conference was about a thousand times better! The retreat had a very competitive, cliquish vibe. The Christian conference was almost overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Everyone I met was so excited for my book to succeed. It was worth the price just to be surrounded by so many people who understood my dream and wanted me to reach it.
Rich makes a good point. Don’t skip over the magazine editors at a writers conference. Writing articles is great training for writing a book, and having articles appear in mags provides you with some credentials.
I started out as a magazine writer. I can’t imagine how immense a nonfiction book must look to someone who hasn’t written articles.
My goals for the conference I plan to attend this summer are very similar to Jill’s goals above.
Making connections with other writers is huge for me. I would love to forge some bonds in which we can encourage each other in our studies, faith, and writing.
Learning as much as I can and not being reserved about asking questions during sessions or meetings are also main priorities.
For my first conference a couple years ago, my two goals were to see where my writing skills were by signing up for a critiquing session and learning more about the publishing world. At the time, I was a mother of 4 young children and wanted to see if I could commit to the time needed for publishing. I came away realizing I needed to wait a couple more years while my children were still at home.
Last year I went with the goal to put my manuscript out and see what editors and agents said. I had a lot of positive responses (that boosted my confidence 🙂 I also went with the goal to just meet people (which is hard since I’m so shy). But I came away with some great friendships 🙂
Last year I my goal was to perfect my pitch and pitch my novel to several agents. God blessed me beyond what I imagined.
I’m trying to decide which conference to attend this year – with all your conference suggestions, I’m excited to get going with my plans. Which conferences do you suggest for fiction writers? Which conference is your favorite and why?
Jennifer, there are so many great conferences out there! The three I try to go to consistently are the Mt. Hermon conference, Writing for the Soul and the ACFW conference. I also attend others and have enjoyed them.
Feel free to suggest conferences for Jennifer, everyone!
Each year our local writers conference has an agents panel, where we are able to submit one page of our work. These are randomly selected to be read during the panel, and then the agents comment on them.
My goal last year was to submit the first page of my current WIP, which I did. It didn’t get read, but I still learned a lot by listening to what they had to say about others.