Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Mark Fadden

As “authorpreneurs,” self-published authors often wear many different hats in trying to brand themselves: Head Writer, Director of Marketing, Social Media Manager, and Chief Financial Officer. But is trying to be all these things at once sabotaging your writing career? With his self-published thriller, The Brink, author Mark Fadden chose to manage his own marketing efforts. With his latest thriller, The Campaign, Mark hired a social media specialist to manage the marketing campaign for him. Which way worked better? Attend Mark’s lecture to find out!

About the author 

Mark Fadden owns a property management company, is a freelance writer for the Fort Worth Star Telegram, emcees events for a local radio station, and has published three novels. The first one, Five Days in Dallas, was published in 2003 to critical acclaim, and prompted one Writer’s Digest reviewer to call Mark a “masterful storyteller.” His second novel, The Brink, is a story about a fugitive Texas Ranger who helps a woman running for her life, only to get sucked into a secret society’s plot for global financial Armageddon. It was called a “hell of a read” by bestselling author Sandra Brown. Mark recently published his third novel, entitled The Campaign, as an eBook. In it, the three presidential candidates left in the race for the White House are all killed within a 48-hour period. The story is told from the perspective of Police Chief Scott Turner, who must simultaneously lead the investigation into this unthinkable case while coming to terms with losing his mother, who is only days away from dying of cancer.

Mark grew up in Houston and now lives in Colleyville, Texas with his family.

Share this article

This event is open to registered attendees of the DFW Writers’ Conference. It has limited attendance so you must register separately to attend this workshop. There is no fee.

This is one of four limited-attendance workshops offered at the DFW Writers’ Conference this year. Limit one per attendee.

The first chapter is crucial when an agent or editor looks at your manuscript. So how do you write a good one? Literary agent Elizabeth Evans will talk about the characteristics of a great first chapter: sharp prose, surprising images, strong arresting voice, gaps of information in the prose that leave the reader wanting to know more, introduction of key characters, compelling setting, the hook, presence of conflict/tension.

Advance Preparation:

• Evans will use the prologue and first chapter of Tana French’s INTO THE WOODS as an example, and she’d like all the participants to read them in advance. If you do not wish to buy a copy, you can access the prologue and first chapter in Amazon’s First Look feature.
• You should also bring a printout of your own first chapter from your current project. Evans says the class will be most beneficial to writers who have a manuscript currently in progress.

Elizabeth Evans is an agent at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, where she represents a wide range of nonfiction, including memoir, current affairs, journalism, pop science, history, humor and relationships. She also represents select titles in upmarket fiction and reality-based young adult fiction. She is always on the lookout for stories of adventure and books that aspire to foster knowledge and understanding. Before joining JVNLA in January 2010, Elizabeth worked for six years in the San Francisco Bay Area with Kimberley Cameron & Associates (formerly the Reece Halsey Agency). She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Hamilton College with a degree in English Literature and holds an MFA in Writing from the University of San Francisco.

You can register for the workshop here.

Share this article

Looking for a Way In: Exercises to help writers get the words out and jumpstart essays and memoir pieces.

Beatriz Terrazas

Taught by Beatriz Terrazas, this workshop for essay and memoir writers is open to registered attendees of the DFW Writers Conference. Advance registration is required and there are only 15 slots available. There is no extra charge for this workshop.

Please note that we have four limited-attendance workshops available and we have a limit of one workshop per attendee. The class takes place at 2:10 p.m. on Saturday, May 19.

You can register here.

Here’s what Beatriz has to say about the class:

We’ve all read a personal essay or memoir that was so well crafted it not only resonated with us but remains with us today. Similarly, some of us would like to write about a chapter in our life but don’t know where or how to begin. Others among us have already tried to commit this part of our life story to words but can’t seem to capture its real essence. This workshop, part lecture and part writing/editing exercise will give writers ideas for starting points and for places to begin mining their lives in order to pen their own personal essay or memoir.

Please note that you do not have to come to this workshop with an idea in mind; most exercises will open your eyes to just how many places you can dig for those kernels of story in your life.

Beatriz Terrazas is a writer, photographer and producer based in North Texas. She is a contributor to The Texas Observer, The Progressive Media Project and The Dallas Morning News. Her work has also appeared in More, D, Skirt! and The Washington Post, and she is among the writers anthologized in TCU Press’s Literary El Paso. She was part of The Dallas Morning News team to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for a series titled Violence Against Women: A Question of Human Rights, and has won first place in the American Society of Sunday and Features Editors and the Gold in the Society of American Travel Writers Lowell Thomas Awards. Her essay My Mother’s Brain, a story about caring for her Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother, won first place in the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) in 2011. She is a member of ASJA and of Sandra Cisneros’ Macondo Writer’s Workshop, and a Harvard University Nieman Fellow, class of 1999. She blogs about caring for her mother at www.mymothersbrain.wordpress.com.

Share this article

Russell Connor is the author of several e-Books, including Finding Misery, Whitney and Howling Days. He’s also a former president of the DFW Writers’ Workshop. Russell will be conducting a special workshop, Publishing Your E-Book Step by Step.

You are welcome to bring your laptop and follow along as Russell demonstrates the process (laptop not required). If you have a completed manuscript and you’ve made the decision to self-publish it as an e-book, you can even publish it with Russell’s help during the session.

Advance registration is required and there are only 15 slots available. There is no extra charge for this workshop. This class is intended for people who have either made the decision or are strongly leaning toward self-publishing their manuscript as an e-book. It’s an advanced technical course. We have limited seats so if you’re only mildly curious about the topic, we recommend you attend one of our other sessions about the changing face of publishing, such as Declaring Independence or The Wild West of Publishing, to learn more.

You can register here: http://publishyourebook.eventbrite.com/. Please note that we have four limited-attendance workshops available and we have a limit of one per attendee. The class takes place at 10:40 a.m. on Saturday, May 19.

Here’s what Russell has to say about the class:

Russell C. Connor

You hear it all the time: E-book sales have officially overtaken brick-and-mortar stores!  The e-book market has opened up new doors for writers everywhere!  It’s never been easier to get your book out there!   But if you’re going into the process blind, navigating e-book distribution channels can still be some pretty deep waters to swim. I began self-publishing my own novels in both paper and e-book formats nearly seven years ago. At first, my decision to self-publish was based purely on a desire to grow an audience for my work and attract an agent or editor so that I could slip into the traditional publishing model.  But over the years, as I’ve watched the rise of the e-book, I’ve come to realize what a level playing field those on the outside now have.

Think about it.  One of the biggest advantages to going the traditional route through an agent and publisher was always distribution.  In order for customers to find you, you had to be sitting on a bookshelf, but the big chain stores had their doors firmly closed to the self-publisher.  Over the past few years, we’ve watched these physical locations slowly dwindling, starting with the independent stores and moving up to chains like Borders, which closed its doors last year. The reason is, of course, because they couldn’t compete with online sales.  Customers are now buying their reading material in e-book format online, and, in the world of the Internet, your self-published book can be found right alongside all the biggest names.

But again, how do you get there?  In my upcoming class, I’ll be conducting a small workshop designed to have you ready to begin selling your novel online in less than an hour.  Here are some tips I picked up along the way that we’ll cover more in depth in class:

1) Formatting is important.  Whether you design your e-book in one of the accepted electronic formats, or merely upload a Microsoft Word document to a service that does it for you, formatting is very important in making sure your manuscript reads correctly on an eBook reader.

2) Avoid the middleman when possible.  Services like Smashwords are very useful and make it incredibly simple for a new author to get their book out, but be aware that they take their cut of the profit.  The fewer people between you and the customer, the better.

3) Retain your rights.  The whole point of self-publishing is that the book is yours, to market and change as you see fit, and, of course, to keep the profits.  We have entered an age where online services are going out of their way to keep your personal content, so be careful what you agree to.

Share this article

We’ve posted the tentative schedule grid for both days of the conference, so you can start planning which sessions you’ll attend. We’ve got a lot going on, so there may be some difficult decisions to make!

View schedule (Word doc)

We’re still confirming times with a few speakers. All times are subject to change.

Class descriptions will be included in the conference program, and we’ll be posting some highlights here on the blog as well in the next month.

Enjoy.

Share this article

Yes, yes, we’re having the Gong Show again, two times this year.  I posted about this before. One day will be query letters, and the second day will be the first page of your manuscript.

So a few housekeeping items.

1) Bring your papers with you. We’re not going to be collecting them up front this year. Just bring it printed out in normal fonts.

For the query letters: you can remove your name, (not that it’ll be read outloud anyway–it’s anonymous!) and please format the query letters in the normal fashion.

For the first page, format it like a normal manuscript. Don’t try to sneak extra words in on us by decreasing the font to be too small.  We’re looking for about two hundred and fifty words or so. What you’re trying to do is see if the agent will flip to the next page.

Also for your first page, please put the genre and the title of the story. No names.

That’s about it. We’ll have collection spots for the documents around the time the Gong Show is going to start.  Just bring it and drop it in the box.

Any questions? Put them in the comments!!

~Jason

Share this article

While a sizable portion of our attendees comes from the Dallas Fort Worth area, and another large contingent comes from the rest of Texas, each year the number of writers traveling into town from out of state to be at the DFW Writers’ Conference gets a little larger.

The map depicts the geographic distribution of our attendees who’ve registered so far. As you can see, we’ll get to meet writers from at least 23 states, reaching from New York to Florida to North Dakota to California. There’s also one coming from Hawaii, not shown here.

For the past couple of years we’ve attracted international attendees, too. So far this year we have writers coming in from Canada and England.

Thanks to everyone who’s making this great event possible with your support, whether you’re right down the road or you’re flying halfway around the world to be here!

Share this article

If you signed up for the conference before we had our agent list all confirmed, then you’ll need to go back and update the form to indicate your preferences for your consultation.

But, we’ve gotten feedback from several of you that it’s difficult to find where to go on the Eventbrite site and do this. I tested this myself and you know what, I have to agree. It is confusing.

So, take heart. It’s not you!

I’ve put together this little tutorial. Try this:

First, go to www.eventbrite.com. The login link is at upper right (see below).

You’ll see this login form. Use the email address and password you entered when you registered for the conference.

On the next page, you will have several tabs at the top and you want the one that says My Tickets. Click that.

The next page will show any events you’ve bought tickets for. Find the conference and click Manage Order.

This will take you to your original registration form. But now it has some new questions added at the bottom.

Answer “Yes” to the question about whether you want an appointment, and then use the next three fields to name your 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices.

Click Update and you’re done!

Give it a try. If you’re still having difficulty, you can always email me at education@dfwwritersconference.org with your preferences, and I’ll plug them in for you. We’ll get you taken care of, one way or another.

Steve Manning

Share this article

We’ve activated pitch session registration!

When you register, you’ll be asked if you would like a 10-minute individual pitch session, and you’ll be asked to identify your first, second and third choices for the agent or editor you’d like to meet with. We will assign sessions in order of registration.

You can find out which agents are coming here, and which genres the agents are interested in here.

If you’ve already registered, just log back in to Eventbrite with the account you used to register, and you’ll see the agent/editor selection questions added to the form.

Each agent will have a finite number of slots available, so we recommend you register as soon as possible to better your chances of getting your first choice.

Not only that, but the early bird rate ends March 19, just a little more than four weeks away. After that the admission fee goes up from $295 to $325. There’s no better time to register than today!

Good luck with your pitch session!

Share this article

Steve Manning, founding director and 2012 education coordinator. Yes, that is the Great Wall of China

The 2011 conference made a lot of writers happy. We knew, judging by the comments we heard and the smiles we saw on attendees’ faces as they walked down the halls and mingled in the atrium and cafeteria, that things were going very well. Of course, we also knew there’d be certain things we’d want to do differently next time around.

We’ve read through the huge stack of feedback forms you turned in and got a lot of great insight on how to do even better. Our goal for this conference is simple: We want it to be the best! We want you to be delighted with it and come back every year. So we are paying attention to your feedback as we prepare for this year’s event.

Here’s a summary of what we learned and how we’ll respond.

In the plus column, we’re delighted to say most of the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. The conference keeps getting better every year. The query gong show got rave reviews and was clearly the highlight of the conference for many. The selection of agents, keynote speaker Sandra Brown, and the lineup of educational speakers also received high marks.

But you don’t want to listen to me brag about what we did right. You want the juicy stuff.

The source of the heaviest criticism from last year was the facility.

First, the hotel rooms. A lot of you said they were too small and not very comfortable. Some attendees told us the center was too big and sprawling and the distance between classes was too long a walk. And finally, some weren’t bowled over by the food selection in the cafeteria. Despite the fact that it was the biggest variety of menu choices we’ve ever been able to offer, we got more comments than we would have expected that it was difficult to find a suitable choice. We had thought attendees might like the food court arrangement, but lesson learned. A more traditional banquet setup works better.

The lack of enthusiasm for the venue was a big disappointment for us, because we were so sure everyone would love it. We picked it because we thought it had exactly the right mix of quirkiness and professionalism that you need at any good writers’ conference. But, you never know for sure how well a facility is going to work with a crowd of more than 300 people until you actually try it. We still think the facility has a lot going for it, but we hear your message that it’s not the right fit for this event.

As a result, we chose a new location for 2012. We are moving to the shiny new Hurst Conference Center. It’s a beautiful building, and its compact layout means that even though we’ll have plenty of space, we won’t have to walk far to get from event to event. It’s right across the street from three business travel hotels, and we inspected the rooms in each. They’re good.

The second biggest cause of criticism was our experiment with not providing a printed program.

This is one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time. We had noticed in previous years that many programs got dropped or thrown away, and most of the questions that people came to the front desk with were already answered in the program, which they clearly were not reading — shame, shame! So, we drew the (erroneous) conclusion that having a printed program might not be that valuable to people. With the ongoing cultural shift to more and more electronic communication, maybe it was time to eliminate as much paper as possible.

Well, that was wrong, or perhaps more accurately, ahead of its time.

On the bright side, with our electronic emphasis we succeeded wildly in encouraging a lot of online chatter about the conference, particularly on Twitter, with lots of people using the #dfwcon hashtag. But the complaints we got demonstrated that for a lot of people, paper is still the way to go when distributing important information. So, this year there will be a printed program.

This doesn’t mean the Internet was a fad. We still hope you’ll tweet and post about us. And we think eventually, you will be asking us, “Why do you still bother with a printed program?” But that day has not yet arrived.

We also received feedback on the conference website. While it was praised by many, a noticeable number didn’t care for the way we communicated important information with a blog. The sequential organization of a blog vs. a more typically organized website made it difficult for some to find the information they needed. Others said there were too many updates to keep up with.

We’re still using a blog this year and we highly recommend you follow it, but we won’t rely so exclusively on it as our mouthpiece. We’ll distribute information using multiple methods where possible.

Every year, the conference has gotten better because we make a conscious effort to listen to our attendees and to be different from the way many other conferences operate. We don’t nickel and dime. We don’t bring in the same agents every year (we have made the startling discovery that there are more than 15 of them in the world!). We don’t bring in agents who don’t want to hear your elevator pitch or do one-on-one sessions. We insist our speakers have a solid track record.

And every year, we read your feedback. And we make changes.

*  *  *  *  *

If you’d like to be a part of this amazing gathering of writers and agents, you can register here. We look forward to meeting you!

Share this article

You can now see a preliminary list of speakers and the topics they’ll be teaching. We’ll have more than 50 classes for you to choose from; this list includes around 40 of them. You’ve been asking who will be speaking, so we wanted to put as much information up as we could as quickly as possible. Several panel discussions as well as more classes taught by literary agents are in the works and will be added to the lineup soon.

Take a look at the names on that list. Along with several notable names from the north Texas writing scene, you’ll see that this year’s conference has not one, not two, but three New York Times bestselling authors teaching classes: James Rollins, Jodi Thomas and Lori Wilde.

You may also notice something important about the subject matter. Book publishing is going through big changes, and we’ve made sure the selection of classes this year reflects that. The variety of routes to publication, the pros and cons of each, and techniques for being successful no matter which route you take will receive a lot of attention from this year’s speakers. They include literary agents, editors, independent authors, publicists, and a representative for a printing company.

But in the midst of all this business talk, we won’t be neglecting the craft of writing by any means. In fact, we’ve established a roughly 50-50 split between craft and business.

To see the list just go to the Classes tab in the top menu or click here. And stay tuned for updates. More is on the way!

Steve Manning
Education director

Share this article

Hey everyone,

Finally got the hotel information ironed out for the conference. After working diligently with the hotels around the area, we wrangled one!

It’s the Hyatt Place, and we got a good discount. Click the ‘hotel’ link and get all the details.

The Hyatt is within walking distance of the conference center, so you won’t have to drive back and forth and the rooms are pretty nice too.

~Jason

Share this article

Value

It’s something we all consider when spending our hard-earned cash. Are we getting the value out of the money we’ve spent? The value of many things eludes me. (Diamonds, expensive shoes, parakeets) But I think most of us can agree in principal what constitutes a good value.

Why am I stuck on this topic? Because we think our conference delivers a great value to our attendees. We offer a bevy of educational classes that are aimed toward the beginner or the seasoned pro. We have sessions on the business of publishing, the growing trend of e-publishing, and how to understand the finances of the business. All set in a beautiful new state-of-the-art facility, Hurst Conference Center in Hurst, Texas.

We give our attendees some of the best exposure to the industry by inviting publishing professionals who are movers and shakers in the business. And  Our conferences allow you to get face-to-face time with individuals who actually have answers to your questions. We also go out of our way to have different professionals every year so you get some variety and value each year you attend.

We give all writers a venue to network and mix with other like-minded people. Writing is of course a lonely activity. We need to get together and visit!

We don’t charge for the extra things that other conferences do. Our Keynote Speech is free, our parking is free, our restrooms are free!  But free is not always a value is it? There are many things in this world that are free, and I wouldn’t look twice, because I don’t put any value into it. We can yell about our free stuff all day, but to me, that’s not where our value is. Our value is in the actual meat of the conference.  The part you actually attend.

If you price our conference against others out there, you’ll see we offer more than they do while having a lower price point.

We offer a better value.

~Jason

Share this article

The publishing business is going through probably the most cataclysmic events it’s experienced since the Great Depression. (That’s when the first “sale by commission” started at all bookstores and has been ever since. This is also one of the reasons the publishing industry finds itself where it is now.)

Is publishing really in the place many pundits are claiming? Are we truly in the position of where the mid-list authors are going away and if your story doesn’t have the makings of a true best-seller, then you might as well just put it in the digital drawer and try the next story? Or is the market gearing up for more niche stories?

Is traditional publishing dead as so many are decrying? (Oddly enough it seems to be the aforementioned mid-list authors that are telling us this with the most vehemence.) Is the future of publishing truly in the hands of the writer?(And was it ever NOT in the hands of the writer?) Is self-publishing the wave of the future? Is that where we’re all going? Will we all be publishing our books on Smashwords or PubIt or Kindle KDP in the future, eschewing the normal path of the Big 6? Will the Big 6 crumble? Will it become the Big 4? The Big 3? What will be the role of the Literary Agent in the coming moments of change?

So many questions, so few answers.

We as a conference committee have to stay cognizant of publishing trends and stay abreast of changes. What this means to you, the attendee is every year we strive to come up with content that is relevant in the current market. And it’s not easy, especially now.

We typically break the education portion of our conference into two parts, a business side and a craft side. It just makes sense. The problem is, the publishing business is changing so fast, it’s hard for us to determine what the best possible classes and sessions would benefit you in regard to the business aspects of writing. We have our work cut out for us.

Fortunately, the craft part of the business doesn’t change so rapidly. Write a good story is still the chorus we hear everywhere. You write a good story and worry about everything else later. But even that is in jeopardy now. Writers must have an online presence, a facebook page, a blog, a twitter account, etc. We’re told industry professionals seek these locations out when looking at a writer’s overall portfolio. So the craft part of the business is more intimately tied into the craft than ever before.

So what’s a writer like yourself supposed to do? Firstly, keep attending conferences (of course!) but make sure the conference is truly keeping up with the trends of today. It does you no good to attend a conference that is still operating like it’s 1999. We are in a completely different arena today. The game has changed and we must change too.

~Jason

Share this article

Agents Louise Fury, Dawn Frederick and Adam Friedstein, all of whom were special guests at our 2011 conference, have written back to tell us what they thought.

Check it out!

Share this article

Candace Isenhower attended her first writers’ conference in 2009: The DFW Writers’ Conference. And she walked away with agent representation by Uwe Stender.

Here’s how it happened.

The next DFW Writers’ Conference is April 10&11, 2010, at the City of Grapevine Convention Center. Details here.

Share this article