Writer's Conferences

This is an excellent topic. I actually attended a writer's conference when my husband was stationed in Hawaii. The registration fees and travel can be a hardship if you don't have a lot of spare cash on hand, especially if the conference is far away. But I found the experience to be worth the trouble. You get the opportunity to meet accomplished writers from various fields. There are seminars you can attend. Some of the sessions may be helpful to you and others not so much. The good thing about it is you can make your own schedule and only attend the sessions that you think will be most beneficial to you.

The writers who attend are all at various stages of their career and writing process. Some haven't even started writing their book yet, while others are there to get feedback from other writers. And for those of you who have finished your work, literary agents are usually in attendance. For an added fee (yes in addition to your conference registration) you can get the opportunity to pitch your work to one. Yes, you are paying for the privilege but it's better than the query letter-rejection system that seems to be in place. The agent pitch sessions are highly sought after and tend to sell out quickly.

In addition to the standard conference session and the agent pitch option, some conferences offer something along the lines of mini-author bootcamps. They call them retreats or something along those lines. For another $500 to $5000, depending on where the conference is held and who is presenting at the retreat, you get the privilege of showing your work to a small group of like minded people. And by like minded I mean other writers. You each share your work in exchange for criticism which may improve your work before it's ready for publication.

The writer's conference is a learning tool, but it's also a networking asset. In the modern publishing climate, trying to get your work noticed by the reading public is a time consuming and often stressful process. You really need all the help you can get and who better to turn to than someone who as been down the same road? If you need support and encouragement, who better to offer it than someone who is in the same boat with you and paddling upstream with their bare hands?