Back in June we, (the board and volunteers of the Crested Butte Writers Conference) hosted our yearly event for visitors from all over the country and are fortunate to have some of the immensely talented agents and writers from New York to LA visit and lecture.
The intimate setting of small groups and the time to spend outside the conference with industry professionals was a very fulfilling experience for all participants involved. For me, it gave an approachable and human face to the publishing world that I admit is easy to demonize on a regular basis.
By the end of the weekend- One agent hugged me, one kissed me on the cheek and I was good friends with a best selling author. I’m going to cut to the point here and you can read more as it comes- Small conferences are the way to go. While I didn’t walk out of it with a contract; I made contacts, gathered information on a face to face basis and could approach and talk to the agents and presenters afterwards. In contrast to my experience at the AWP which left me with a headache on the first night after the endless overpowering crowds of people.
DAY 1-
After the great breakfast provided by the hotel on Mt. Crested Butte, I started to feel a little better about the money I spent… Hey, if there’s a decent meal involved I’m a little more passive about unweighting my wallet.
Next was the Agent Panel which was a great time to Q&A with visiting agents- Ginger Clark, Joanna Stampfel-Volpe, Christine Pride and Anne Bensson. What I came to realize in this hour is that despite their agent bios, these agents were not a fit for my work. However, their information and advice was interesting (and salty at times). One thing that stands out in my mind is the things not to do with an agent they pointed out- such as following them into the bathroom. Apparently this is not a good thing to do. Overall this was a lesson in ettiquite and dealings with agents.
The Art of Revision with author Holly Payne was after the sobering agent panel. Holly is something of a local celebrity in Crested Butte which is nothing compared to her success as an author and a self-published author.
This is taken from her webpage, next to a picture of her repaired femur- On June 6, 1994, she was struck by a drunk driver on a mountain road in Colorado. She lay on her back outside a local cemetery, looked at the mountain peak jutting into the sky and determined that if she lived, she would write — and the Skywriter was born. She survived with a few broken bones, learned to walk again, studied, practiced then taught storytelling for 15 years, publishing three novels.
What was that you said about not having the drive time to write?
Other points Holly made were the options available to writers such as print on demand vs. pre-ordering specific amounts of books.
What floored most of us in the audience was the number of books that would qualify it as a bestseller. Ready? Here it is- 1000. You sell 1000 books and you are in the top 1% of book sales in the United States! 1000 books!
I don’t know about you but I
thinkknow I can do that, and so can you.
It is hard to put all of Holly’s workshop into so few words but here is a link to her presentation- and I suggest to you strongly that it is worth the look.
One last note on Holly though is her experience with her last book- Kingdom of Simplicity. Her book about forgiveness and in some ways forgiving the man who struck her on that mountain road was summarily rejected by every agency in New York. She was even told that the Amish ‘had been done.’ Shockingly, this was within days of the Amish schoolhouse shooting in Pennsylvania. After which the Amish community forgave the killer of their children and neighbors. With the courage and conviction of the strenght of her story, Holly founded her own publishing company and put her own book out and now reaps the benifits of her ‘bestselling’ story.
After Holly I was P-U-M-P-E-D!
Lunch was great and I sat with Joanna and author, Kaki Warner. Again, I wouldn’t have thought that hanging out with an agent and author would be so much fun and if you heard any laughter at the conference- it came from wherever Kaki was.
James Scott Bell was up after his hilarious speech before the Sandy Awards. James gave an awesome presentation on Plotting which is readily available to everyone through his book- The Art of War for Writers.
If you ever see this man, please buy him a drink. A natural comedian and actor, the author of 14 bestsellers was essentially my guest for the weekend and took the time to get to know me and my town.
Which brings me to a point that most, (not all) writers are good people. Everyone at the conference were kindred spirits in a way. We were all fighting the battle in our own solitary way but the comradery we had as authors gives us all strength to carry on to the next word, the next page and to the last chapter.
Afterward I bounced between Anne Bensson’s Fiction Platform workshop and Ginger Clark’s Agent Dos and Don’ts. Both were good, but to the well read author on the subjects there was nothing extraordinary for me to learn even though others may have taken mountains more information from them.
Apparently there’s a lot of things that get to agents. I guess I don’t blame them but I started to think about this little group of women that represented the industry an I asked myself- Where were the hard drinking, literary party hunter functional alcoholics I imagined most of my life? I supposed they either never existed in the first place or simply have died out only to be replaced by these YA sniffing MFA grads. Ok, that is a harsh criticism of hard working people who are just doing their job.
Unfortunately, we live 9000ft above sea level which meant no one was in the mood for going out after dinner. Oh well.
DAY 2-
Saturday was a little less intense than Friday which was fine, it allowed me to talk with authors and visitors more and have meaningful conversations about writing. Janet Lane presented her Twitter & Social Media Marketing workshop which was interesting just to hear the feedback from the participants on how non-techsavy they were. Being among the younger of the crowd everyone assumed that I was fully integrated but my personal thought is the work comes first. Everything else comes after. Like I said, that’s just my opinion.
Some points from her twitter/media workshop were-
Gain readers for your blog, search groups that can help your writing, follow industry professionals and develop your brand.
Next, Jeanne Stein presented her Critique Groups: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. If anything, this reinforced that fact that I am lucky to be in such a great writing group of supportive and critical writers.
That night we hosted our Readers Night which is a great chance to do what most writers dread which is read out loud. The atmosphere was very relaxed however and seemed to belong to just the writers as agents don’t usually attend. All the writers were excellent and if you had to judge which was published and unpublished, you would be hard pressed to realize that all of them were unpublished. I was pretty excited for this because I had taken my camera to record my reading but unfortunately the operator turned out to be unable to hit the ‘on’ button.
I am always jazzed to read becuase I also like to put on a show especially for authors with my take on writing (and drinking, not to mention medicating) and what it takes to get a draft done. After the comedy, I read from my work that I hope to have completed soon- The Christmas Girl.
DAY 3-
The feedback I got the next day from authors about my story was just the thing I needed to hear to get me back into gear and writing which is what this conference is all about… Oh yea, and to try and get published.
Unfortunately, I missed the first hour of the day which means I didn’t hear about The Dreaded Synopsis from Joanne Stampfel-Volpe but I did get there in time to hear Holly again focusing on Alternative Publishing Options. The funny thing about hearing the information this time made me think about maybe gathering the tools to start my own publishing company which is weird… It made me think that I could do a good job of putting together all the pieces of someone elses book (with my own money) and eventually publish my own work. Nothing like going from being a driver to being the vehicle. Sheesh.
One last thing to note from the conference was the First Pages Reading with Agents & Editors. The brilliant thing about this was it put the agents and editors on the spot for once by having them read the first pages of the manuscript of an unpublished author mixed with a published bestselling author. I don’t have the stats but it turns out that even agents and editors can’t throughly tell what might or might not sell. The only agreement they came to was with a Judy Blume story. All others were met with trepidation and rolling eyes as they discovered what stories they would have rejected.
After this panel, a friend of mine remarked that he saw fear. He saw fear from the agents who didn’t know where their industry was going and what might happen to their jobs in the coming years. Scary.
In the end the closing remarks by Kaki were simple and to the point. If it’s important to you- don’t give up. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
