Writer’s Digest Conference

Thumbs up to Writer’s Digest for a great conference the weekend of September 18-20; I met a lot of wonderful people from all over the country. Their faces were full of aspiration and anticipation as they sat through workshop after workshop to learn how to get published. Having achieved that goal being both a self-published and traditional published author, I was there to learn how to build my marketing platform to take my writing career to the next level. I learned you can be a gatekeeper and do things the old traditional way or you can be a gatejumper and make your own game and rules to play by to get the results you want.

What I liked about the conference was they had both gatekeepers and gatejumpers there. The gatekeepers were the literary agents presenting us with all the things writers do wrong in query letters and how if we don’t do it their way we don’t get pass the gate. See, gatekeepers have specific rules for their game and you have to play their way. While gatejumpers make their own game and rules, they are the ones who travel the new model path of taking their product directly to the audience, get recognition and let the big publishing house, music industry, whatever come to them.

Scott Sigler and Seth Harwood are living proof that  gatejumping works. They used a variety of audiovisual tools, specifically podcasting to land fiction book deals with major publishers. I now have a microphone plugged to my PC.

On the second day of the conference, the conferees were buzzing about Chris Brogan and his bestselling book, Trust Agents. When Chris finished giving his presentation on using social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and other online social networks and tools to build a marketing platform, not only did he fire us up to go out and change the face of publishing but he also had us in stitches. I do believe he could get a second job as a stand-up comedian.

So, as I write out my marketing platform, I thought about what Mike Shatzkin, a digital publishing futurist, told us— publishing like other industries is going through a drastic transformation due to digital change.

I immediately brought Trust Agents, Blogging for Dummies, Twitters Tips, Tricks, and Tweets, and I’m happily traveling the path of social media.  Welcome to my blog.