I spent the last three days indulging myself in writerly business at the Willamette Writer’s Conference. This event offered workshops in Fiction, Non-Fiction, Film & Script, and Indie Publishing and the diversity is really fun. Although I don’t write screenplays, I find the perspective of filmmakers to be really useful in seeing things from a visual point of view.

People go out of their way to be friendly and helpful. With very few exceptions this has been true of every conference I’ve attended. Don’t let people convince you these events aren’t worth attending until you’ve tried out a couple. There’s always room to improve your craft, meet some nice folks, and maybe even chat up someone you’ve admired from afar. And there are always a few oddballs, hopefully not you.

Even the agents/editors/publishing house people hobnob and relax. They want to say “yes!” when you tell them about your story, so don’t forget to share when they indicate an interest. There’s a reason they attend conferences but they’re just people after all, be sociable first and foremost. We’re all members of the same community and regardless of which part of the population you identify with, we’re all swimming in the great big publishing pond.

I sat through some amazing workshops.

Some were good refreshers on writing craft. I especially enjoyed the sessions with Elizabeth Lyon on structure and editing. She’s written a number of great craft books over the years and offers editorial services, if you’re in the market. Becoming a better writer always appeals to me and hearing the same old thing from just the right voice occasionally makes fireworks spark in the grey matter.

Other workshops were overwhelming with the sheer volume of content. Some made my brain hurt from the deluge of expert information the presenters poured out in only 90 minutes. The session on using the metrics and sequencing data on Amazon is going to require further investigation (it was fascinating!). Thanks to Ron Gomperz, who shared his own experiences in riding the Amazon wave, I’ve got a much better understanding of how to make their algorithms work better for me. If you like history and fun, check out his book No Roads Lead to Rome.

The workshop on SEO (search engine optimization) by John Ellis was fabulous. He offered the answers to so many questions about my website and blog. I love going to a workshop presented by an expert in a field who tailors everything we need to know to what we do: writing. He was generous enough to offer links to his presentation for all interested: presentation downloads. If you’re in the market to learn more about making your websites and blogs work better for you, think about John Ellis and Portland Internet Design. This very nice man is waiting to kick your statistics into overdrive.

There was great interest in Indie Publishing and several workshops about cover and book design, marketing and platform building, and even taking blog content and selling it as books.

One of the most innovative and brilliant ideas was presented by Cheri Lasota, the author of Artemis Rising. She had these wonderful plastic cards (just like the giftcards you can buy for stores and restaurants), but these were for her e-book! What an excellent way to hand out free copies of your e-book to interested people…or keep a handful in your pocket and sell them when you’re out in public. Anywhere. Anytime.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this innovative approach to marketing, check out Greenerside Digital and see if E-Book Cards might work for your needs. If you visit Cheri’s website you’ll see a green box on her front page where you type in the download code and access the ebook directly. She’s even marketed these to local bookstores. Another cool thing is you get the book in three formats, so no matter what your reading device, you’re covered.

There was so much more…that I’ll have to update again later. I didn’t even get to the amazing forensics presentation which I attended that went a full 90 minutes past the end-time! More about that next time.

I’ve been MIA around ye olde blogge the last week. Sorry about that. This is the busiest time of my academic year and while the schedule is always a bit tight – the last few weeks have been extraordinarily nuts.

There are many wonderful writer’s conferences, which one is your favorite? What was the most useful workshop you’ve ever attended? Do you have a silly story to share? C’mon, we want to hear it!