I am long overdue in sharing some tidbits from my trip to the Willamette Writers Conference last weekend in Portland (Ore.). Here's an overview.

Lunch talk by author Christina Katz
WD author Christina Katz delivered Friday's excellent lunch talk; for me, her message was very much about how a writer's attitude and perspective can greatly affect success, and emphasized the many wonderful ways that writers have it better than ever (more ways to get information, more ways to network with other writers, more ways to see your book sold and promoted in the world, and so on). Read Christina's recap of the conference (which includes a photo of yours truly).

My talk on The World of Sales
Unlike my previous presentations on this topic that only ran 45–60 minutes, this session was a full 90 minutes. I wondered if I would have enough to say to fill the time, but there were many excellent questions from the audience that helped add valuable discussion, and will certainly inspire some future presentations I give. A few topics that really interested writers:

• Marketing and publicity efforts by you vs. your publisher. How do you prepare? How do you work with a publicist? Should you hire your own publicist? (The answer is yes.) What does hiring a publicist cost and what can you reasonably expect from a good publicist? FYI: Industry studies have shown that authors who hire publicists do in fact sell more books!
  
• How authors can positively affect sell-through numbers. While your publisher may do an excellent job selling your book INTO stores, those books can be returned at any time, for any reason, resulting in a negative number on your royalty statement! So what can authors do to ensure their books sell THROUGH stores into customer's hands? A lot depends on an author's ability to drive traffic to retail outlets to buy books (that is: marketing platform). Think about how you reach readers and how you can grow your direct contact with your readership.
• How authors can find book sales numbers. Unfortunately, you can't. There is a service, Nielsen Bookscan, that tracks book sales through most trade channels (bookstores), but this service is only available to publishers and other members of a fairly exclusive club. You can, however, check a book's copyright page to see what printing it's in. If it's been reprinted many times and it's not very old/dated, that's a sign of a good-selling book. You can also tell how successful a book is by how many copies a chain bookstore stocks at any given time. The more copies on the shelf, the better it sells.
• How often do authors earn out their advance? Actually, no one asked this question during the session, but I did get it afterwards, and it's a very popular topic. I see varying statistics in the industry (e.g., as few as 10% of authors earn out), but definitely the large majority of authors do NOT earn out their advance. That means whatever you're paid upfront is all you will ever receive—no royalties!
  

My New Philosophy for Pitch Feedback
Most of my conference time was spent taking appointments with writers who were interested in pitching a book for F+W Media. For the most part, the pitches were solid, though most people aren't as familiar with the F+W list as I would like (otherwise they would be spinning their concepts in a different way).

After this three-weekend conference extravaganza of pitches and critiques, I've learned something valuable about giving feedback to authors on nonfiction book concepts. Here it is.

• I know my F+W categories so intimately that as soon as I hear an idea (within 5 seconds), I know if it's viable, at least on the surface. I know if it's a marketable idea given our strengths or market position at F+W.
• HOWEVER: If I don't think an idea will work, I should NOT respond by saying: "No, that won't work for us" or "That won't sell" (which sparks: "But I know so many people who need this book" or "Everyone tells me this is a great idea" or "I know I could sell it.").
• Instead, my strategy is this: "Let's discuss what's selling in this category right now." Or: "Let's discuss the audiences that F+W can reach right now and how this book could target them." Or: "If that title were on our list at F+W, it would need to overcome these market challenges."

This accomplishes three very important things:

1. First, it gives people hope, as well as thoughtful consideration from me, that their idea could potentially work. No one, no matter how professional, wants to hear a "no" five seconds after an idea is uttered. It's kind of like: Let's give love a chance here.
   
2. It focuses discussion on the market for the idea rather than the idea itself. This might seem like a small difference, but it's a crucial one. By doing this, no one is saying the idea isn't workable or valuable. We're talking about how the market works, and if there's a big enough market—or if F+W can even reach the intended market. It helps the author think about the project in terms of audience, instead of just their gem of an idea (which they're likely passionate about, and should be!).
3. Finally, this helps educate the prospective author about F+W, about the category, and what typically works in the market. We all want to be successful, right? No author wants a book to be published that only sells a handful of copies. Plus, a discussion like this, with the right information or examples, usually spark ideas for how the author could spin the topic to make it appropriate for our list.

Finally, keynote speaker Marc Acito rode a bike through Saturday night's banquet! Video below. See his blog post here.

The reviews on the BEA/WDB conference are still trickling in … The latest is from an attendee who has excellent advice on how to approach a pitch slam. A snippet:

I think the most successful people were able to boil their book down to these three things:

Genre: I have a middle grade novel about eleven-year-old Billy
Cool factor:  who starts an "anti-bully" business with Smacker, the monster under his bed.
Closing: Smacker disappears and darker creatures arrive under Billy's bed, threatening to destroy the town, Billy's friends, and Smacker, unless Billy can give them what they want--a chance to be on American Idol.

Read the full entry at the blog Wits and Pieces.

Now that I'm back in the office, I have a few more things to share from last week's conference in Los Angeles.

FIRST, A FEW PHOTOS
These shots were taken primarily during the break after lunch, during the book signing.



Robert Brewer, editor of Writer's Market (the guy sitting behind the table), holds down the fort.




Attendees take a breather to study the agent bios, refine their afternoon pitches, make a few calls, send a few e-mails.




Here I am (on the right) answering questions at the bookstore.




A view of downtown Los Angeles from the convention center.


Thanks to attendee Dave Malone for sharing these. If anyone else has photos of the conference to share (and you'd like to see them posted here), please e-mail them to wdbooks@fwpubs.com.


WHAT OTHERS HAD TO SAY

"Oh, my God! This was incredible. As someone who teaches writing, it was both inspirational and affirming to be in the student's seat. Some of what these writers taught, I practice and, in turn, teach to my students and clients. (Yay for me.) And then there's the stuff I didn't know or hadn't thought of or hadn't been exposed to.  We're always learning, no matter what our craft."

—Dawn, an attendee, from her blog Write Well Me

"As the line in front of me got shorter, I kept repeating my pitch, but it kept changing. Should I approach it this way or that way? I had only decided to do this around 2:45pm. At about 3:12 it was my turn. I pitched. It came out lame (I thought), courtesy of my “deer in the headlights” brain freeze, but I brazened it out and went on through it to the end. The assistant and I talked over a couple of points and while I think I can guess why he liked it, I’m still not sure. He liked something about it though, because I was given contact information and told to send him the first 2 chapters."

—an attendee, from her blog My Very Own Blogetary

"The conference went very well. Nay, it went awesome. Attendance was good and the LA Convention Center was very nice. It was more hectic than last year, and I can recall three times during the day when I was in a flat sprint trying to do something."

—GLA editor Chuck Sambuchino, from his GLA blog

"The writers conference in Los Angeles went really well. I'm so glad to have met some of my blog readers there (thanks for introducing yourselves!). The event was successful again for all involved—with happy writers, editors, agents, and even the event organizers, who are notoriously hard to please."

—Writer's Market editor Robert Brewer, from his Poetic Asides blog

"An audience member said that she had read/been advised that her book proposal should include a mention of any personal finances the author planned to use to promote her book, but only if that dollar figure topped $10,000. Her question was: Is this true? The question caught me off guard—mainly because I've never heard this before. While it's definitely smart to provide any information about your self-promotional plans, it doesn't seem wise to place a dollar figure on what you're willing to spend of your own money to promote your work. And it certainly doesn't make sense (to me) to put it in writing."

—WD mag online managing editor, Brian Klems, from his blog Questions & Quandaries

"All I've gotten out of Brian so far is a link to this (admittedly hilarious, delightfully short) You Tube video, Book Launch 2.0. Check it out. And let's hope that Brian at least brings us back T-shirts."

—WD mag editor Maria Schneider, from her blog The Writer's Perspective

AND MY COMMENTS
I am unbelievably grateful to editors Chuck Sambuchino (Guide to Literary Agents), Robert Brewer (Writer's Market), and Lauren Mosko (Writer's Digest Books) for their invaluable contributions in organizing this event. And editor Brian Klems (Writer's Digest magazine) provided much-needed assistance throughout the day and during the pitch slam.

Instrumental F+W staff included Joanne Widmer (mistress of the bookstore), Laura Smith (registration savior), Suzanne Lucas and Kimberly Bolen (register goddesses), Justin Combs and Scott Francis (our muscle men), and last, but certainly not least, Greg Hatfield, my continuing partner in crime.

And of course the conference would not exist were it not for the enthusiastic support and industrious efforts of Mark Dressler, at Reed/BEA.

Finally, I appreciate the generous donation of time and energy from the agents and editors who participated in our pitch slam. Without them, such a successful event would not be possible.

If you attended the conference and would like to voice your compliments or criticisms, feel free to do so here, in the comments field, or send them privately to wdbooks@fwpubs.com

Mark your calendars for next year's conference in New York City, on May 27!