The Conference Is Over, What Now?

This past weekend I was at the 2016 Wordsowers Christian Writers’ Conference where I taught on Scrivener, and also heard pitches from authors.

During the opening session, the conference director, Kat Crawford, asked how many were attending their first writers conference. I was pleasantly surprised to see nearly half the attendees raise their hands.

Kudos to you for taking that first major step toward honing your craft and getting your words out into the world.

Now that you’re back home, you might be wondering what to do now.

The Next Step

• Sort through and organize your notes from the various workshops you attended
• Study the magazine samples you picked up from the freebie table. Read “How to Analyze a Magazine,” and then determine which of those publications are potential markets for your work.
• Study the submission guidelines from the various publishers and magazines that you also grabbed from the freebie table.
• Add the info from all those new contacts and friends you made to your email contact list (those business cards and scraps of paper with names and emails you exchanged with each other)

Follow Up

• If a magazine editor said send me your article, then by all means, do it!
• If a publishing house editor or agent said, send me your proposal, then write that proposal during the next week or two and send it.

At every nearly conference I’ve attended, I’ve asked writers to send a proposal. And invariably there are one or two who don’t. Why pitch to a publisher if you aren’t going to send them the manuscript when they ask for it?

Don’t let fear or doubt stop you. Agents and editors are very busy people. If they asked to see your work, they really do want to see it.

You’re writing for a reason, but those words will never been seen by anyone if you don’t send it off to the editor. So write that article idea or book proposal, hit send, then get started on the next project while you wait to hear back.