Pages to Publication Conference

I learned a few things at CRW's "Pages to Publication" conference in Williamsburg yesterday.

I spent the morning timing pitches for editors there from three different book publishers: Frances Sevilla from Wild Rose Press, Bethany Burke and Allison Travis from Blushing Books, and Dominique Eastwick and Valerie Mann from Decadent Publishing. The setting was pretty informal, so all the editors were taking pitches in one room of the library in Williamsburg, Virginia.

The downside to timing pitches all morning was that I missed Meredith Bond's presentation on self-publishing, which I heard was very good. But I did get to overhear the kinds of pitches authors were making and the kinds of information the editors were looking for, which helped me when it came time to make my own first-ever pitches for my 52,000-word novel, currently titled Dancing Under the Stars. It is a contemporary romance with elements of a cozy mystery.

I hope that's not a strange combination. My characters took over in the middle of the book and took the romance in some unexpected directions.

But I think it works, and two of the editors must think so, too, because both asked me to submit to them. I also got an "author to author" suggestion that I visit All Romance Ebooks and find at least two more niche categories I might put my romance under, since "contemporary" is so vague and crowded. I got a tip that "cougar" romances are selling right now.

Hmmm... can or should I tweak my characters' ages as I revise? It would be easy to do, and it wouldn't bother me at all to do it. An older audience might like a ballroom dancing theme as well as a younger hero, but I am going to think about this one for a while before plunging in. Feel free to post any ideas or comments or reading experiences in this regard below.

This is exciting, but it means I have to get serious and even more self-disciplined into putting in the time to polish up my rough draft, and quickly, to strike while the iron is hot, so to speak. The publishing world changes quickly, as evidenced by the fact that Dominique Eastwick was with Musa Press at the time CRW booked her for the conference, and Musa closed its doors at the end of February, 2015, shortly before the conference. Luckily for us, she was bringing her line of authors over to Decadent and had no trouble fulfilling her obligations to our conference.

I did manage to make the afteroon sessions, which I enjoyed. I especially liked hearing a trained dramatist read the first twenty lines submitted anonymously by three different writers. Four editors sat on stage to critique what they heard. The first two examples were extremely well written and received positive critiques. The second example was very dark, told from the point of view of a vampire or a similar predator on young women. It made my blood run cold just to hear it. It was interesting to see how the different editors reacted to the same piece. All agreed it was well written, but the first editor to critique it said it was absolutely not what her house would publish, while the second one, Frances Sevilla, looked out at the audience with excitement and said, "Whoever wrote this, I want them to send it to me. Now!" or something to that effect.

That was a concrete lesson how one's writing needs to be a good fit for the particular editor and the publisher you're submitting to. Just because an editor rejects it doesn't mean it's bad or unpublishable.

The third critique was more critical, but the editors gave good advice, it seemed to me. The author's writing needed to be less passive, should "show," not "tell," and might be better for a brief prologue. We were told that today's reader doesn't have much time or patience and the author must grab their attention quickly and decisively and work hard to keep it. A prologue, if used, should not be more than three to five percent of the total word count. Again, we were reminded of how editorial opinions differ. An editor to whom this author had pitched earlier in the day confessed she understood where this author was coming from better than her peers because she'd heard quite a bit about this particular character and story from the pitch. Although she agreed that this material needed to be tightened up and put in a prologue, she was also quick to defend this author and what she was trying to do in her opening lines.

Bethany Burke gave an afternoon workshop where she shared an Excel Spreadsheet that automatically generates for an author a basic outline of the plot archs of a romance novel, Save the Cat style, but based on the word count. By changing the word count, an author can see where in the manuscript the major plot points should change. The spreadsheet can be saved and customized with the author's own story line. I liked the tool and signed up to have it emailed to me.

Bethany also has been a publisher and self-publisher on Amazon for a relatively long time, so she said quite a bit about Amazon, mostly about how important Amazon is in the publishing world these days. Also that what "works" for small publishers and independent publishers changes very rapidly on Amazon, to the point that a marketing strategy that worked well six months or a year ago will backfire today. Bethany feels the current market makes it harder for the "little guy" to break into the market than it was a couple of years ago.

I encourage other writers to attend conferences like this one, make contacts, have lunch with other writers, learn a little, and have a good time. Those who have at least a rough draft of a novel written should take the opportunity to pitch it.

Don't be scared. Editors aren't the big, scary, powerful monsters that you see in the movies, or maybe that you write about in your books. They are just people, meaning writers and business people, and they want what you're writing if it fits their criteria and if it's well written.

Go ahead. Give it a shot. What do you have to lose?