NRW Conference and Stephanie Bond

On Saturday I attended a conference hosted by Nebraska Romance Writers (Lincoln, Nebraska). Great bunch of folks! I just recently joined and this was my RWA PROLoop. My new best friend, Jeanne Kern (half the writing team of Jeanne Bruce, author of TRIPS AND WHALES AND PUPPY DOG TALES) even posed for a picture with me!

Stephanie Bond was the featured speaker and gave a refreshingly honest assessment of the business of writing. I loved it - probably because far to often I'm in the minority when it comes to discussing writing as a business. To my mind (saturated with years in marketing) a manuscript is a product and agents/editors are one of the target markets. Basic marketing and business management principles apply. My muse likes to keep one eye on the "bottom line".

My favorite "take aways" were her tips on writing clean. Her writing process includes outlining the story (yeah! a fellow plotter!) and editing as she goes along. All of which has helped her manuscripts go through the pipeline faster (because they require much less editing) and has helped her become a "go to" person for her editor when another author drops the ball by missing a deadline.

I loved what she had to say about branding yourself, too. Imagine, being able to articulate your brand and be so confident of that brand that you have the confidence to turn down projects that don't feel right to you.

And get this for a great marketing strategy -- Stephanie has a deal with Amazon.com to sell her articles as part of their Amazon Shorts offerings - a set of articles (she said usually three or four to a set) goes for $0.49.

It was great to hang out with fellow writers. There's nothing like walking into a room and instantly knowing everyone else there has people inside their heads that talk to them.

So, anyway, now I'm all fired up for Nanowrimo! Like my published friends Kim Louise and *lizzie star say - don't look down!