I attended my first writer’s convention the other day. No, I’m not kidding! It’s actually funny – I’ve been too busy writing to get involved up until now.
It was a local convention, but hey! It’s a convention, and faith based. I walked down the line of tables with authors and their books.
I began to ask the writers, “Are you traditionally published, or self published?” To my dismay, most of them were answering self published. One astounded me by saying she’d had too many problems with traditional publishers, and had taken to self publishing her latest novel.
She intrigued me, because she was a woman in her 60’s, and I realized after talking to her for five minutes, she needed to be a speaker at the convention, and not just a book seller. In front of her was a rack of 14 novels she’d written – not one of them a cheap cover. The 14 novels had been completed over the last 4 years. Her standard average output was four novels a year.
Yikes.
I felt like Cecil Turtle right then – A slow, lumbering writer whose only response is to duck and cover! I finish books usually in about 45 days, but then the editing process slows to a crawl! I hate editing my own books, and I tend to procrastinate it as much as possible. I was unable to find out much about her writing process other than she was a pant’ser, and that she refused to try any other method. If you love writing, you’re going to write!
It’s really impressive to see someone sitting there with 14 novels in front of them for sale. The impression is one of professionalism. Keep that in mind.
Most of the writers there being faith based tended to have books on devotionals – only two of the writers there wrote fiction. The one guy I wanted to talk to was Nikolas, but he was surrounded by people the whole time and I was never able to talk to him!
Interestingly enough, one gentleman was wandering the corridors carrying a duffel bag under his arm and wearing headphones around his neck. I didn’t want to typecast him as a video camera type even though he was broadcasting all the typical AV professional clues. Well, sure enough, he was a camera buff who wanted to get involved in being a DP – director of photography – professionally. He had no idea how to advertise himself and I gave him some pointers – not the least of which was he was at a writers’ convention and every author there would love to meet someone who’d do book trailers for $50! Could have generated $2000 in income from that day alone! We spent a few minutes talking editing programs and LUTS. He seemed so relieved that someone could tell him how to get started advertising his services! I didn’t think of it until later, but if he’d walked through filming it and telling everyone about his services, he could have sold writers’ promo packages as well!
My take away thoughts from the convention was that most of them had no idea how to advertise themselves, knew nothing of writers’ platforms – all they knew was how to write a book, and pay someone to print it for them. I found myself explaining Twitter to two ladies, and how you get started blogging and getting involved in Twitter. It was great watching the light come on – “Why hasn’t someone told us this before?”
Conclusions – It seems most writers only know how to write their novels, little about editing or re-writes, and almost nothing about the writing business – and are dying for someone to explain it to them. All of them had great ideas. All of them were very dedicated to the message of their nonfiction or fiction books – and almost none of the ideas were ideas I would have come up with! Alas, very few of them seemed to have any idea on how to promote themselves through a writers’ platform, and many had not ever heard it is now a requirement to be traditionally published. One man I met was just one of those people I gravitated to – he had a really good idea for a book that could lend itself to a franchise, but one of the sheets he was giving away did not have his name, website, book information, contact information – but it had a dynamite pitch for his novel. All he needed was someone to gently point him in the right direction!
Either I am perpetually driven by how to promote, or most writers have absolutely no idea how to go about getting involved in the business! It’s heartbreaking – I love to write and want to see my books on the shelves in bookstores out there, so I know how they feel. Sadly, I know unless they LEARN these things, they’re going to stay locked in their writing spaces, doomed to never see their books in print!
Writers, here’s the hard lesson – writing your novels is not enough. I met many great people, and was excited seeing how many writers had ideas I never would have thought of, all dedicated to getting their books in print. But you must have a way to promote yourself, your message and your books. You must have a writer’s platform, or you will not get an agent, nor will you get a publishing contract, especially in the dwindling faith-based community.
My biggest take away is this – I have learned a lot, from people willing to give the information away, on how to write. But that’s not enough, you have to know how to promote, advertise, get a writer’s platform and be able to sell people on your novel.
My second biggest takeaway is that of all the people I talked to, most of them said I should be a speaker at the convention!
It looks like I learned something from them!
