Into the Fire

Those of you who’ve traveled along the path of this particular blog know that I’m not a gung-ho writers’ conference girl. The benefit of attending one is inarguable, provided those attending professionals meet the needs of your particular writing. Making one-on-one contact with publishing professionals takes the place of email queries and proposals and beats that latter method hands down.

So with that in mind I went to the Northwest Christian Writers Renewal for the first time last year, and there were indeed some impressive names on the faculty roster. You might remember I met both Karen Ball and Mick Silva in person after having several email conversations and conducting interviews with them here which you can find in the archives. I had the pleasure of spending a bit of time again this year with Mick.

Last year I went as an observer, knowing most of my remaining novels didn’t fit comfortably into the word count preferences and I wanted to learn the ropes before presenting the eligible novels to an agent or editor. This year I looked at the faculty roster and spotted an agent I wanted to pitch. I did some preparation but each agent, editor, or publisher has his/her own preferences which are not always discernible until you’re sitting at the table with them. To a degree I looked forward to the opportunity, having selected two of my novels in the romance/women’s fiction genres.

I took a friend with me who’s just starting out on the writing journey in another area than myself. It was fun to be able to encourage her with my past experiences. We arrived in the lobby and there’s a line to register. Last year there were people milling about but no lines. I remarked that at first glance it looked like there were more people this year. In spite of the economy, that turned out to be true: this conference broke records for attendance even though the faculty presenters were down. After registering and receiving our materials, I had to go to another line to confirm my agent appointment. Guess what? The agent I selected had become ill and couldn’t attend the conference. Someone was standing in for the agent, but the individual (a former agent) was now a publisher with a custom publishing group. How extraordinary. God, I wonder what you have in mind. The irony made me smile, sort of. It was my only appointment so I went ahead and kept it even though I knew I would be meeting a proxy and had little hope of impressing the particular individual. I found it kind of interesting that three of the five presenters had projects which the original agent specifically stated in the brochure were not areas this agent intended to represent. However, the proxy person acted quite interested in them, probably from his personal business agenda.

Ironic.

Irony number two is the increasing, though not in leaps and bounds, value of quality custom publishing in the professional community. I must say, in my opinion, this is largely due to WinePress Publishing Group who did the publishing for my second novel The Famous One. WinePress’s owner and representatives are recognized and well respected in the publishing community, and you will find them at all the major conferences. One thing that separates them from the average self-publishing options is that they don’t accept all material for publishing. If you don’t adhere to their standards or parameters, they will turn you down. Their reputation is at stake, and they’ve worked too hard in this biz to be snickered at by their colleagues in the industry. For those of you who have a copy of The Famous One, I’m sure you’ll agree that the novel represents quality production. Even if you don’t care for my writing or my story, you can’t say the book itself is inferior. The cover design, the font, the overall presentation is equal to any royalty published novel in its class and better than some.

Who would’ve thought a royalty publishing professional would suggest that using a custom publisher to do a first run or a POD first edition of a novel to get it into distribution might be considered a value to them?! Much of this is due to the unimaginable success of the self-published The Shack which blew the royalty publishers out of their comfort zones and had them all back pedaling to acquire it as the copies flew off the shelves and it climbed to the top of the New York Times Bestseller List.

That’s astounding news, Writers. The ugly step-sister in the publishing world is growing up and turning into a potentially attractive young lady.

The absolutely fun thing is that next year I must go again because Brandilyn Collins will be the keynote speaker! How great it will be to meet this fine lady and great author of “Seatbelt Suspense”.

Father, thank you for the opportunity to attend this conference. It was good to see old friends and establish new contacts. I’m grateful to you for allowing me to go. You go before me, and I want to follow you. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.