Conference Tips (Especially for the Less Experienced Conference-Goer):
A Guest Post by Jane Makuch...

As a follow-up to my recent post on upcoming events, today I offer some tips for attending conferences. What follows are some lessons learned by a relatively new conference-goer Jane Makuch who I met at our Writer's Digest Editor's Intensive in September. Jane will also be attending the SCBWI Annual Winter Conference and the pre-conference Writers Intensive. She's currently revising a YA manuscript.


JANE'S CONFERENCE TIPS
So many of us spend lots of money and want to do the "right" thing at conferences, but we're so often on the outside looking in. I've spent countless hours looking for do's and don't and know I still have so much to learn. Some things I have learned that I think will be helpful are:

• Develop a 30-second pitch. Not just for agents and editors, but also the dozens of times other attendees ask, "What's your book about?"
• Develop a 2-minute pitch for one-on-ones. So many new conference goers seem to think they need to spend the 10 or 15 precious minutes talking instead of interacting, answering questions and listening.
• This might be elementary, but be presentable. Fit the part--show up showered and well dressed. I've been rather surprised by the lack of hygiene, sweatpants, and dirty toenails sticking out of the end of sandals...eewww! Clean and pressed doesn't have to mean expensive, but it does show professionalism.
• No answering cell phones during classes. (Turn them off, or at least mute them.)
  
• No talking to neighbors during a sessions because you're bored or scared or overwhelmed. They paid to be there also.
• Have calling/business cards. Vistaprints.com has very inexpensive cards with quick delivery. Put blog and twitter addresses on them and use a nice size, readable font.
• Ask people you meet at conference for their business cards. (Jot notes on the back so you can remember where/when you met them.)
  
• Research the speakers ahead of time. Do you know of an agent who would be great to meet? If you have a polished manuscript, be ready to ask if you could query them. Then mention in your query that you met them at the conference.
• Don't be bossy or rude. Never ambush an agent or editor. No knocking on bathroom stalls or hotel rooms!
• You can't go wrong with a more formal etiquette. Kindness and respect will most likely get you noticed when presenting yourself with confidence and professionalism.

What's your best advice for getting the most out of a conference? Leave a comment!

• Note that we have an Editors Intensive coming up in March at our WD HQ. Click here for info on the WD Editors Intensive. (Registration will be open soon.)
• And you can still register for the SCBWI Annual Winter Conference. Click here for the SCBWI registration page.

New Writer's Digest Event at the WD HQ...

With the help of Greg the Conference Guy we've cooked up a new event for writers that will take place in the Writer's Digest offices in Cincinnati (home to my messy gray cubicle).

Here's the scoop:

Writer’s Digest University: Editors’ Intensive
what: Your chance to learn first-hand from publishing experts.
when: December 13-14, 2008
where: WD HQ, 4700 E. Galbraith Road, Cincinnati, OH
how (much): Single Admission Cost: $199

This is something we've been asked about for years, so we've finally decided to open our doors for a publishing event, featuring panel discussions and manuscript critiques. Participating editors include:

• Jane Friedman--Publisher & Editorial Director, Writer’s Digest
• Chuck Sambuchino--Editor, Guide to Literary Agents and Screenwriter's & Playwright's Market
• Joe Stollenwerk--Director, WritersOnlineWorkshops.com
• Alice Pope--me--Editor, Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market and Novel & Short Story Writer's Market

We're be presenting on topics including researching and identify the right agent; writing a killer one-page query for your novel; writing a bulletproof nonfiction book proposal; avoiding career sabotage; and breaking into the toughest markets.

Participants will also get to meet one-on-one with a WD editor who will provide a critique of either your query letter and proposal package (up to 50 pages), or the first 50 pages of your manuscript—plus offer a customized list of possible markets for your work.

The event, which is limited to 50 attendees, also features door prizes and an on-site bookstore with special discounts and sales. Plus, you’ll take home fun freebies that include a subscription to WritersMarket.com and a WD Writer’s Resource CD.

Click here for more information and to register.

Registration for SCBWI LA Is Open...


Today is the first day to register for the 37th Annual SCBWI Summer Conference in L.A.! So beat the crowd and click over to www.scbwi.org to sign up. You can also check out the faculty and read about the sessions. And guess who's presenting? It's your favorite CWIM editor! (Finally, I won't have to crash the after party.)

(Speaking of parties, the theme for the annual Saturday poolside is Paint the Town Red. I've got to start planning my outfit.)

Here are all the presenters in random order (it's quite a list):

Katherine Applegate
Sid Fleischman
Krista Marino
Namrata Tripathi
Jay Asher
David Gale
Mark McVeigh
Lisa Yee
Bonnie Bader
Melanie Hope Greenberg
Stephen Mooser
Paula Yoo
Tracy Barrett
Judy Goldschmidt
Yuyi Morales
Cecilia Yung
Ann Bausum
Margaret Peterson Haddix
Diane Muldrow
Linda Zuckerman
Michael Bourret
Dianne Hess
Lin Oliver
Brenda Bowen
Gretchen Hirsch
Susan Patron
Donna Bray
Mac McCool (aka Christian Hill)
Ann Whitford Paul
Christopher Cheng
Allyn Johnston
Sara Pennypacker
Rachel Cohn
Alan Katz
Alice Pope
Nancy Conescu
David LaRochelle
Laura Rennert
Bruce Coville
Elizabeth Law
Adam Rex
Suzanne Cruise
Arthur A. Levine
John Rocco
Debra Dorfman
Laurent Linn
Abigail Samoun
Amalia Ellison
Dorothy Love
Michael Stearns
Connie C. Epstein
Steven Malk
Julie Strauss-Gabel
Dilys Evans
Leonard Marcus
Mark Teague

Mad Anthony Writers Conference & Book Festival...

This Saturday, April 26th, I'll be offering a session at the Mad Anthony Writers Conference & Book Festival in Hamilton, Ohio (between Dayton and Cincinnati).
During my session, "For Children’s Writers: 2 Dozen Tips to Help You Get Published" (or Publlished as it says on the event's website), I'll talk about children's publishing, offer advice, and answer questions.

This event is not children's writing and publishing specific, but there will be a lot a good sessions on an array of topics. For instance my editorial director Jane Friedman is doing a session called "Marketing is Not a Dirty Word." (But don't go to that one, because it's at the same time as mine.) There are also sessions on "Revision, Revision, Revision," "Writing & Publishing Your First Novel," "Picture Book Manuscripts: What Works, What Doesn't," and two sessions on "A Writer's Website," one for beginners, one for intermediate. The event's keynote speaker is mystery writer Hallie Ephron. Here's a link to the conference schedule.

Concurrent with the writers conference is a book festival featuring hours of signings by authors of various genres.

If you live close (or close-ish) you should come to the event and see me.

P.S. That's General "Mad" Anthony Wayne above. He was Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army under George Washington. And he had a reputation as a snappy dresser.

Cecil Castellucci on Creating Characters...

This was a great session during which author Cecil Castellucci had attendees do some writing exercises with the intent of learning more about their characters and making them more complex and interesting. She started by reading the beginnings of several books to illustrate just how much an author can give to readers about a character in just a few lines. Check out Speak; Tyrell; Ironside; Tale of Despereaux; Millicent Minn, Girl Genius; An Abundance of Katherines (author John Green was in the audience); and her book Boy Proof.

Cecil suggested all characters are like Superman--they are all heroes with some sort of special power; they all have a flaw (their own Kryptonite); they all have a Lex Luthor-type enemy, whether a person or a circumstance that holds them back; they all have a place, a fortress of solitude of their own; and they all have something they love, their own Lois Lane. She also feels that readers learn about characters in two ways--from their voice or how they view themselves, and from the way the world views them.

Cecil's published several novels including Boy Proof, Queen of Cool and Beige and the debut graphic novel from the new DC Comics imprint Minx, The Plain Janes (first in a series)

For some writing prompts recommended by Cecil, visit Jo Knowles blog at the start of every week for her Monday Morning Warm-up exercises. (You can find plenty throughout her blog archives.)

Breakfast with Lindsay Davis...

After the conference opening I had oatmeal and a nice conversation with Writers House junior agent Lindsay Davis. Lindsay has worked with Steven Malk since April '06 and is just starting to take on her own clients. She told me a little bit about how they work and what they've been selling. Interesting to hear that they've recently sold a book by an author with whom they actually spent about a year working on her manuscript before they sent it out. This was a goth YA type novel, something that's in vogue right now. Nice to hear that an agent who sees potential in a writer's work will put in the time to help shape a project.

Conference Opening Ceremonies...


SCBWI Executive Director Lin Oliver (seen above on the big screen) opened this year's annual summer conference with her usual wit, then asked the conference faculty to each step to the microphone and give one word that summed them up or expressed their goal for the conference. This is a three-year-old SCBWI conference tradition. Here are a few of my favorite word (with occasional attribution):

• scrotum (Susan Patron)
• dare
• anthropomorphism (Lisa Wheeler)
• experiment
• reach
• reciprocity
• testosterone (Sonya Sones)
• royalties (Walter Dean Myers)
• low-maintenance (Krista Marino)
• medicognition
• vim (Arthur Levine)
• reinvent (Cynthia Leitich Smith)
• courage
• ready
• determination
• nerdfighters (John green)
• sietsa
• sparkle
• revolution
• pink (Allyn Johnston, dressed to match her word)
• whitespace
• comics
• honky-tonk-bedonkadonk
• upstreporous
• a new compound word: scotchcaffeine

08 CWIM Excerpt: Deborah Ruddell...

For picture books author/poet Deborah Ruddell a critique meeting with fellow poet Sonya Sones at the 2003 SCBWI Annual Summer Conference in Los Angeles resulted in Ruddell’s first book contract for her poetry collection Today at the Bluebird Café: A Branchful of Birds and her follow-up title A Whiff of Pine, a Hint of Skunk (both McElderry). Here’s she recounts her story. For the complete interview, see the 2008 CWIM (in stores soon--and available at the SCBWI Annual Summer Conference bookstore).

Your path to publication was rather unique—and pretty much every writer’s dream—finding an agent and getting a contract as the direct result of a conference critique. Can you recount your critique meeting with Sonya Sones?

After reading Sonya Sones’s brilliant and moving, Stop Pretending (HarperCollins), I couldn’t imagine what she would make of my poems. She writes important YA novels in verse and I had submitted a collection of rhyming poems about birds intended for younger children. I thought she would tell me to go back to Peoria and write about something that mattered.

Instead…Sonya started our meeting by telling me that she wanted to read something that she had come across recently—“something lovely.” I prepared myself to hear a famous poet’s perfect poem, aimed at giving me something to strive for. She proceeded to read my own poem about a cardinal. Believe me, it had never sounded better. I did what any professional would do under the circumstances: I cried.

As I blubbered, Sonya handed me several e-mails to read. The first one was from the acclaimed poet and anthologist, Lee Bennett Hopkins. Sonya had read some of my poems to him over the phone, and the e-mail was his response to that call. I thought I read the words “exquisite” and “publisher,” but I couldn’t be sure because whole paragraphs seemed to be swimming across the page.

After that, the room went all wobbly. I’m embarrassed to recall that I put my head down on the table and told Sonya that I was no longer capable of reading. So she told me that, on Mr. Hopkins’s advice, she had e-mailed Emma Dryden at McElderry Books to ask if she would like to see my work. This being a psychedelic daydream, Emma naturally said yes.

Sonya went on to say that she wanted me to meet her agent. (At this point, I half-expected her to add, “And then, I’ll introduce you to the real Santa Claus! What do you think of that?” I mean, hadn’t she done enough?)

I nodded weakly and we held hands across the table the way you do when someone changes your life, and you both know it.

Tell me about your initial meeting with your agent, and how he came to represent both you and your twin sister.

Sonya introduced me to her agent, Steven Malk, shortly after the big critique, and we agreed to meet the next morning in the hotel lobby. He asked me to bring any work that I had with me (Hooray! I had brought it to L.A.!), so I took all of my poems and a picture book dummy illustrated by my twin sister, Robin Luebs. During our brief meeting, Steven looked over the materials without too much comment, told me a bit about himself, and said he would call me the following week—which he did, with an offer of representation for both of us.

Why did you decide to attend that “magical” SCBWI conference? Had you been to such events before? What kind of involvement did you have in SCBWI before the L.A. conference?

I went to my first SCBWI national conference in 2000 all by myself, which was an overwhelming experience. I had a very positive critique with a well-known editor, but nothing ever came of it—partly, I think, because I was inexperienced and dropped the ball. Then, in 2001, I found my fabulous critique partners through the Illinois SCBWI chapter. My work was improving, but I still had only one story in Highlights to my credit. By 2003, I thought I was ready to try L.A. one more time. My critique group helped me polish every poem, and I was off!

So do you recommend all aspiring children’s writers and illustrators attend SCBWI conferences? What tips can you offer for making the most of your conference-going experience?

There’s just no substitute for attending the L.A. conference. You learn about the industry firsthand from the experts, you make connections with other writers and illustrators, and you get inspired! But if you’re shy (like me), it helps to have a friend along. Also, I’d recommend packing in as much as you possibly can: go to every session you can squeeze in, listen with an open mind, take notes, get autographs, sip wine on the terrace, and have fun. Take all of your best work along, because you never know who might want to see it. (And if Sonya Sones does your critique, be prepared for anything!)

What advice would you offer aspiring writers of poetry for young readers? What’s your best advice on writing rhyme?

My best advice is to go to your library’s children’s poetry department and just dig in! When I was starting out, that’s where I discovered most of the wonderful writers who inspired me, and where I learned how terribly far I had to go. Trying to match the quality of the poems I read in the library forced me to ask more of myself, to try never to settle for the ordinary, and to be willing to revise with a ruthless eye.

Writing in rhyme can be tricky and deadly in so many ways: bad rhythm, forced rhyme, worn-out rhyme, etc. Reading your work out loud (especially into a tape recorder) can expose its flaws with brutal honesty. And of course, nothing beats a truth-telling critique group.

Writer's Digest Books Editors on the Road...

I've been sitting around my office this morning trying to get some work done, but I keep getting distracted by my excitement for the upcoming SCBWI conference in L.A. (I keep pulling out the schedule trying to decide which sessions to attend, thinking about who I want to set up breakfasts with or meet for drinks, and generally loving the idea of being in that lovely hotel, and in a place sans humidity for a few day with a bunch of other people who love books for young readers.)

You know where you'll be seeing me, so I though this would be a good time to tell you where you can find a couple other Writer's Digest Books editor in the very near future.

First my man Chuck Sambuchino, our resident conference junkie. Chuck, editor of Guide to Literary Agents and assistant editor of Writer's Market, is a busy busy bee:

• First he's speaking at the Harriette Austin Writers Conference this coming weekend, July 20-21, in Athens, Georgia. Topics: Building Your Freelance Portfolio and What You Need to Know About Agents. Chuck says at least three literary agents will be attending and taking pitches.
• Next up is the Writers' Conference at Ocean Park, August 13-17 in Ocean Park, Maine. Topics: How to Get Your Writing Published and Writing for Magazines (he's been on the staff of several).
• From Maine Chuck flies straight to Nashville, Tennessee, for Killer Nashville, August 17-19. Topics: Writing the Killer Query Letter, Playwriting 101, and Where Is My Audience: Locating Markets.

And my esteemed leader, editorial director Jane Friedman, has a lot on her plate as well. (And not just conference travel--Jane is responsible for our Writer's Digest Books, HOW Design, TOW Books and Betterway Books lines, both acquiring and editing titles. Not to mention keeping me in line.) Here's where Jane will be presenting this summer:

• Jane will spend the last weekend of the month in Muncie, Indiana, for Midwest Writers Workshop, July 26-28 held at the Ball State University Alumni Center. Topics: The Best Online Resources for Writers and Book Marketing 101.
• Next she'll hit the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland, Oregon, August 3-5 held a the Portland Airport Sheraton Hotel. Topic: How to Avoid Sabotaging Your Writing Career. Jane will also be taking pitches.
• Finally it's off to Cali, for Sacramento State's Summer Writers' Conference August 10-12 on the Sacramento State University Campus. Topic: How the Book Publishing Industry Works (including how to get published and develop your writing career).
  

If you're in the vicinity and can catch these events, I encourage you to go meet Chuck and Jane and hear them speak. They are both seasoned conference presenters and both are very knowledgeable and approachable.

Online Conference Guide...

In a comment to my post below, Donna Alice asked, "Is there a website that keeps the reader up to date on upcoming conferences?" You can check out ShawGuides Guide to Writers Conference & Workshops. You can search by a number of criteria, including date, location, and type of conference. (It's a free service.) Also visit SCBWI's website for their events calendar and click on Regional Events.

I'm not sure how often these sites are updated, however. I only visit them once in a while. If any one else knows of a good source for conference info, please post a comment.

P.S. Don't forget about the BookExpo America Writer's Digest Books Writer's Conference coming up on May 30th in NYC.

Saturday in the 'Lumbus...

Hi to everyone who attended my session on promoting yourself online at the Central Ohio conference this past Saturday. (I hope a you are all visiting my blog and the other blogs and websites we talked about.) I wasn't at this event for long--I arrived about an hour before my session, then left a few minutes after. But here are a few things I learned (mostly from the drive):

• PowerPoint is fun! I had no technical difficulties at all (except when I tried to use the remote).
  
• The 50th most popular song on the Billboard chart in 1979 was the "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band (Thank you Casey Kasem and XM Radio.)
  
• The most interesting site on the drive from the 'Nati to the 'Lumbus is the "Hell Is Real" Billboard.
• I really love and appreciate trucks. (It's Murray's fault.) I was getting excited when I'd see a big tractor trailer or a concrete mixer or a group of construction trucks on the side of the road. I saw a couple of flatbed trucks hauling what I can only conclude are pieces of UFOs--they were the strangest looking huge pointy things I've ever seen. They looked sort of like giant space-age jacks.

Randomly...

• Bluegrass Festival: Our panels at the Bluegrass Festival of Books went very well. At 3 hours each, we were worried about filling up the time, but there are a lot of writers with a lot of great questions in the Lexington area. Our discussions were lively and interesting (at least from where I sat) and there were still many hands going up as we ended the programs. (Greg the Publicity Guy took some pictures of the event, but I look weird in all of them, so no photos on my blog.)
• Book Sense Picks: I have a copy of the Book Sense Picks, Children's Spring 2007 list here on my desk. Sadly, I have not read a single book on the list. Happily, it's spring--more daylight, lots of reruns on TV, some upcoming airplane time. It's Reading Season! Look for the Book Sense list at your local independent bookseller.
  
• Central Ohio Conference: I'm headed to Columbus, OH (or as we in the 'Nati like to call it, the 'Lumbus) on Saturday for the Central Ohio Writer's of Literature for Children Conference, and I'm getting quite excited about my Powerpoint presentation. (Please send no-technical-difficulty thoughts toward central Ohio around 2-ish on April 28.) I'll be talking about promoting yourself on the Web.
  
• '08 CWIM: It's pretty close to going to the printer, folks. And I have to say this edition is really the best one ever. Soon, I'll post some teasers! (Right now I'm looking through Writer's Market and Guide to Literary Agents. New GLA editor Chuck did a bang-up job on the 2008 edition. Those books hit stores in early August along with CWIM.)
• It's raining. Again: After a few glorious days here in the 'Nati, it's once again gray and gloomy outside. But it' s not so bad since I've been doing some season-appropriate shopping recently and I have a great new trench and the coolest pair of red wedge rain boots. (One of these days I'll start my fashion blog with tips on how to shop for the chic on an editor's salary without making your husband divorce you and/or cut up your AmEx.)
• Angry Robot Dogs: Murray, who is now well past 2 1/2, woke up several times last night crying and he told me there were some angry robot dogs roaming about and they were scary. Just wanted to give you all the heads up.