HOW TO CREATE A KILLER PITCH AND QUERY LETTER
Hear from an industry expert– Founder and President of the Allen O’Shea Literary Agency and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Book Proposals and Query Letters– about what it takes to make your sales pitch pop in a hyper-competitive field. You’ve probably read about how overwhelmed agents and editors are with submissions these days. Agents and editors are focused on finding projects that come with a built-in media platform, today’s magic password for publishing. For those of us not named Oprah or Stephen King, that means there is more pressure than ever to create pitches and queries that get attention and beg the industry insiders to ask you for more of your work. Ones that will get your story or idea to stand out, break through and ultimately tickle
HOW TO CREATE A KILLER PITCH AND QUERY LETTER
a buyer’s sales bone. To help make this challenge a little less daunting, this workshop will walk you through key elements of crafting a killer query letter to maximize your book’s chances of selling. We will cover tips and tricks (and mistakes to avoid) to keep your project from going directly into the slush pile and instead keep your reader riveted. You will learn how to; position your book, prepare a submission plan, create compelling opening lines, identify your target audience and present a powerful marketing statement.
With Marilyn Allen
WHAT A CHARACTER!
Groucho Marx said that if you’ve got a great character, you got a great story. So with 7.2 billion real people on Earth, how do we create unique fake ones? Creating people on the page who are as annoying, seductive, entertaining, baffling, loving, offensive, caring, attractive, dimensional, and diverse as our social network/ family/workforce is integral to creating a relationship between the reader and the story. When the character is sculpted well, he or she will influence the plot, dialogue, and point of view choices, and we will miss that character terribly when the book is finished. That’s when a successful character can lead to a successful sequel. We’ll discuss some of the tricks that help our fake characters keep it real.
With Maureen Mancini Amaturo
WHAT CAN WRITERS LEARN FROM LINGUISTS? Creating Pitch-Perfect Dialogue Do you stand “in line” or “on line”? Are the words address and police accented on the first or second syllable? Do you pronounce the word “can” the same way as a noun and as a verb? Does bought rhyme with apricot. Does a child bring a bucket or a pale to the beach? These are the sorts of questions long used by linguistics to categorize dialects and by many a would-be Henry Higgins to identify the geographic origins of speakers at cocktail parties. Unfortunately, they are also the sorts of questions that writers must ask to form convincing dialogue--and too few do so. The result is having characters who sound the identical. This workshop will share a few distinctive tricks to pepper prose with distinctive syntax and diction; students will also discover ways of acquiring more of these devices on their own.
With Jacob Appel
WRITING FOR CHILDREN, MIDDLE-GRADE, AND YA
Flannery O’Connor wrote, “Anybody who has s urvived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” All fiction writers use their own experience to a greater or lesser degree. So how do you find the “Story” within your own memories and history and use it successfully in your writing? In this workshop, Ms. Baskin (who is the first to tell you that all her fiction is autobiographical) will explore how to mine your own memories and find the “truth” without compromising the fiction to create successful stories for the middle-grade and YA audiences. The workshop is perfect for anyone interested in working in children’s publishing whether you are using your own history or not. Story is story, after all.
With Nora Baskin
THE TOP 10 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT WRITING A MURDER MYSTERY
Ninety percent of the skills you need for writing mystery fiction are the skills you need for writing any fiction. This workshop covers the rest. Have crime in mind? Get a clue or two.
With Alan Beechey
AT LAST, A PLOT!
. . . as it says on the author’s tombstone. To claim you’re a writer is the same as LeBron James describing himself as “a runner.” Story-telling is so much more than crafting beautiful sentences. We also need the skills to pace and structure our narrative to give our readers the richest experience imaginable during their time in our company. In this workshop, we explore the elements that take our tales from A to Z and find out how plot isn’t just what happens, but how and why as well.
With Alan Beechey
THE DO’ S AND DON’TS OF WRITING ROMANCE
Tips regarding how to write a successful romance. A discussion and presentation about one of the most profitable genres in all of publishing (after suspense and thrillers) with the Senior Editor for Harlequin Romance Suspense. Q&A to follow.
With Patience Bloom
MEDIA TRAINING FOR AUTHORS
While social media continues to have a significant impact on contemporary communications platforms, broadcast media is still the strongest and most direct platform for delivering your message to the masses. Both terrestrial and cable television need to fill millions of hours of programming each year. And while much of local radio has gone to syndicated programming, local hosts still dominate the airwaves in small and medium markets, and desperately need fresh content daily. Many local newspapers still offer book reviews, and often times the reviewer will opt to review a local work, rather than parrot what a New York Times reviewer has just published. And bookstores aggressively encourage local authors to appear, perform a reading and talk about their book.
MEDIA TRAINING FOR AUTHORS
Your work can be ground breaking, but if you lack the ability to promote yourself and your work, it can often mean the difference between the success or failure of an effort you have poured years of your life into. Most interviews are between 4 to 7 minutes long. In that short period of time you need to be able to summarize, encapsulate and deliver a compelling reason for potential customers to buy your book. This seminar will teach you the basics of the live interview, some basic presentation skills and how to land the interview as well as perform interesting live readings at libraries, bookstores, etc.
With Jack Camarda
50 SHADES OF PUBLISHING: All the Ways You Can Publish a Winning Book
In this illuminating workshop, Literary Change Agent and author advocate April Eberhardt examines the state of publishing today along with the implications and opportunities for authors. She presents five different paths to publication, including a candid discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of each. Discover what partnership publishing is, along with hybrid authorhip. Learn how to choose the right path for you and your work, including developing a publishing strategy that meets your goals, dreams, timetable and budget.
With April Eberhardt
WORLDBUILDING: Creating Settings from Reality to the Fantastical
Whether it’s deep within the Louisiana bayous, a small town, streets of a desolate city plagued by the paranormal, the vastness of space or a secondary fantasy world, each needs to feel as real as possible in order to succeed in the publishing industry. Join agent and fantasy author Lane Heymont in the journey of learning how to carefully craft a beautiful, detailed world of your own.
With Lane Heymount
LIFESTORIES: Writing, Selling, and Marketing the Memoir
Memoir is one of the most consistently popular categories in trade nonfiction. Even with prominent examples of memoirists who flat out made up the details of their life stories, the genre carries on. And it seems like it should be easy to do, the ultimate example of “write what you know,” right? Of course, there’s more to it than that. In this workshop, we’ll discuss several aspects of memoir writing, including: -How do you figure out the narrative throughline of your life? -Are you writing a memoir, or a collection of personal essays?
LIFESTORIES: Writing, Selling, and Marketing the Memoir
-How do you deal with churning up past events and emotions?
-How do you navigate writing about your life & other people? -How do you get agents or publishers interested in your memoir? -How do you get readers interested in your memoir?
With Ron Hogan
THE CRAFT OF EDITING FOR WRITERS
In today’s world, knowing how to edit your own work, or at least having the knowledge and skills to approach it, is essential for many reasons, not least of which is the knowledge that the work you have submitted for publication is the very best it can possibly be. Additional suggestions may come–from agents, editors, friends, colleagues– but the task of honing the work, of fine-tuning it so that it accurately reflects your intention falls on the writer’s shoulders. A well-edited work is transparent. It presents no impediments to comprehension, it is immediately accessible and plausible, and the reader is able to enter the author’s world and make it her own. This is when a work directly related to problems in their works towards the end truly begins to exist–
THE CRAFT OF EDITING FOR WRITERS
when the reader has made it his/her own. In this workshop, we will see how writers edit themselves, how readers reinvent the work, and how the work then becomes as much the reader’s as the writer’s. By focusing on the link between the author and the reader, which is the process of reading a writer’s work, we will see how meaning is conveyed, how significance is achieved, and how these govern the art of editing. Participants should feel free to ask questions directly related to problems in their works towards the end of the session.
With Beena Kamlani
WORKING WITH POETRY PROMPTS
You have within you your own stories, memories, and artistic influences—the subject matter for poems—and often all you need is the right kind of creativity-boosting prompt to help you shape that material into a poem. Lynn Levin, co-author of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, a finalist for the 2014 Next Generation Indie Book Award in education/academic books, will show you how to use several of the unique prompts in the book. Whether you are a beginning poet, a published poet, or at any stage in-between, you’ll find inspiration and guidance in these prompts, which are all classroom and workshop tested. This fun, positive, and supportive workshop will include some in-class writing and sharing.
With Lynn Levin
COMEDY WRITING SECRETS OF THE GODS
Who says you can’t teach people how to be funny? Comedy writers, that’s who. Comedy writer John Marshall breaks ranks with his colleagues and reveals the techniques, principles, tricks of the trade, shortcuts and other inside bits of knowledge he’s not supposed to tell. He brings 20 years of experience writing for Chris Rock, Jay Leno, Bill Maher, Colin Quinn, and many others to a workshop jammed full of laughs and insight. Satisfaction guaranteed or double your punchlines back.
With John Marshall
Discoverability
Take a look with new eyes at your work. Ask yourself: what is my unique voice? What is my lens, the prism through which I am writing? ...and if you are thinking about taking your writing into the marketplace - who are your readers, and how will you reach them? This is a new way to think about writing ...what is specific, unique, fresh and interesting about you, and about your work? Why? How do you want readers to respond to you? Are there regional hooks? Demographics to use? Where do you find ideas to showcase you, the author? What are the new and emerging markets? Here are guiding principles of successful writers and new media marketing opportunities and the new uses for content.
With Katharine Sands
QUERIAL KILLERS: How Not to Get an Agent Even If You Are A Brilliant Writer! In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn: about the easy-to-fix mistakes writers make when querying agents. What to do -- and what not to do -- when you set out to woo and win a literary agent. How to understand the literary agent’s mind-set, and the reasons a talented writer gets turned down.
With Katharine Sands
SCREENWRITING FOR TELEVISION AND MOVIES
Have a great idea for a TV show or a movie? Perhaps you’ve written a book, play, short story or article and wondered how to adapt it for the big or small screen. With more streaming and television outlets in need of content then ever before, it’s an interesting time to think about new ways that your material could thrive. Writer/Producer Alana Sanko will give an overview of the writing process in television and film and talk about the current creative and business side of the entertainment industry. She will also discuss the differences between formats and structure for various genres and stick around until she’s answered each and every one of your questions.
With Alana Sanko
WRITING FROM WITHIN
A unique group-interactive writing exercise through which you will become aware of and connect with your essential inner voice, which is always crying to be heard. Whether you are an advanced writer or a novice, this session will help you discover what happens when you get out of your own way and let the unconscious and intuitive side of your brain do more of the work. This is NOT a lecture. Bring something to write with, something to write on, and prepare to surprise yourself.
With Lee Stringer
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR WRITERS
Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Livejournal, LinkedIn, Klout, Goodreads, Tsu -- It’s enough to make you pull the covers over your head and pretend they don’t exist. But the fact remains that readers are looking to find new books and authors. Social media is a great way to reach them. This course will help you build your readership, without having hours upon hours to spend figuring out what each of these social media sites offer. This is also an introductory course on social media. You will learn how to set up a profile on each of these sites, the do’s and don’t’s, how to upload pictures and how to protect your privacy. We’ll also go over the terminology used (hashtag, poke, etc.), emoticons ( :D ) and text speak (tl;dr, smh). We’ll also touch on handling
SOCIAL MEDIA FOR WRITERS
multiple pen names and streamlining your social media accounts. Your instructor, USA Today bestselling author Jamie K. Schmidt, has over 3500 followers on Twitter and a Klout score of 62.
With Jamie K. Schmidt
The Role of Cover Copy in Marketing Books
What exactly is book copy and what is its purpose? A synopsis of a book is intended to sell a project to an editor. What has traditionally been called cover copy, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish, aimed at selling a finished book to booksellers and readers and often to reviewers as well. The entire “package” of a book—including art and copy—is one of the most important elements in a publisher’s “marketing arsenal.” In a world where eBooks play an increasingly important role, a book is no longer necessarily confined within a front and a back cover, and the packaging of a book is changing as the possible formats expand.
The Role of Cover Copy in Marketing Books
In this workshop, veteran copywriter Eliza Shallcross steps you through the elements of marketing copy for books, covering important considerations that vary from catching the reader’s eye to the physical limitations that dictate the finished copy. Whether you are looking to understand the role that copy plays in marketing a book, assisting your publishing company to market your own book in a way that will maximize sales, or a self-published author looking to grow your number of readers, this workshop will serve as an excellent introduction to the entire process.
With Eliza Shallcross
WRITING SCI-FI/FANTASY
Join writer and editor Paul Witcover for an out-of-this-world exploration of writing science fiction and fantasy. The one-hour workshop will feature a mix of lecture and exercises, and will cover everything from world-building and infodumping strategies to character development and ‌ along with information on how and where to publish your work.
With Paul Witcover
AUTHOR/AGENT/ EDITOR EXPERIENCE
When you finally type “The End,� is it? Manuscript is written. An agent has taken it on. An Editor has bought it. Now what? What can you expect from your Agent? What does an Agent do to sell your story? What does an Editor do once he or she agrees to publish it? Does the Editor interact with the Author? How does the revision process work? What are the roles and responsibilities of these three key players in bringing a book from self to shelf? Hear the workings of making a best-seller from one of the most accomplished, experienced teams in publishing.
With Jocelyn Davies, Jessica Regel, & Sara Sargent