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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

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

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

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

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!

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.