Writer's Conference Series #2 - Trends

​The Writer’s Conference follows the trends in the publishing industry to be sure current information is provided to attendees.  In the most past the conference focused on self-publishing and how to make your mark in social media.  It all changed this year.
There was a single class on alternatives to traditional publishing-“Alternative/Independent Publishing and the other way to to self-publish” scheduled for Saturday afternoon at 3:45 pm.  (Is there a message in the scheduling?).
I characterize the theme for this year’s conference as:  “I’m gonna die if I don’t traditional publish and sell 10,000 books”.  As support for my viewpoint I’ll list several of the conference presentations:  “The Business of Writing”; “How to Craft a Book that Sells”; “On the Road:Taking Your Book on Tour”; “How to go from fingers on the keyboard to dollars in your bank account”; “The secret weapon of getting published, staying published and writing the breakout book:; “How to Blog your way to a book deal”; “Connecting your craft to your brand”; “Public relations:  it’s more than marketing”; “How to find an agent”; ”Create your own successful author career plan.”  It’s like the technical college of writing.
I hope that these course offerings were useful to those attending the conference.  The other half of the conference was devoted to practice pitches to agents and actual agent pitches.  Last week I mentioned one attendee I met who was giving five pitches – the shotgun approach.  No one ever really knows if anyone attending the conference signed an agent contract from a pitch made at this conference.
The key is that every author must design for themselves what “success” is and how to measure it.  One fact gleaned from this conference is that most authors sell about 250 books.