Conference survival 101

As mentioned before, Booksquare spent last weekend at the Romance Writers of America convention in Dallas. (For another wrapup, including some dishery on why exactly James Patterson was in attendance, check out a lengthy report from All About Romance, one of exactly two romance-related sites I still visit.) After several days of nonstop exposure to writers, editors, agents, and the biz, she offers some helpful pointers for how to survive a major conference such as this:

If you see an editor or agent alone in a bar, buy them a drink (this helpful suggestion actually came from an agent). Talk to them. If invited, pitch to them. Note our use of the phrase “if invited.” Use common sense about these things, but just as you don’t want to be standing alone in a crowd, all eyes watching you, neither do they. Be the bold one and approach them.

Question-and-answer time is not the appropriate moment for you to pitch or work out particular problems with your story (unless the workshop is specifically geared toward that). All those rolling eyes you see? They’re for you. Same for the gasps of horror. We have learned that those who start sentences with “in my book…” usually have much bigger problems than unresolved conflict.

Editors are like elephants in that they have long memories. Conference is probably not the best time to make a fool of yourself. If you can’t resist, please advertise the event in advance so that everyone can watch your meltdown. Likewise, we’re all pretty much checking our various listservs afterward for missed gossip. Sure, there may be such a thing as no bad publicity, but do you want to be the one test the theory?

No kidding, although I must say, I haven’t seen a whole lot of pitching happening at the three Bouchercons I’ve attended–but it could be that I simply wasn’t paying attention.

Similarly, David Thayer, the crime fiction-centric blogger at Collected Miscellany, is in deep preparation for attending a writer’s conference later this week and explains what he–and others–should expect:

Badges are color-coded. Editors and publishers are the rarest form of life at these things; there may be a half dozen of them and several hundred writers. To control the deranged behavior of the writerly mob, ‘pitch sessions’ are organized; editors and agents, the gatekeepers, are seated in a ballroom. They have little tables with their names displayed along with a pitcher of water, two glasses and a handy periodical in the event your pitch proves less interesting than the current cover of People Magazine.

The ‘pitch’ is typically ten minutes long. The writer has coughed up about twenty bucks for the opportunity to reduce years of work to a pithy ‘hook.’ After a quick handshake, it’s important to remember your name (it’s on your badge), title and genre of your work, reasons why you wrote it and your qualifications. For fiction it’s helpful to be really famous; if you’re on the cover of People that week, your pitch will go extremely well.

A waiter from an exotic land may stop by to spill water on your synopsis; don’t panic. Most literature is water soluble.

Water at least dries off; food particles are quite another matter….