Writer's Digest Novel Writing Conference - How to Hire the Right Editor(s*): *Yes, You Need More than One
Oct
25
to Oct 27

Writer's Digest Novel Writing Conference - How to Hire the Right Editor(s*): *Yes, You Need More than One

  • The Westin Pasadena (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

There are no great editors—only great fits between editors and authors. The most experienced editor in the world can’t work manuscript magic if skills don’t match needs, if goals aren’t set, and if expectations are misaligned. Adding difficulty to the process of choosing an editor is the fact that four different kinds of editorial passes are needed for novel writing. Between developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading, chances are you’ll have to hire more than one. This workshop will introduce each of the four kinds of editing employed in the novel writing process. It will discuss editorial timelines and what to look for as you screen editors for help with your manuscript at different phases.

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Writer's Digest Novel Writing Conference - The Plan Before the Plan: Marketing for Pre-Published Authors
Oct
24
to Oct 27

Writer's Digest Novel Writing Conference - The Plan Before the Plan: Marketing for Pre-Published Authors

  • The Westin Pasadena (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Marketing on your own behalf is expected in today’s competitive environment: readers expect it; publishers expect it; and owning your own fanbase is just plain smart. And it’s not just for established authors—the same is true for debut authors and aspiring authors shopping manuscripts. Basic marketing infrastructure has become table stakes for building and retaining early fanbases and selling books. This workshop will cover how to build an early-career fanbase, even before you’ve published a single page…

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Diversify Your Storytelling with Emerging Platforms and Story Formats
Sep
28
2:00 PM14:00

Diversify Your Storytelling with Emerging Platforms and Story Formats

This session will introduce some of the newer and emerging formats that authors are using to distribute their work and will analyze the trajectories of several newer formats and publishing outlets that have been around a few years (e.g., Radish, Tap by Wattpad, Hooked, Choice of Games, etc.). This session will be part commentary and emerging industry analysis, part overview of the submission process, (what they’re currently buying) and intel culled from interviewing current authors.

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NINC Conference - How to Dig Yourself Out of a Marketing Rut
Sep
27
3:15 PM15:15

NINC Conference - How to Dig Yourself Out of a Marketing Rut

Even experienced authors can feel stuck around how to recover from marketing disappointments. This session will discuss what authors can do when they’ve reached plateaus, feel lost or confused by their own data, or have titles that are ill-equipped or decreasingly well-positioned to compete in a changing marketplace….

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Aug
22
to Aug 25

Love Crosses Genres: Why All Readers Love a Good Happily Ever After

  • Hilton New York Midtown (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

If books are a drug, addicted readers all want the same dopamine rush: an emotionally-satisfying ending. Satisfaction, we are taught, comes from story resolutions that align to genre. Mysteries end once they identify the killer. Suspense/thrillers let the protagonist get out alive. Romance lets lovers ride off into the sunset. Yet the best—and, indeed, the most satisfying—stories rarely pick a lane. They stay true to their dominant genre, but use sub-plots that double down on the emotional stakes. Romance author Kilby Blades will explore how romantic sub-plots can be used in novels outside of the Romance genre to hook more readers and deepen their emotional investment in your books.

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Aug
22
to Aug 25

The Book Marketing Audit: A Plan of Your Own

  • Hilton New York Midtown (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Does it feel like you’ve tried everything to market your book and you’re not getting the sales you want? Have you read countless advice articles and purchased expensive courses promising the keys to help step up your game and you’re just not seeing the results? “The Book Marketing Audit” will teach you to stop copying marketing approaches that may have worked for other authors but that just aren’t right for you. The most successful marketers don’t blindly follow broad advice—they leverage their own data to solve problems from within. Kilby Blades—indie author and social media marketing columnist for the RWA Romance Writer’s Report—will help you identify your author brand’s strengths and weaknesses, choose tactics that align with your career trajectory, and teach you how to analyze, and optimize, your marketing results.

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Jul
26
12:45 PM12:45

The Book Marketing Audit - Romance Writers of America 2019 National Conference

Does it feel like you’ve tried everything to market your book and you’re not getting the sales you want? Have you read countless advice articles and purchased expensive courses promising the keys to help step up your game and you’re just not seeing the results? "The Book Marketing Audit" will teach you to stop copying marketing approaches that may be working for other authors but that just aren’t right for you. The most successful marketers don’t blindly follow someone else's advice—they leverage their own data to solve problems from within. 

This presentation will discuss:

  • Identifying your author brand’s strengths and weaknesses

  • Choosing tactics based on the size and structure of your library

  • Technical infrastructure to support analytics

  • Using the right lenses to analyze, and optimize, your results

  • How to do targeting like an advertising pro

  • Prioritizing and staying on the critical path

Can’t make the course? Stay in touch with me via my author newsletter to keep tabs on my events for authors and hear about the next time I’ll give this course!

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Jul
25
8:30 AM08:30

What's Feminism Got to Do with It? Crafting an Identity as a Feminist Romance Writer: RWA 2019 National Conference

How can feminist romance authors transcend attitudes, stereotypes and misinformation about gender roles in the romance genre? More importantly, what are the consequences of dated views about feminism and romance?

In this panel-style session, facilitated by author and blogger Jackie Horne of Romance Novels for Feminists, several authors will candidly discuss views on the past, present and future of romance in feminism today. From balancing the demands of ideology with those of storytelling, to the positives and negatives of claiming feminism, this panel will dig deep on feminism and romance.

Can’t make the course? Stay in touch with me via my author newsletter to keep tabs on my events for authors and hear about the next time I’ll give this course!

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Jun
22
9:30 AM09:30

Stepping Back to Step it Up - Reframing Your Book Marketing: A Sacramento Rose RWA Event

This fast-paced book marketing booster borrows principles from my Book Marketing Audit and Scaling Your Book Marketing Program workshops, focusing on marketing weaknesses that authors typically miss. Specific prompts and self-assessments are designed to help authors better-understand their individual marketing goals , to identify current flaws, and to prioritize their own high-impact set of next steps.

This presentation will cover:

  • Figuring out your real goal (hint: it’s not just to sell more books)

  • How to tell whether your author assets are competitive (e.g., website, newsletter, book covers, blurbs)

  • Understanding how your library structure impacts your marketing plan

  • Expectation-setting: what each marketing channel actually gets you

  • An overview of highly-advanced and integrated strategies that top-selling authors are using

  • A guide to when (and how) to hire professionals

Wanna come? Head to the Sacramento Rose RWA website for more information and to sign up.

Can’t make the course? Stay in touch with me via my author newsletter to keep tabs on my events for authors and hear about the next time I’ll give this course!

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Apr
26
to Apr 27

The Book Marketing Audit: 2019 NECRWA Conference

  • Boston Marriott Burlington (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Does it feel like you’ve tried everything to market your book and you’re not getting the sales you want? Have you read countless advice articles and purchased expensive courses promising the keys to help step up your game and you’re just not seeing the results? "The Book Marketing Audit" will teach you to stop copying marketing approaches that may be working for other authors but that just aren’t right for you. The most successful marketers don’t blindly follow someone else's advice—they leverage their own data to solve problems from within. 

This presentation will discuss:

  • Identifying your author brand’s strengths and weaknesses

  • Choosing tactics based on the size and structure of your library

  • Technical infrastructure to support analytics

  • Using the right lenses to analyze, and optimize, your results

  • How to do targeting like an advertising pro

  • Prioritizing and staying on the critical path

Registration opens on January 1st, 2019

Can’t make the course? Stay in touch with me via my author newsletter to keep tabs on my events for authors and hear about the next time I’ll give this course!

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Apr
26
to Apr 27

Scaling Your Book Marketing Program: 2019 NECRWA Conference:

  • Boston Marriott Burlington (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

If you’re selling books profitably but you’ve reached a plateau, you need new approaches to help you scale. This session teaches smarter pattern recognition for creative, strategic, and tactical campaign optimization. Adopting a "fail better” mindset will not only earn you fresh readers—it will increase loyalty and engagement among current fans. Most of all, it will get you closer to the Holy Grail of marketing: the repeatable model. 

Topics to be covered include:

  • Advanced campaign design, from structuring to testing

  • Building pro-grade tracking infrastructure to better-understand results

  • Scaling results on automated ad platforms (e.g., Facebook, Amazon, BookBub)

  • Creating connections for advanced retargeting

  • Newsletter sub-groupings and segmentation

  • Audiobook marketing strategies

  • Influencing tactics (e.g., scarcity, FOMO, status)

  • Leveraging evangelist fans to do your work for you

Note; this is not for beginner marketers—it assumes that you’ve tried several marketing tactics and that you're comfortable looking at the numbers.

Registration opens on January 1st, 2019

Can’t make the course? Stay in touch with me via my author newsletter to keep tabs on my events for authors and hear about the next time I’ll give this course!

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Apr
1
to Apr 21

Marketing Steamy Romance: A Passionate Ink RWA Members-Only Workshop

Is your book dripping with deliciousness? Seething with steam? Boiling with sultry heat? Congratulations! You just wrote yourself into an advertising problem. Mainstream authors can earn new readers through mass market advertising networks. But not you, my naughty friend. Your racy blurbs and steamy covers flout the rules set forth by important ad platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon.

The Marketing Steamy Romance curriculum distills what I’ve learned as a 15-year digital marketing veteran and writer of erotic romance into actionable advice for authors. Participants will have access to the following modules, related Q&A and group discussion:

  1. Intro: Why Marketing Steamy Romance is Different From Marketing Every Other Kind of Book

  2. Deal-Breaking Decisions: Book Categories, Titles, Sub-Titles, Covers and Blurbs

  3. Advertising on Automated Bidding Platforms (That Is, If They’ll Even Let You)

  4. Advertising With Sponsored Placements

  5. Why Bloggers/Influencers are Especially Important to Erotic Romance

  6. The Three Ways Erotic Romance  Authors Should Be Using Newsletters

  7. Social Media for Steamy Romance 

  8. Erotic Romance Marketing Budgets vs. Other Romance Marketing Budgets

This event is open only to members of Passionate Ink, the Erotic Romance Writer’s Chapter of Romance Writers of America. Wanna join? Click this link right here.

Can’t make the course? Stay in touch with me via my author newsletter to keep tabs on my events for authors and hear about the next time I’ll give this course!

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Mar
4
to Mar 8

Why You Should Enter Writing Contests: A Contemporary Romance RWA Members-Only Workshop

Some people think I’m crazy for entering so many awards and contests. To date, I’ve entered one-hundred-twenty five. Of that number, I’ve finaled in or won twenty-five. And I’ve learned a few things on my roller-coaster ride.

Awards and contests may be among the most underutilized marketing vehicles pursued by authors. From the chance to have your work read by industry decision-makers, to receiving feedback and scorecards, to—yes—the perks of finaling and winning, I’ll give compelling reasons to add the right ones to your marketing repertoire. Even if you don’t think your books are award-winning quality, the better contests will show you things about your work you won’t learn any other way. Join me for this five-day workshop and I’ll tell you why.

  • Day 1. Contests vs. awards: what purpose each one serves and the basic case for entering

  • Day 2. What to enter: how to tell the best ones from the not-so-great ones to the straight-up scams

  • Day 3 . When to enter contests: how ready does your manuscript have to be?

  • Day 4. What to do when you lose: just because you didn’t place doesn’t mean it’s over

  • Day 5. What to do when you win: how to milk it for all it’s worth 

This event is open only to members of Contemporary Romance Writers, the Contemporary Romance sub-chapter of Romance Writers of America. Wanna join CR-RWA? Click this link right here!

Can’t make the course? Stay in touch with me via my author newsletter to keep tabs on my events for authors and hear about the next time I’ll give this course!

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Feb
22
to Feb 25

San Francisco Indie UnCon 2019

This limited-to-60, authors-only, three-day extravaganza is all about sharing information and learning from other indies. UnCon is for self-published authorpreneurs who are eager to hear from others on topics where they may have less knowledge, and to share their best advice with other indie authors around their own areas of expertise.

To the extent that its intention is to be an all-business weekend, I’ll be sharing my marketing expertise freely and expect to be able to dive into topics that prove difficult in more condensed settings. Topics evolve from group discussions prior to the event, to a planning and goals session conducted early on, to what is shared at the workshop itself.

Interested? Apply for an invitation here!

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Jan
26
8:30 AM08:30

Silicon Valley RWA: The Book Marketing Audit

Does it feel like you’ve tried everything to market your book and you’re not getting the sales you want? Have you read countless advice articles and purchased expensive courses promising the keys to help step up your game and you’re just not seeing the results? "The Book Marketing Audit" will teach you to stop copying marketing approaches that may have worked for other authors but that just aren’t right for you. The most successful marketers don’t blindly follow broad advice—they leverage their own data to solve problems from within. 

This presentation will discuss:

  • Identifying your author brand’s strengths and weaknesses
  • Choosing tactics based on the size and structure of your library
  • Technical infrastructure to support robust reporting
  • Using the right lenses to analyze, and optimize, your results
  • How to do targeting like an advertising pro
  • Prioritizing and staying on the critical path

Location: Willow Glen Community Center, 2175 Lincoln Avenue San Jose, CA, 95125

Register Here

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Sep
8
8:30 AM08:30

San Francisco Area RWA: The Book Marketing Audit

Does it feel like you’ve tried everything to market your book and you’re not getting the sales you want? Have you read countless advice articles and purchased expensive courses promising the keys to help step up your game and you’re just not seeing the results? "The Book Marketing Audit" will teach you to stop copying marketing approaches that may have worked for other authors but that just aren’t right for you. The most successful marketers don’t blindly follow broad advice—they leverage their own data to solve problems from within. 

This presentation will discuss:

  • Identifying your author brand’s strengths and weaknesses
  • Choosing tactics based on the size and structure of your library
  • Technical infrastructure to support robust reporting
  • Using the right lenses to analyze, and optimize, your results
  • How to do targeting like an advertising pro
  • Prioritizing and staying on the critical path

Location: Berkeley Adult School, 1701 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, 94702

Register Here

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