Good morning, friends!
I'm in the office and back to work after an amazing six days in Springfield, Missouri; primarily for the BetweenThePages Writer's Conference.
Since diving hard back in to Book 2 of my series I decided to take a couple extra days on either side of the conference while at my favorite hotel in Springfield (Comfort Inn South) to work on the book.
I packed up and headed in on Wednesday, checking in around two p.m. and just spent the rest of the day settling in, getting the writing area and coffee bar set up then kicking back with lasagna and garlic biscuit I'd brought from home.
BACK HATCH
folding table for coffee bar behind the bags
L to R - extra cooler, computer bag, story bag, coffee bag, cold items, 2 cases of water
BACK SEAT
From Front to back - personals bag on bottom, iPad, desk decor on top
Far back - suitcase on floorboard, dry food bag tote on seat
TIP: Save yourself money by bringing leftovers or quick foods that can be heated in the microwave. I also packed my Copper Chef 5-minute cooker. HOWEVER - Check to make sure your hotel HAS A MICROWAVE. I'd thought about staying at the conference hotel next year but they don't have microwaves in the rooms and the refrigerators are half the size of the one at Comfort Suites. Unless you want to spend money eating all of your meals out, do your research.
Registration opened up on Friday afternoon. We also had a speaker, who was excellent!
Colin Conway is the author of the Cozy Up series and is the creator of the 509 Crime Series
He covered a total of three sessions on Indie Publishing including developing the mind set of an indie author as well as running an Indie business and marketing. Lots of great information. Once I heard him speak, I traded off a couple of breakout sessions to hear everything he had to say. The other two breakout sessions were, Running An Author-Indie Business and Marketing Your Books.One important thing he brough up was to make sure YOU BENEFICIARY has access to your business.
Jeniffer Thompson was our keynote to kick things off on Saturday. She is one of my favorite people. I've learned so much from just hearing her speak. She is an absolute beautiful person. She likes to help and is patient with your questions. This is the second year I've had the pleasure of listening to her. She also offers assistance in many forms of author branding through her Monkey C Media, The Premise Podcast, and the San Diego Writers Festival Podcast. You'll find Jeniffer by clicking on any of the links included in this paragraph.
Sherry Roberts was the session I chose in the first round of break-out sessions. An award-winning children's book author, she spoke about the responsibilities we have once our book is available. One of the most valuable pieces of information I received from her presentation was how to get into B & N!
Xavier Kane was the speaker I was most interested in hearing, then didn't LOL. Xavier spoke on the difference between writing general characters and Veterans. Since An Ozarks Homecoming features a Veteran Army officer, I wanted to hear how his take. See if I was honoring our heroes correctly. However, he was dropped into the same session as Colin Conway and after reading his topic I realized he was talking more about current Veterans and not deceased. Understanding, Xavier was kind enough to do a one-on-one with me to help me see if I am on the right track. According to him, I appear to be doing everything right.
Those were my picks for the conference. We also were able to do a Q & A with a panel discussion with all of the speakers including the following:
Topic: Owning Your Creativity
His covers are GORGEOUS! Be sure to check them out on AMAZON
Paul McSorley
He is an audio book performer
Topic: Took the first 5 submissions and make them into an audio file so you can see what your work will sound like as an audio book.
AMY LILLARD
Topic: Back to the Basics of Romance
Christian & Clean Are All The Rage In Romance.
NOTE: I will be spotlighting Amy in an upcoming post as well as reviewing her latest Amish Romance release so stay tuned!
Jeanne Devlin from Roadrunner Press also took pitches. Check out her publishing house by clicking on her name.
Miss Nancy closed out our session Sunday morning and this home-town girl BROUGHT IT! She was entertaining as she talked about her journey from being an attorney to co-writing with James. (that would be THE James Patterson but they're on Book 5 together so she can call him by his first name... she said so. LOL) If you get the opportunity to hear her speak, RUN to the first row and enjoy the ride!
That's going to do it for me today. I managed to pop a couple of ribs this morning as I washed up the conference laundry so I might be out of commission for a day or two but I'm not going far.
All my best!
~Angela
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