Amazing Conference!

WriteOnCon is just amazing! We managed to crash the server, so it's down for the moment, but I've been smiling all day while reading/watching lectures, meeting people and doing and receiving critiques. I may have possibly found a second person to critique my manuscript, and I'm going to badger a third, too. I'm also taking notes, although the content will probably be up after the conference, but I like having my own notes. There are all sorts of professionals taking part in this, agents, editors, illustrators, published authors. There's a new lecture every hour, and in between I have fun critiquing.

And best of all? It's free! And I can wear my pajamas, although I'm not wearing them now since I had to go out earlier, but I could! If online conferences are this cool, I can't imagine what the real thing is like. 

This is the first time this is held, but they're going to do it every year. It's amazing what a few aspiring authors can do when they get together. And I love how the industry people are eager to participate - they can't be getting paid for it since the girls hosting the conference aren't charging. The contest awards are amazing, and I'm getting great critiques on my stuff. Who knows, maybe some professional will critique as well.

Sorry for the gushing, I swear I'm not getting anything free out of it, it's just me being excited. I just didn't realize this was going to be so much fun. I even got my husband to take the kids out after kindergarten so that I can focus on this.

WriteOnCon

Okay, I'm putting my musings about self-publishing on ice for a bit. Yes, I'll study it, but I want to see if I can get trade-published first.

I joined WriteOnCon yesterday. I signed up on the forum, and I'm now an attendee at the free online conference on August 10-12th 2010. There are over 1400 people "attending", and I'll be able to post my query letter, first five pages, and first 250 words, first thing Monday morning. Then I'll possibly get critiques from fellow writers, and possibly publishers/agents/other trade people too. I already have some critiques on my practice critique of first five pages (you need to register on the forum to see it).

I'm also having fun writing critiques for others. I already wrote four yesterday and another four today. I leave the query critiques alone for now, because I don't feel too comfortable advising people on that since I'm not a 100% comfortable with query letter writing. I think the conference will be exciting. I can post questions for professionals, there will be rewards, and I'll meet other writers, and maybe make friendships or find critique buddies there.

I'll also join The Muse Online Writers Conference in October. That's also free, but it lasts a whole week. They have workshops that I'd like to check out. More on that later.

Self-Publishing

Image: http://erinlobach.edublogs.org/

I have taken time off from submitting, since my twins are on vacation. Their vacation ends next Monday, which means that I'll get back to business until Uni starts. That means three weeks of writing.

I've done a lot of thinking since the start of the vacation and I've decided to look into self-publishing before submitting to more agents (or any publishers). I really like the idea of it, and if I decide to do it, I'm doing it properly. I already have three self-publish books ordered from Amazon; Become a Real Self-Publisher, by Michael N. Marcus, a fellow She Writes member (even though he's a male), it has great reviews and he's got a lot of experience; Dan Poynter's Self-Publishing Manual, by Dan Poynter, this has great reviews as well; and of course Self-Publishing for Dummies, by Jason R. Rich, because I love the Dummies books.

Why am I considering this? Because the books advice how best to set up your own publishing company, and I like the idea of that. I wouldn't use any of the companies who do the work for the authors (Lulu, Xlibris, AuthorHouse, etc.). That means I'd have to deal with all sorts of stuff, like accounting, but it shouldn't be undo-able, especially if I set up the company in Iceland and do business from here (got to love the internet). I'd have to find a printer in the USA, as well as a distributor (since it would cost too much to have the books printed here and then sent individually to the USA -- or I'd have to look into it anyway). The rest I can do online!

I know it's a huge gamble, but I do have business education and I have tons of interest and enthusiasm. It also means that I can publish whatever I want, and don't have to rely on having the right material at the right time for the right agent/publisher who's only looking for one specific thing for his/her list. I read somewhere that less than 1 out of every 100.000 manuscripts is considered good, the rest is junk. To me, that either means that the rest of the manuscripts look like something written by grade-schoolers, or it isn't the entire truth (that they're rejecting a lot of good manuscripts because of trends, risks, etc.), or they just have really, really narrow tastes. I'm guessing the second, that there are many great manuscripts being rejected because they were not sent on the exact right time.

I queried just over 50 agents and I've gotten 18 rejections. I don't know if I should see it as my story idea being bad, it's only 18 people. The rest either won't reply to their queries, or some might be considering. But even so, if I self-publish, I get to keep all my rights and decide for myself what to include in the books and what not. I'd possibly get less exposure (unless I become really good and clever at the advertising bit, which is the part I'm kind of looking forward to), I'd probably also sell fewer books, but I'd get better paid for each book sold. There are so many more advantages, and the disadvantages seem to be only the extra work and the risk (and possibly some snobbery against self-published authors). The extra work I can do, the snobbery is due to lessen with the increase in self-publishing, and the risk? Well, it's time to take some.

I wouldn't be thinking about this if I didn't believe so strongly in my trilogy. Sure, I'll have to change it a bit, make it into more chapters, cut out some things (again, what I've been considering over the past months), and then have another editor read over it for it to be 100% publishable. I'll also have to try to find a trustworthy critique group, although I'm really scared to do so (always afraid of people taking my stuff as their own - maybe that's newbie thinking, but it's how I feel).

So far I've connected self-publishing with non-fiction books, but I'm sure there are also self-published fiction authors out there.

So, what will I do if those remaining agents contact me? Probably champ at the bit! But I'm keeping a very open mind to the self-publishing and I'm going to study it well during my first semester of Uni. Then I'm going to write the second book before publishing the first. And after the trilogy, well, I have loads more ideas, both for the USA market and the Icelandic one.

What can I say? I once wrote a Severus Snape fiction and couldn't find a decent Snape site to host it (at the time), so I created one that is still running 6 years later, even through I had no idea how to do it to begin with. I suppose this is a similar scenario, only on a larger scale with more costs and more risks.

Question: How do you trust critique groups enough to let them see your manuscripts? Where's the best place to find a critique group with people who aren't afraid to say their opinions (YA fantasy/adventure)?