Tuesday Tips and Tweaks

I’m not sure what it is, but I lost another guest blogger. Maybe it’s summer and they’re all away. I just got back from New York City and the Romance Writers of America conference. So I have a writing tip for you.

And New York was fabulous by the way. We stayed on Times Square, toured the Cloisters, attended a couple of plays (Matilda and Jersey Boys) and hung out with friends and other writers.

Okay, back to that tip. I also attended about a dozen workshops. There were approximately 120 workshops available. They covered everything from craft, to self publishing, foreign markets, audio books, spotlights on each traditional publisher, where they tell you what they’re looking for, their guidelines and often give you a tip on how and who to submit, and more. I could go on and on, but my tip is this, if you get a chance attend a conference any conference – go. It doesn’t have to be one this big. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It may need to be close so you don’t have travel expenses, but if you’re serious about writing go to at least one. Even the connections you make might be worth it.

Writing can be a solitary life. Other people don’t understand the people in our heads and why we write, but other writers do. There’s an energy anytime you’re with a group of writers. Everyone shares information and even without the workshops you make connections and learn something. You usually learn at least one thing in a workshop, unless that person is just there to sell you something. Hopefully that won’t happen.

Out of all those available workshops I only managed to attend about a dozen. Some of those covered Blogging better, audio books, including the costs, foreign rights, foreign translations, breaking into foreign markets, analyzing data and doing a business plan, plus a few more. I arrived home exhausted but excited. Now I need to review my notes and put them into action.

If you have any comments or questions, I’d love to hear them.

And we will have a guest author for the next two weeks because they’ve already sent me everything.