Writers in the Storm

by Jenny Hansen

On Monday, Laura Drake gave us amazing tips on How To Improve Our Pitching. I've got to admit, I was totally impressed.

As extroverted as I am, I'd almost rather get a root canal than go to a group pitching session. I've been to them and hated it. The best thing you can do is prepare and read Laura's post!

I haven't figured out if they are harder on the editors or the writers, but it's tough to pitch in front of strangers. But I have a secret for you: I've never, ever seen or heard of an editor in a group pitch that didn't give his or her card to all the participants.

You WILL make contacts at a conference, just by strapping on your titanium panties and showing up! Is that groovy or what? A conference is a chance to meet publishing professionals you'd never normally come in contact and start forming real relationships with them.

Woody Allen said, “80% of success is showing up.” That's certainly true for conferences of any type. Just the act of attending says you take your writing career seriously enough to invest in it.

How do you make the most out of your conference investment?

The real success formula for getting what you want out of a conference is to "show up" long before the event by doing your research. For example, I'm going to the DFW Conference in Dallas next month and the work has already begun.

The five main tasks I'm working on NOW - 37 days before conference - are:

• Agent / Editor research
• Author workshop research
• Hotel research
• Reaching out to everyone I know in the area, whether they're going to DFWCon or not.
• Fashion Review

Am I working on my book? Yes.
Am I working on some courses I'll be launching around conference time? Absolutely.

But the other five items will make an enormous difference in the success or failure of my book and my new teaching endeavors. Trust me, I've been to conferences unprepared and you spend the entire time running to catch up. You don't want that.

My honey played football for fifteen years and had numerous coaches drill the "7 P's" into him. I'm sure my daughter will have them memorized by the second grade.

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Let's take my five prep areas, in no particular order...

Agent / Editor research

a. Find a list of the agents and/or editors who will be there and research which ones are currently acquiring what you write.

I don't care if you spoke to them 3 years ago about your paranormal time-travel, if they now acquire contemporary YA they are probably not going to be your first choice this time around.

b. Agents are on the lookout for a great writer who fills a niche in their current author list. They are dying to meet you and your perfect book as much as you and your perfect book are dying to meet them. BUT! No stalking. Just act natural. In fact, the worst thing you can do for yourself when you meet your dream agent at lunch is to pitch. Editors and agents are people too, with hobbies and dreams and the need to eat their lunch. That being said, if they ask you what you write, the door is open for a discussion.

Note: Michelle Wolfson of Wolfson Literary caught this post on Twitter and sent me this link about Why Agents Attend Writing Conferences.

Do I have tips for meeting your dream agent and editor?

Oh, Mama, do I have tips!

• 
  
  Know whether any of their authors are at the conference. Most agents have a client list on their website. They are extremely proud of their authors and want to support them. So go where the authors are. If their author is giving a workshop, it's a pretty safe bet that the agent will be there. The goal is to find out more about THEM to see if they might be a good fit for YOU.
  
  
• 
  
  Go to the publisher workshops. At RWA's National convention each year, all the big publishers have a "Spotlight on..." workshop. The editors get up and talk about what they're looking to acquire, and who their new authors are. The Spotlight workshops give golden information...and they are PACKED with agents, who want to know what to pitch to these editors. I saw three of my dream agents in the audience at the Spotlight on St. Martin's workshop. Did I turn around in the front row and stare at them? No!
  
  
• 
  
  VOLUNTEER. Every chance you get at a conference, volunteer for something. Not only are you giving back to the overworked event organizers, but you might get to do something nifty like moderate a workshop for your dream publishing house, St. Martin's. (It was a definite SQUEEEE! moment in my life.) I've also net Julia Quinn, Joan Johnston and numerous other NYT authors . . . just because I volunteered.
  
  
• 
  
  Don't hide hang in your room unless you're sleeping or freshening up. I know that writing conferences are terribly wearing for the introverts - you're surrounded by people for several days and you need to be on ALL the time. Still, you must get involved in whatever way you are able. Ex: Find one of your favorite extroverts to help keep your nervousness at bay and pal around with them. Attend any parties or outings your chapter is throwing, trade notes on workshops with your tablemates at lunch. But get out there and mingle.
  
  
• 
  
  #1 mingling spot at every writing event is the hotel bar. I've been at this conference thing for 12 years now, and I can unequivocally state that the bar is where you meet a ton of people. This is where friendships are born or renewed, where pitches are practiced, and where deals are discussed. I'm not recommending that you have more than one alcoholic beverage every several hours, but DO make time to hang out in the bar. You'll be glad you did.
  
  

You remember at the top of this post, when I talked about hotel research? That's actually pretty important. For one thing, it directly affects your fashion choices. I check Weather.com for a 10 day forecast for the exact same reason.

• What if the event is spread across TWO hotels as it was when I attended IBM PartnerWorld in Vegas?
• What if we had to hike a half-mile or more to find any food under $20 like we did when I went to the RWA conference in D.C.?
• Don't even get me started on the long lines you will stand in whenever you go to a hotel restaurant at mealtimes or to the potty between workshops.

Note: I highly recommend that you find some protein bars that you like and bring a case of those. Or do what I'm doing, and stay with a friend.

My last bit of advice on the fashion front: Read this excellent post by Virginia Kantra. This gal KNOWS how to pack for a conference!

I've got my fashion-conscious friends window-shopping for me since I hate to shop myself.  (It takes a village to keep me from looking like a fashion disaster.)

Last, but not least, reach out to everyone you know in the conference area. We have so many friends online nowadays that live in far-flung places. Conference is the perfect time to get together with them, even if it's only for a coffee and a hug.

Or, you could do what I do, and arrange a meet-up in the bar...

What writing events do you recommend? Do you pitch? What's your best tip for stalking meeting the agent or editor of your dreams? We'd love to hear your tips!

About Jenny Hansen

Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after her toddler Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing.

When she’s not at her blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter at jhansenwrites and here at Writers In The Storm. Every Saturday, she writes the Risky Baby Business posts at More Cowbell, a series that focuses on babies, new parents and high-risk pregnancy.

by Laura Drake

It's conference season! This is the first in our new series, where we will each focus on a different aspect of attending conferences, based on our own strengths/preferences.

I’m probably the biggest ‘conference virgin’ of the group, having attended exactly one. But it was the Grand Dame of them all – RWA National, three years ago in Washington, D.C.

I was lucky enough to attend with my amazing fellow WITS bloggers, who kept me from any major embarrassments. If you have the opportunity, room with a friend and do conferences together. You not only have someone to defrag with at the end of the day (can you say, SLEEPOVER?!) But we attacked the conference in a systematic way; each choosing different sessions to attend, and swapping notes. It allowed us to gain so much more.

Did I mention the fun we had in our jammies at night? OMG, it was legendary. We giggled like high school teenagers on a full load of Boone’s Farm (only our booze was much better.)

Man, I can’t wait for this year’s RWA conference in Anaheim!

But I’m wandering off the subject here, which is...PITCHING!

You may not know this about me, but I tend to be a bit – um – zealous.

I had a novel to pitch at the conference in D.C. -- a completed, shiny new novel. The conference experience would be wonderful, but the pitching was my major purpose for being there.

Nervous? No, why do you ask?

Was I nervous?  I was. Visibly shaking knees nervous.

Was I afraid? Fill your pants afraid.

Could anyone tell? Nope. This was a ‘fake it till you make it’ moment. I donned my monkey power suit that morning, spending more than my usual ten minutes on makeup, praying for a good hair day.

Oh yes, and don’t forget your titanium panties.

But let me back up a minute - how did I get hold of those titanium panties??

The work of that day was put in the month before. My wonderful home chapter, OCC, devotes the meeting before conference, getting the unpubbed prepared. I’d walked the gauntlet of practice pitch sessions, with published authors playing the part of an agent. I’d listened to every bit of advice anyone who’d been to a conference could give me.

I’ll share some of that with you here:

• Relax. Yeah, I know, I couldn’t either. But if you do your homework and choose an editor/agent who reps your genre, they’re going to ask for a partial. It’s what they do. It helped me, knowing that as long as I didn’t throw up on them, they’d ask to see my novel.
• Make yourself memorable. In a good way – not the crazy-author-stalker way. I chose a photo that I thought well represented my novel, and printed it, in color, on the back of my sheet of notes, so the agent would see it while I read. Did it help? I don’t know. But it gave them something to look at, and I’m sure it was memorable. In fact, I referred to it when I sent the partial, so they’d remember me, among all the authors they met.
• Pitch, Pitch, Pitch! You’re there. You’re dressed. You have a book. Why not pitch to the widest audience you can? Yes, I know, they’ll allow you only one or two appointments. BUT. There are a lot of cowards less stalwart people than you out there. They chicken out. Almost every session had the monitors calling for people who wanted to pitch to this or that agent. So I volunteered. Five times. Did all of them rep my genre? No. But they had coworkers who did. They gave me their card to include so the person would know I was referred to them.

Did I sell that book? No. Not then (though it has sold since.) But it was an amazing experience. If nothing else, I walked away confident in the fact that I could DO this. I’ll never be that afraid to pitch again.

Put yourself out there. Will you succeed? I don’t know. But I can guarantee you'll have a better shot than if you don’t!

Do you like to pitch or hate it? What do you remember about your first conference? Any tips for this year's conference "virgins?"

Writers In The Storm welcomes Kara Lennox, a.k.a. Karen Leabo to our family of bloggers. Kara is an award-winning, bestselling author of more than sixty novels of romance and romantic suspense for Harlequin and Random House.

You can read Kara’s blogs here at WITS on the first Friday of each month. She’s starting out with a big bang with a series of Plot Fixer blogs. Don’t miss out, stop by every month and get your plot fix.

By Kara Lennox

I confess, I love plot. I relish working out the three acts, the scene-and-sequel, highs and lows, black moment, climax. When it all comes together and I know a book is going to work, I actually get a natural high.

But something I love almost as much is helping other writers figure out what’s wrong with their plots, and how to fix them.

To this end, I have a workshop that I’ve given dozens of times, both in person and online. The workshop has changed names over the years. Currently it’s “Plot Fixer.” In it, I cover the seventeen most common plotting problems I’ve encountered during critiquing and contest judging, and how to overcome them. (Why seventeen? It started as an even dozen, but it’s grown.)

How did I come up with this list of plot ailments? Mostly because I've suffered  through them myself. I've sold a lot of books. But I've also had hundreds of rejections. HUNDREDS. Many of those were form rejections, but lots and lots of them detailed problems that I have since learned to spot myself. (Yeah, I still get rejections, darn it. Always more to learn.)

I have also been a regular participant of a critique group for most of the past twenty-something years. I judge contests all the time, I critique manuscripts, and certain plotting errors I see over and over again.

Now, I’m going to pass along what I’ve learned to you … one blog at a time.

You can use this information if you already have a story written, or if you have just an outline, or even if you’re in the planning stages.

I have 12 blogs, each covering one or two of the problems—how to spot them, fix them, or at least divert attention away from them.

So, without further ado, let’s get into the trenches and get dirty.

Problem #1

Your premise isn't compelling enough.

A weak premise, or one that is too simple or too complicated, will result in getting rejected at the query stage.

So what makes for a strong, compelling premise?

I'm sure you've heard of "high concept." A high-concept plot isn't just for movies. Every book--even a short category romance--needs a high concept. That means you can state the premise in one or two sentences, and whoever hears or reads these sentences can immediately "get" what your book is about. Furthermore, those sentences make that person nod and say, "ooooooooh." What is it about your book that makes people say, "ooooooooh"?

Boring: A woman needs a job and goes to work as a bounty hunter. Although she is not qualified, she learns along the way and eventually brings in a dangerous felon and solves a murder.

Better: A woman desperate for employment takes a last-resort job as a bounty hunter. Her first assignment is to bring in a cop accused of murder--her ex-boyfriend, who broke her heart.

Most of you probably recognize the above two examples as describing Janet Evanovich's first Stephanie Plum novel, ONE FOR THE MONEY. Both examples are accurate, but the second one is much more compelling, no? Especially to romance readers, for whom this book was intended.

It's all about what you choose to highlight or emphasize.

Sometimes, the "high concept" is simply a marketable element--say, a vampire--in a new context. My friend Nancy Haddock is a very talented writer, but she struggled for years to sell her first book. Finally she did it with LA VIDA VAMPIRE--about a female vampire who just wanted to have fun, work a job, go to school and watch TV like any normal woman. Of course, the forces of evil won't let her be. This was a new kind of vampire, and Nancy spun Francesca into a successful franchise series.

The ultimate high concept: Demon-hunting soccer mom. Author Julie Kenner practically sold CARPE DEMON with those four words alone.

Now, look at your story. What is unique? What is marketable? How can you highlight it, both in how you tell the story, and how you pitch it? Test it out on people. Do you get the "oooooooh?" Post it to comments if you like. See what reactions you get.

If you can't come up with a short, punchy logline, brainstorm with a group of fellow writers. That usually helps. And if that doesn’t work, my advice is to rethink your story.

Next time, we’ll talk how to fix a weak opening.

Don't miss Kara's latest book, Outside The Law and her soon to be re-released classic Bantam Loveswept novels (writing as Karen Leabo).
Kara's website