PICKING THE CONFERENCE

I’ve been to several writers conferences over the past few years, and have learned several things as I have done so. I’ll be writing a multi-part blog here on advice with regard to conferences from the standpoint of attending the conference.

I have been on a couple of panels at conferences. I won’t be talking about that in this series of blogs.

First of all, figure out what you want to accomplish in going to a conference.

There are lots and lots of choices out there. There are conferences with classes about craft, seminars on genre, or authors talking about their own work. There are conferences with editor and agent pitches. There are conferences that are really workshops, with critique sessions and craft work and revisions. There are conferences that talk about the publishing industry.

Where are you at in your writing career?

If you’re just starting out, you might want to attend a workshop on craft, work on the basics, and see if you need to learn more.

If you’ve been to craft workshops and have some finished material, you might seek out a workshop with critiques, especially if they will be done, or at least directed by, a published author or agent or editor.

Do you have a finished product? Have you gotten critique notes from others? Have you considered those notes and revised and reworked and rewritten your novel until it is the best you can make it? Then maybe you should look for a conference with information about the industry, about publishing and submitting, about writing synopsis and query letters. You want one where you can move to the next stage, and start determining how to submit your work.

Where do I look?

Well, there’s lots of places to start your search. Check out your local library. Ask your local writer’s groups if their members like any particular one. Some writer’s groups actually host their own conferences or workshops. I also check http://www.shawguides.com/ and look under the heading “Writers Conferences and Workshops”. There you can search by state, by topic, or by month to narrow it down.

You can also check agent blogs and websites; they sometimes list which conferences they’ll be attending in the coming year.

What is your budget?

You absolutely do NOT want to max out your credit cards, or spend money you cannot afford to spend to go to a conference.

Yes, the expense of going to a conference, along with mileage, airfare, meals, hotel costs, and the conference is potentially tax deductible, but you would definitely want to talk with an attorney or CPA before deciding whether or not to claim the expense on that year’s taxes. Spending money you do not have to get a tax deduction is ridiculous.

Remember that your cost is not just the conference fee. And it’s not always just meals, gas, plane fare, and a hotel. There may be a bookstore at the conference. If you buy a ton of books, and can’t get them all on the plane, you’ll have to ship them home. There may be a chance to buy an agent or an editor or an author a drink and pick their brain about writing. There may be a cool exhibit hall. Don’t get in over your head.

How long will it take (not just the conference, but sufficient time to travel to and from the conference site)?

This sounds like a no-brainer, but please do not forget that you have to get there and back.

Make sure you can take that much time off work at your day job, arrange for a house-sitter, cat-sitter, dog-sitter, mail-picker-upper, etc.

If you have a six hour drive to get to a conference, remember that you will get nothing out of the conference if you try to drive it overnight before the conference starts the next morning. Budget for the extra day off and the hotel room and meals to drive the day before so you won’t nod off and snore in the back of the room, because otherwise, you’re wasting your time and your money. You won’t get anything out of the conference if you’re too tired to pay attention.

Always keep in mind your day job schedule, your family obligations and realistic goals. I work with FANTASTIC people, who help me schedule my trials without crashing vacation/travel plans. My family helps out when I’m swamped, or when I’m trying to go somewhere. I try not to overburden them if I can help it.

Okay, so have you picked your conferences yet? Got any you’re keeping an eye on?

NEXT TIME: PLANNING FOR THE CONFERENCE…

Okay, so I went to KN with the express purpose of networking, of meeting new people, of re-connecting with friends and contacts, and getting the much-needed kick in the seat of my pants with regard to writing.

I got all that and more.

My friend, Lee Lofland, gave me an autographed copy of his book, POLICE PROCEDURE & INVESTIGATION: A GUIDE FOR WRITERS. I’ve brought it into the office and have been showing it to everybody. Very cool.

I had a great time, found some more beta readers, and spent a lot of time talking about books and publishing and writing and good white wine and pets. Yeah, there’s always a little bit of that at a conference. 😉

I’ll put up a more detailed post later….I’m still dealing with the work crazy and personal crazy of putting your life on hold for four days.

So I’ve been reluctant to post my comings and goings…for safety reasons. I don’t like posting that I’ll be away from home.

Now that I’ve made the arrangements for house- and cat-sitting, I can post it online.

I’ll be at Killer Nashville, taking place in Nashville Tennessee August 20-22, 2010.

Last year I got the opportunity to appear on a panel on Lawyers and the Law. This year, I’ll be on a panel with regard to Women in Law Enforcement and Investigation.

I really can’t wait to get there. KN is a great opportunity to network, to learn, to be a reader, a writer, and to meet up with other writer friends of mine.

Mystery readers, fans, and writers should all consider attending. Obviously I’m posting a little too late for some people to go this year, but if so, you really should consider it for next year! Great information, great people, and a well-run conference that’s well worth the time, travel, and money.

Hope to see you there!

Go check out…

http://dothewritethingfornashville.blogspot.com/

There’s a screaming need for help down there right now.

I’ve been meaning to post my impression of the Romantic Times conference that I attended just a couple of weeks ago.

There were some very good things about the conference. There were some things that were concerns, but those concerns were, for the most part, not within the control of the people who planned and administered the conference itself; they were issues with the conference center.

The Good

The truth is that this conference was very well-run, and I met loads of people. Some of the people I spoke with are people I’ve met at other conferences. I did quite a bit of networking and went to some very interesting seminars. I did learn some new things, and have new ideas for the projects I’m working on. I’d go again, hands down.

If you write anything with romantic elements, or write romantic fiction, you should really check out the Romantic Times conference. It will be in LA next year, which sounds like a great time. I don’t know if I will attend, largely because of the amount of travel, travel expenses, and not knowing my own trial schedule that far in advance, but I’d love to go again if I could!

And let’s hear it for Mr. Romance, 2010….a very good-looking Midwestern boy named Jamie Ungaro, from Coshocton OHIO!! Gotta love those Midwestern country boys…I know I like them a lot myself!

The Bad

The air quality inside the conference center and the hotel was abysmal. Yes, the conference was held in Ohio. Yes, I live in Ohio, too. It is definitely Allergy Alley. There’s no question that there was a lot of sniffing and coughing going on as the conference started, but it got worse as the week went on. Despite the early snuffles, we got a heavy rainstorm partway through the week. Rain normally clears a lot of crap out of the air when pollen counts are high, but the allergy suffering kept getting worse. I had trouble sleeping at the hotel all week, and overheard many others complaining about the same problems.

I was amazed at how much better I felt the minute I got in my car to leave and turned on the air conditioner. That’s rather sad.

There’s a lot of joking that goes around at different conferences about the “conference yuck” or the “conference plague”; the unspecified upper respiratory infection that always cuts a large swath through attendees at a large conference of any kind. I didn’t really hear a lot of it this time; most of the people having problems were the ones with allergies. I’m still getting over it, and I’ve been back a week and a half.

Regrets

There were quite a few agents and editors there.

In my opinion, the general rule of thumb for pitching in person at a conference is this; if you can’t have the finished product out the door in 30 days, don’t pitch your project. You can sign up for pitch appointments and network, but if you do this, you should make sure that the person from the conference organizing the pitch appointments is aware of this, so that they can determine if the agents and editors are okay with this. You don’t end up annoying editors and agents who don’t want to hear from people who do not have finished or almost-finished product to market.  Also, it’s just good business networking to make sure that you’re not stepping on any toes. Remember that you can always network at the bar, or at the social events as opposed to at the pitch appointments. I sure did a lot of that.

Because I did not feel like I could have GRIMM out the door in 30 days (It’s slow going right now…I’m in research hell at the moment, and scenes are dragging until I get it done) I did not sign up to pitch. I really wish I’d had a project ready to go.  SHADES OF GRAY isn’t something I’m sending out right now, but I’ve had some ideas for rewrites, and so I’m making another editing pass through it right now. Of course, I have no way of predicting which one could be done in 30 days, so I did not pitch either. I wish I’d felt like I had something to pitch. It would have been a great opportunity to do so!

If you’re starting to plan your writing-related travel for next year, I would strongly recommend the Romantic Times convention. We had a ball, made great connections, got lots of ideas for more writing, and got great career advice. At this point, the link for next year’s conference is not yet up, but you can check out this year’s information here.

You know, it’s really frustrating when you, the neophyte writer, gets the personalized rejection, or the invitation to resubmit, or the full request and while you’re having your squee moment, your friends and family don’t get it. Oh, they mean well, but they really don’t understand what’s going on. Consider this post a public service announcement, and a place where you can direct them to understand why you’re so excited, even when it’s technically a rejection.

When submitting fiction (I don’t have a lot of experience with non-fiction, so I’m not really covering that here), here are the responses you can get…

1) Form rejection.

This one’s rough. It’s the equivalent of the fourth grade participation ribbon in the science fair. It’s basically a letter saying that you showed up, and didn’t win the blue ribbon. It generally gives you little to no idea what you’ve done wrong, what you’ve done right, or how you might improve. A form rejection does not necessarily mean you suck, however. It may mean that you’re so close that you almost sold, but there’s something the agent or editor doesn’t like. They may not be able to put words as to their reason, and may not understand how to help you through it, so you get a form rejection. There’s a lot of websites out there about deciphering the form rejections. Let me save you the time.

A form rejection merely means; not for us. Most submissions get form rejections. And when I say most, I’m talking somewhere probably between 90 and 99%. There’s really no reason to take them personally, and no reason to believe that you’re just misunderstood. One, or even ten, or twenty form rejections really don’t mean anything about your story. When you get many, and nothing else, it’s time to realize that there’s something wrong with the story and seek out constructive critique (which you should already be seeking before submission). Your story just isn’t ready, or maybe you’re submitting the wrong story, or it’s the wrong story for that agent or that market. It’s time to do more research, and work more on your project and/or your submission package.

Also, it’s worth saying here that agents and editors are not required by ANYTHING or ANYONE to give more than a no, thanks. They get deluged with more submissions than you could imagine. They simply don’t have the time for personalized rejections on everything that they get. Which is another reason why an agent or an editor taking the time to say more than “no, thanks,” is such a huge deal, even if it’s not a yes.

2) The encouraging positive (and personalized) rejection letter.

This is a “not for us”, but generally saying nice things about your writing. They may be encouraging about your specific work, even though they’re saying no. It’s nice to get these letters, but they also don’t always have much content that help you improve the story. Even so, it’s a shot in the arm in an otherwise discouraging business. These letters are really rare.

3) The constructive personalized rejection letter.

This one is gold. It tells you either generally or specifically where you’ve gone wrong, and offers constructive feedback despite the fact that they are not buying your work. They’ve seen good in your work and are seeking to help you. For the most part, this is genuine, and something to pay attention to. You don’t have to agree. You don’t have to make the changes they suggest. This also does not mean that you get to resubmit to them; merely that they are reaching out to a writer with potential. This is even more rare.

4) The negative, rude, insulting rejection letter.

Thankfully this is the rarest of them all. Over four years of writing and submitting, I’ve only ever gotten one of them. I was very upset. In truth, I don’t believe that the person was trying to be insulting; I think they made some very poor choices in how to communicate what they were saying. Once I got over it, I came to the realization that this person had been very excited about my project and felt very let down by it, and let that disappointment color what they probably thought was a constructive personalization letter. We’re all human. It does happen. I had a few very bad days, and I moved on.

5) The personalized constructive rejection letter with an invitation to resubmit.

If you get this letter, take my advice; don’t ignore what they’ve told you. You may decide that the changes would fundamentally change your story and that it would no longer be the story you were trying to tell. Even if that’s the case, you have to also consider that it may become a stronger story. This is the best kind of rejection letter you could get, and it’s not a final rejection letter. Instead, it’s a wait and see if you can make the changes letter. Only you can decide if the changes are appropriate, but take them seriously before you discard the advice. This is the foot in the door we all hope for, and it’s the rarest of the rejection letters, except for the one discussed in #4, above.

6) The request for more letter.

This is also known as either a partial request or a full request. Both generally involve submissions of novel projects. When you send a novel, you don’t start out sending the whole thing. Instead, you start out with a query letter, the first few (generally five, although some may want more or less) and a page or two plot synopsis. The agent or editor then decides if they want more, and can request more pages (can be the first 50, the first 100, or whatever they require) or the full manuscript. They’re not gonna buy until they see more. If you get the request for more, you still could end up with any of the form rejections listed above, but you will likely not get to the acceptance stage of a novel without getting this letter.

and last, but certainly not least,

7) Acceptance.

Go celebrate. They want to buy your story, or the agent wants to sign you as a client. This is the goal. The odds of getting here are astronomically bad. That doesn’t mean that your job is over. You’ll have contracts to deal with. You’ll have author copies to negotiate (if possible). If you’re unagented, it might be time to learn about rights and royalties and other compensation matters. It’s now time to bone up on the next step, but for now, you’ve reached the Holy Grail of selling your work. Congratulations.

(And if you were trying to get rich, it isn’t this way. The odds of winning the lottery are better than the odds of becoming a gazillionaire by your writing. If that’s the goal, go buy a lottery ticket instead. But that’s another topic for another day.)