Yesterday, I attended the Maryland Writers’ Association Writers’ Conference at the Maritime Institute Conference Center near Baltimore. As a presenter, I was invited to sit in on the sessions of my choice. One of them was on blogging. I was pleased to learn that I am doing most of it right. One thing I am lacking, however, is guest bloggers. I will have to consider inviting other writing/publishing professionals to contribute posts to my blog. Would you like that? Would you like to hear from anyone in particular?
This was a one-day conference that included hour-long sessions on memoir writing, poetry writing, journaling, book marketing, mystery writing, performing your work, forensic science, plot development and more. My presentation covered the book proposal.
I didn’t recognize the names of any other presenters and only ran into one person that I know—Melanie Rigby, former editor at Writer’s Digest Magazine. Of course, this was the first time we’ve actually met. We were on an email, name recognition basis only, prior to this. It was nice to connect with someone familiar. Melanie was on the editors’ panel.
This conference included agent and editor pitch sessions wherein hopeful authors could meet face-to-face with agents and publishing house editors to discuss their work. Oh yes, one of the sessions included a lesson on how to have a successful pitch session. I’m sure this was valuable for the authors.
Many writers come to conferences fresh from their writing rooms. Most haven’t ventured out into the world of publishing, yet. They are still in writing mode. They attend conferences seeking that one quick step from manuscript completion to manuscript publication. Most are not open to hearing the hard truths, nor are they ready to do what it takes to get successfully published.
One hopeful author said, “I don’t know anything about the publishing industry isn’t that the publisher’s job to know these things?†The concepts that “publishing is a business†and “it is up to the author to learn about the business of publishing before getting involved,†is just a hard pill for some authors to swallow.
As my regular blog readers know, it is my mission to educate and inform hopeful and struggling authors with regard to the publishing industry and to motivate them to further educate themselves.
I wrote my book, The Right Way to Write Publish and Sell Your Book, with hopeful and struggling authors in mind. Order it today at Amazon.com or http://www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html
The publishing journey is difficult and precarious. Hopeful authors seek the easy path. What most don’t know is that the easiest and most potentially successful path is the one that’s rich with knowledge.