Chapter 18

Ten Ways to Make the Most of a Conference

In This Chapter

Setting conference goals

Preparing your materials

Connecting with colleagues and pros

Keeping track of the information

Following up

Attending a writers’ conference is a great way to brush up on craft, keep abreast of publishing news and trends, network with fellow writers, and interact directly with industry pros. It can also be an intense — even overwhelming — experience. Writers find the wheels in their heads spinning furiously as everything everyone says triggers new ideas that make them want to rush to their keyboards. Trust me, you’ll be strategizing, plotting, and brainstorming your way through the entire event, even as you try to focus on a plethora of tips and insights. And because every writer around you is experiencing something similar, the vibe can really juice you up.

Here are ten ways to prepare for a conference so you can stay focused yet relaxed throughout, letting you maximize your time while you’re there and then effectively regroup and follow up on connections after you get home. I focus on the larger national and regional conferences, but you can apply these tips to smaller events as well. Your goals, preparation, execution, and follow-up will just be smaller in scope. (See Chapter 3 for the differences among national conferences, regional conferences, and weekend writing retreats.)

Set Reasonable Goals and Make a Plan to Achieve Them

Go into every conference with a list of things you want to achieve at the event, taking into account your current stage and needs. You may be just starting out, you may be heavy into the writing and revising, you may be eyeballing the submission phase, or you may be published and mulling over your next story. Figure out where you are in the process before each conference and develop your goals around that.

When you set your goals, make them tangible. “I want to learn as much as I can about writing for teens” is too vague. Have you been struggling with a particular issue? Are you hearing consistent themes in your critique feedback? Do you run into predictable trouble spots? Write those things down and then turn your list into goals that you can take action on at the conference. You may find it useful to phrase each goal as a question and/or to give yourself number-related goals, such as “What are three techniques for creating more natural dialogue?” Keep the list to a realistically achievable size. Here’s what your conference checklist may look like:

Learn two new techniques for creating more natural teen dialogue.

Learn how to end chapters so they push readers into the next chapter.

Identify a possible new member for our online critique group.

Learn the key elements of a successful middle grade series.

Ask about the state of the paranormal market during the agent panel.

Ask Agent X if I can send a post-conference submission.

Get suggestions for planning a successful weekend writing retreat.

If landing a book deal is your main goal in attending a conference, the odds of walking out disappointed are high. You’ve probably heard conference success stories where writers landed a deal, and yes, that does happen, but deals at conferences are the exception, not the rule. And they happen only when writers arrive at the conference with work that’s fully polished. Besides, agents and editors don’t walk around conferences with blank contracts in their pockets. When they like sample chapters they see at conferences, they ask the author to send the full manuscript to their offices and then the project goes through the full submission process.

When your goals list is done, look through your conference’s presentation schedule and identify sessions (presentations) that address those topics. Don’t spread yourself thin, trying to learn a little about everything. You can’t learn everything about writing and the industry at one event. So focus first on sessions that strengthen your weaknesses before filling up the gaps in your schedule with other stuff that’s interesting but still on long-range sensors.

Go to the conference with a friend, if you can, and then split up. You can each attend different sessions and then trade notes later.

Research the Faculty

The heart of a conference is its faculty, those industry experts and experienced writers who present the workshops, do the paid critiques, deliver the keynote speeches, and fill the panels (question-and-answer sessions with multiple experts). You should be familiar with all the faculty for the following reasons:

You’ll pick your sessions not only for topics but also for the experts presenting them. If you’re writing a middle grade adventure for boys, for example, a session about dialogue with a writer of swashbuckling pirate books would be a better choice than a dialogue session with a contemporary chick lit writer.

You need to know what the experts bring to the table so you can get a feel for what you’ll take away from the session. Why was this expert chosen to talk on that topic in that session? What do you think she can teach you? Do you need that right now?

You need context for what the expert is saying. After you get into that session, knowing a writer’s craft strengths, genre or topic interests, and specific books can deepen your understanding of the session content. Knowing an agent’s client list or an editor’s biggest books helps you know his literary sensibility and inform you on his recommendations regarding craft and marketplace.

You need to know who’s sitting next to you at lunch. The children’s book community is known for being welcoming, and faculty usually mingle. Know whether the person sitting next to you is a faculty member and what she publishes so you don’t have to say, “What do you do? Oh! You’re an editor at Random House? Wow, what’s your name again? Do you publish anything I know? Would my book be something for you?” That’s not a meeting to refer to later in a query letter.

The organization hosting the conference may include faculty bios in your registration packet, and you can certainly find bios on the conference website. Read the bios and then visit each person’s website to see the breadth of their titles and to read book blurbs, excerpts, their interviews, and some of their blog posts. If you’re attending a smaller event, read at least one book for each speaker because that’s the best way to get a feel for a writer’s sensibility and strengths. Use what you learn about the faculty to pick your sessions, choosing presenters who fit into your particular needs and goals.

Mark your sessions on your conference schedule in advance. A schedule may come with your registration materials, or you can pull one off the host’s website. Mark backup sessions, too. Sometimes a session isn’t what you thought it would be. When this happens, don’t stick around. Politely duck out and slip into your backup choice.

Pay for One-on-One Critiques

If it’s within your budget, pay the extra fee to sign up for a one-on-one critique with a faculty member, which is a standard feature at writers’ conferences. Expert feedback on your work is worth the extra investment. And if that critique is with an agent or editor, all the better. That face-to-face time is invaluable: you’ll be getting feedback straight from the horse’s mouth, and you’ll be making a personal connection that you can reference when your work is revised, polished, and ready for formal consideration. This is your own little “in,” getting you past those no-unsolicited-manuscripts policies.

Ask your conference hosts whether they allow you to request a critique by a particular faculty member. If they do, put in a request or two based on your faculty research.

Go into your critique expecting to come out with homework. The point of a critique is to find out how you can improve your overall writing and that story in particular. That means the critiquer will point out your strengths and weaknesses and offer suggestions for addressing those weaknesses. Don’t be nervous or defensive — the feedback is usually offered tactfully and with good intentions. Take notes and ask the critiquer to repeat or clarify as necessary.

Critiquing is subjective, so you may not agree with all the feedback you get. That happens sometimes. Flip to Chapter 11 for tips on how to handle feedback.

Perfect Your Pitch

“What are you working on?” is the second most-common question you get at a conference, topped only by “What’s your name?” Scratch that; you’ll be wearing a name tag. It’s the most common question you get. When the question comes, lay your pitch on ’em. The person’s follow-up questions or enthusiastic nods can tell you lots.

Conferences are great places to practice your pitch. Testing out your pitch is valuable for making sure you’ve struck a strong balance between information and tease. Whether you’re talking with editors or agents during critiques, chatting with fellow writers during lunch, or participating in a formal pitch session (wherein attendees get on-the-spot critiques of their pitches), you’ll have countless opportunities for focused feedback.

Your pitch is your key sales tool and mission statement for your project, comprised of your one-sentence hook followed by two- to three-sentence expansion of that. The hook includes your genre, the age of your main character, her goal and/or main conflict, and possibly your main theme. (Chapter 4 is all about hooks, and Chapter 13 tackles submission pitches.)

You can deliver a pitch no matter what stage you’re in with your work-in-progress. If you’re still developing your concept, you can reshape based on what you hear at the conference and on the feedback that follows your delivery. If you’re done with your manuscript and have signed up for a critique session, ask your critiquer what he thinks of your pitch: Have you hit the right tone? Does it jive with what he read? Does he have any suggestions for refining it? This is your chance to hone.

You may have a chance to pitch to an agent or editor at a conference, although the most likely scenario unfolds like this: After an agent or editor’s session, you go up to her to thank her for sharing the information, and then (assuming you’ve determined that your project would be a match with her needs and wants) you simply say, “I’ve got a historical fiction (or whatever) that sounds like it would be right for you. May I send it to you after the conference?” You needn’t give your pitch in this situation because she’s not prepared to state her like or dislike in such a quick encounter. All you’re doing is trying to secure permission to circumvent any no-unsolicited-manuscripts policy. Odds are she’ll say yes. You can write in your query letter that you met her at the conference and repeat something interesting she said, thus distinguishing yourself among the rest of her queries.

Prepare Your Manuscript

Because you never know what opportunity will present itself, always walk into a conference with a few copies of your sample chapters in case you want to share it with others. If you’re going to an event that includes workshops, the workshop organizer will specify the materials you must bring. Prepare everything as if you were submitting it. Here’s what to include:

One-sheet: This takes the place of a query letter, doing the same job of pitching without specifying an addressee. A one-sheet has your title, your hook statement (Paragraph 1 from your query), your pitch (Paragraph 2 from your query), and your bio and contact information (Paragraph 3 from your query), all on the front of one 81⁄2" x 11" sheet of white paper.

Synopsis: This is your plot summary, two to three pages long. Consider writing a brief synopsis, which is limited to a single page. Brevity of materials is a strength at conferences.

Sample chapter: Stick with a single chapter unless your first chapter is very small, in which case include two chapters. You don’t want to be schlepping around a stack of paper, nor does anyone else want to walk away with that stack of paper themselves. Never bring your whole manuscript. If someone wants to read more, you can send it later.

Have your materials as developed and polished as you possibly can before the conference. Proofread everything carefully and apply all the formatting I cover in Chapter 13.

Bring your laptop to the conference so you can hole yourself up at night in a fit of frenzied revision enthusiasm.

Create a Conference Notebook

Being organized allows you to focus on writing instead of on finding (see Chapter 3), and that applies to conferences big time. Get yourself a three-ring binder and turn it into a conference notebook. You only need to set up a notebook once, because you use the same one for every conference you attend — perhaps for every writing event at all, including festivals and writers’ group meetings.

Even if you prefer to type your session notes directly into your laptop, you need a physical notebook. Much of conference life happens on your feet, not sitting down with a fired-up laptop on your knees. Have a notebook at the ready to jot things in — and just as importantly, to hold things in. You’ll be amazed at the slew of notes, handouts, schedules, maps, flyers, business cards, and scribbled-on napkins that’ll clog your computer bag and pockets if you don’t have a way to organize them on the go.

Here are some suggestions for setting up your notebook:

Use a three-ring binger. Spiral notebooks aren’t as handy, because you can’t add pages or handouts. The conference host will probably give you a folder filled with your registration materials, but that’s not your permanent solution. Folders easily become jumbled messes of papers that you have to sort through every time you want something.

Stock your conference notebook. Include blank paper for note-taking, plastic sleeves for slipping in handouts, and plastic business card sleeves for the cards you collect as you network.

Keep a tape dispenser or glue stick in your bag or hotel room for attaching small items to blank pages so they don’t get lost. You don’t want to waste time transcribing the scribbles into your notebook.

Keep a colored pen or highlighter to call out Action Items in the margins of your notes. You’ll scan the margins post-conference and prioritize the highlighted Action Items into a to-do list. Examples: “Read Riordan’s new book,” “Get keynote notes from Jenny,” “Look up Simon & Schuster’s author guidelines.”

Put your marked-up session schedule in an easy-access plastic insert or tuck the schedule in the binder’s front pocket. You want to be able to check the session schedule on the go if you have to remind yourself of session room numbers. Big conferences like the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ annual summer conference (which takes place on several floors of a very large hotel and stretches out over east and west wings and several ballrooms) give you a map; keep that freely accessible, too, with your session locations already marked. Often you don’t have much time between sessions.

Include a printout of your conference goals checklist (see the first section in this chapter). Review it often during the conference to make sure you get all the answers you wanted.

Bring an index card and pen to all the meals and evening mixers you attend at the conference. You can tape filled index cards onto a blank page in your conference notebook when you get back to your room, saving you the time and trouble of transcribing the scribbles from cocktail napkins.

Bring Bookmarks or Business Cards

Networking should be one of your primary conference goals, so come stocked with a supply of business cards (or bookmarks if you choose that format for your contact information). You’ll be making contacts who may help you down the road, if not with your current book. Sometimes you’ll make friends and form critique groups or informal manuscript exchanges.

You may need a card for an editor or agent contact, but don’t count on it. Business cards are fairly meaningless to editors and agents at conferences. Editors and agents aren’t going to follow up with you; you’re going to follow up with them — and what they want in that follow-up is a query letter or a manuscript (both of which have your contact information), not a card.

Don’t use your regular job-related business cards if you’re not in the writing industry; get a business card dedicated to your writing career. Make sure those cards represent you well professionally. That doesn’t mean go expensive; you can print customized cards quite cheaply, and plenty of free basic-but-still-lovely card designs are available online.

If you’re unpublished, include your name, e-mail address, and website if you have one (omit your home mailing address). If you’re previously published or in a writers’ organization, include your book titles and organization affiliation on the card, too. (For more on business cards and other marketing tools, jump to Chapter 15.)

Make Notes on the Business Cards You Receive

People easily blend together in the conference-logged brain. As soon as possible after you get a card, pause to note on the back of the card the circumstances of your meeting (mutual friends, a shared enthusiasm for a speaker or genre, and so on). Slip that card into a plastic business-card sleeve in your conference notebook.

Always make an action note on the back of the card, stating what you should do to follow up when you get home — “Read her excerpt online” or “Contact her about guest posting or guest article for newsletter.” Reinforce that networking moment with a follow-up contact.

Another option for handling cards is to tape them onto a blank page in your conference notebook, transcribing your back-of-card notes onto the notebook page beside the card. When you get home, you can see at a glance all your action notes and then physically check them off as you work through them. Folks who maintain contacts in electronic phone books find this a useful way to keep cards from people who don’t necessarily warrant a phone book entry. For example, you may not be thinking about book trailers at all when someone mentions a great article she read about creating them, but a year later, you’re eager to try your hand at one. I met someone who told me about the best article for book trailers. I wish I could remember the article. Who told me about it? Who . . . who . . . who . . . Just flip through your notebook and there she is, right next to a note about the book trailer article.

Save Conference Expense Receipts for Tax Records

You can deduct writing-related expenses from your taxes as long as you’re pursuing publication and not just writing as a hobby, so keep track of your conference expenses. Save receipts for things that enhance, advance, or promote your writing career. Starting the moment you sign up, print out electronic receipts for all registration and travel, and then carry a receipt envelope around in your purse, pocket, or notebook at the conference.

After the conference, log those expenses into your running Writing Expenses spreadsheet for that year. If you don’t have a Writing Expenses spreadsheet, start one. Writing for publication is a business even if it’s not your full-time employment. You can bet you’ll be taxed on advances and royalties as income when those come in!

Check with your tax preparer for the most current tax rules and restrictions regarding deductions for writers. They can get pretty complicated, so have a tax expert explain the latest rules, prepare the forms for you, or instruct you regarding which forms to use. Also consult the IRS’s webpage (www.irs.gov), which has a search function to help you look up the latest articles and FAQs; use “business or hobby” and “hobby loss” as your search terms.

Set Aside a Post-Conference Recovery Phase

Your conference will eventually come to an end — but that doesn’t mean you’re done with it. You need to take all that information and inspiration and put it to use. You need to recoup, regroup, and then react:

Recoup: After a conference, you’ll be mentally and probably physically wiped. Give yourself permission not to think books for a period of time, several days to a week. Reconnect with family and the real world. Exercise. If you’re up to it, read the books you bought. Faculty members’ books will be on sale at the event; buy them and study how those writers apply what they preach. But don’t let your recouping phase go on too long. You don’t want to let the inspiration slip away.

Regroup: This is when you’ll be very very happy you took my advice about preparing your goals and using a conference notebook, because the first action you take post-conference should be reviewing all the information you collected and making your plans for moving forward:

• Scan the margins of your conference notebook for Action Items and prioritize them.

• Read your notes from each session. Interact with those notes, circling and highlighting to cement the points in your mind.

• Go through your conference checklist and see whether you’ve answered all your questions and attained your goals. If not, follow up with one of the contacts you made to see whether they got the answer.

• Make a revision checklist. List the elements of your story that you want to tackle in revision. Plan what you can do in each pass, because you won’t be able to do it all at once. (For info on negotiating stages of revision, see Chapter 11.)

• Make a revision plan. Use your post-conference energy to its fullest, reviewing your writing schedule and seeing where you can improve or shift it. You’ll likely have heard lots of deliciously sneaky writing-time tips from fellow attendees (it’s a hot topic in conference chit-chat!). See whether any of those apply to you.

Some writers find that the “regroup” phase is their “recoup” phase, too. Or they like to regroup before they set things aside to recoup. I’m in the latter group, preferring to organize, highlight, and strategize while it’s all still fresh and then go outside to play after the action plan is locked in. You’ll know after your first conference.

React: This is when you take action on what you learned about your story, your writing, yourself, and your industry at the conference. Put your new tools to work:

• Send follow-up notes and/or thank you notes. This should be the first item on your post-conference task list, because this step involves other people and is essential for reinforcing your networking connections. E-mails work just fine, unless you’re writing an agent or editor, in which case a physical note is appropriate. Keep the note simple, thanking recipients for their time and sharing their expertise, and note any personal interaction you had with them.

• Move through the rest of the post-conference task list you created.

• Revise any work that received requests from editors or agents. If you’re not close to submission-ready, send a note to say thanks and that you’re working on your story, and then give yourself a deadline, aiming for less than 3 months if possible. If it takes 6 months or longer, that’s fine — everyone knows successful post-conference revision takes time. Just explain the delay when the submission is ready: “I’ve been revising and feel now that it’s ready to submit to you.”

• If there was an open invitation to all attendees to submit, do your post-conference revisions before sending your submission. You do have time, and this is your only freebie with that editor or agent. Follow the rules on any handouts or guidelines provided at the conference. Always cite the invitation in the opening paragraph of your query, and note the invitation, too, on the front of the submission envelope: “Requested Material: X Conference.”