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I'm so glad people found it valuable.
The conference posts and recorded chats will remain live on the site so if you are just hearing about it - you can catch up anytime :) Here is the schedule with direct links to each event.
Publishing Perpectives wrote a great article about it yesterday. (yay!)
And yes at this time, we plan on having a mini-event in summer and an annual event. So if you have any suggestions, feel free to fill out the survey.
Great nuggets I pulled from each speaker at the conference:
Bob Mayer: "Product is king... and series is key."
Jessie Harrell - "And where are Indie and traditional publishing equal? Serendipity. So much in this business is timing and luck and that doesn’t change, no matter which path you choose."
SR. Johannes - "Self publishing is not the easy way out. It is just the fast way to publication. It should not replace writing a good book, creating a quality book, or everything that comes with self publishing."
Colleen Hoover - "I make choices based on each manuscript that I write and how I feel that manuscript can best reach the readers."
Joanna Penn - "The long haul career of a pro-writer involves always working on the next book. Celebrating the last, but getting on with the next."
Miral Sattar - "Spending money on quality editorial services will already set your book apart from the rest."
Heather McCorkle - "The most important thing to remember is to ask for help, and pay for it if need be, rather than put out a book that is less than stellar."
Denise Grover Swank - "While creating a business plan may seem like an intimidating project, just take it slow and give it some thought. You’ll have much more insight into the business side of your writing and will hopefully help increase sales.
Cheri Lasota - "Start with global issues and work your way down to the paragraph, sentence, word, and punctuation levels."
Alicia Kat Dillman - "Thinking you know more about design than a trained professional is down right foolish."
M. Leighton - "Enter New Adult. It’s got all the charm and innocence of Young Adult material, only it has teeth. Sharp ones. This stuff has some steam, people!"
Addison Moore - "There aren’t any hard and fast secrets to a successful series, there are only ideas that, through hard work and passion, can be plausible avenues to propel your private manifesto into a story that is wildly embraced by readers the world over..."
Hugh Howey - "Which is why it’s only natural for the freedoms inherent in self-publishing to make it the new indie. The word is short for independent. What could be more so than publishing on one’s own?"
Laura Pauling/Sybil Nelson regarding middle grade self-publishing- "Contacting librarians directly has done wonders in this aspect. School librarians are so wonderful and helpful."
Lori Culwell - "Put keywords into your website so that the search engines will associate your site with these words, with the ultimate goal of having your site pop up when people Google those words. The words are the demand, your site is the supply."
Jason Letts - "Every service you use to connect with your fans is trying to make money from you off of that relationship. The mission is threefold: (1) play the game by their rules, (2) know when to spend, and (3) find a way to own access to your fans."
Brittany Geragotelis - "I respond to every single comment that a fan leaves on my wall...it makes them feel like they have a connection with me, which makes them more likely to follow me and what I do."
DuoLit girls - "Your mailing list, when grown and used effectively, can deliver 24x the results of the more traditional book marketing methods, such as social media marketing."
Ali Cross - "Remember being true to who you are as a writer, and as a person, is the essence of your brand."
Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi - "Without the backing and promotional support of a publishing house, we are on our own. Success or failure is up to us, and to capitalize on the buzz rush that accompanies a book launch, we must work hard, think creatively and have a wide reach to give our book the strongest start possible."
Amy Edelman - "As far as Award’s go, the point of getting chosen as a winner is the same as with reviews: you want to get people’s attention for your book in a crowded sea of other titles."
Susan Kaye Quinn - "Write the best book you can. Write a series. Write in a different genre. The sales will come or they won't. You don't have control over sales; you only control what you write next."
Nancy Holder - "We can also keep one foot in the more traditional publishing world. We don’t have to choose one or the other."
Orna Ross - "We own our rights and we can decide what we want to do with them. We are not bound by a publisher's overall policy and can do what seems best for each individual book."
Stacey Wallace Benefiel- "You’ve already written the book and you’ve gone to the trouble to format it for e-book and print – just think of this as another distribution channel."
Steena Holmes - "Not all agents are equal. Not everyone will work in your best interest. Just because you get an offer doesn’t mean you have to accept it."
Barbara Freethy - "If something isn't working, change it. Try a new cover, change prices. Explore the top and the bottom of your price point. Run sales. Do giveaways. Most importantly - enjoy the process!"
Richard Smith - "The target market for Book Apps is any reader with a device using an Android or an iOS operating system (OS)."
Mark Lefebvre - "Booksellers and book lovers – the main thing that attracts people to get into bookselling isn’t a love for being a retailer; it is a love of books."
LM Preston - "Authors are getting a lot smarter about the ‘business’ of writing. And the days of writing books and sitting back while someone else promotes you as an author is long gone."
If you attended, was there any nugget that stood out to you?
