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Every year the Romance Writers of America hold a big national conference. Romance writers of all flavours flock to the conference to mingle with their peers, participate in workshops, listen to speakers and panels and–apparently–drink margaritas 😛
Zoe York was not a member of the RWA when she attended–she is now though–earlier in the month but she traveled from Canada to the conference to take part–and drink said margaritas. She reported back on her first RWA conference, what she thought of it, what tasty morsels of information she gleaned, the two workshops she ran and more!
About our Guest
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Zoe York is a busy mom of two young boys and the creator of modern, sexy, small town contemporary romances. Her debut novel, What Once Was Perfect, started the popular Wardham series, and her first military romance, Fall Out, was released as part of the international bestselling SEALs of Summer super bundle.
She lives in London, Ontario and is currently chugging Americanos, wiping sticky fingers, and dreaming of heroes in and out of uniform.
Questions and topics discussed:
- Is this the first RWA conference that you’ve been to?
- What’s the most important thing you’d like to share with us?
- What is the Romance Writers of America Conference?
- Best advice from a workshop teacher: don’t put false limits on your writing.
- Been to NINC? How’s it compare?
- Talked about the fact that savvy social media marketers sell stuff because they’re good growing audiences
- What’s your scheduling strategy?
- How she responds to the question, should I release several books in a series at a time?
- What’s a realistic publishing schedule?
- Planning your next year of publishing.
- Proactive scheduling. How to think like a publisher.
- How to separate yourself from the stress of looking at sales numbers.
- Do any networking at RWA?
- What was your primary goal in attending?
- Have a goal when you go to a national conference.
- What panels did you not get to?
- Zoe talked about historical romance and why it’s not dead. This included how readers enter into a genre and move around into others
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Who is listening? Sound off?
Yay! I’m here!
RChazzChute I’m here! Oh wait…
Looking forward to hearing Zoe’s thoughts on her first RWA National!
It only took me ten minutes to find the right user name and password for livefyre. :/
RChazzChute I’m listening. 🙂
Trish McCallan so are we, still waiting for her to arrive though…
Greetings! Just waiting for our guest to arrive. Should happen any moment.
Okay! I’m hunkered down!
Strap in!
While you’re waiting feel free to check out our current promo: 40+ FREE Mystery, Thriller & Suspense eBooks + Kindle Giveaway
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🙂
Hello, All!
BatmanErica Trish McCallan Zoe is tardy? That doesn’t seem very
Canadian of her! 🙂
It’s fine, I’m bouncing between writing and waiting with y’all. I haven’t got anything else to do. LOL
RChazzChute I haven’t installed the seatbelt on my recliner yet…*looks around for rope*
yes…
We found Zoe!
BatmanErica Yay!!!
BatmanErica Woo hoo!
Good Evening
LOL!
refresh if’n you ain’t! We are on.
Well I suck >.<
Professionally run… one could argue that’s not us or me at least, especially after this podcast o.O
They hold the RWAs here in Auckland. That’s 8 hours by car for me >.<
Have you been to any of the NINC conferences? If so, how do they compare to RWA Nationals?
Trish McCallan got it
BatmanErica I’ve been to several of the Emerald City Conferences. The Greater Seattle chapter puts on a great event. 🙂 Seattle is only about 3.5 hours away.
Trish McCallan that would be handier 🙂
Zoe says: Romance writers are like puppies 😛
Zoe’s comment about readers/writers assuming a topic won’t sell because “they” don’t like that particular topic reminds me of this article. https://twistedbitchesbookblog.com/2016/07/23/are-overused-romance-themes-walking-the-tight-trope/
The tropes they list are many of the ones at the top of the Kindle store. 🙂
LOL, yeah- that was my biggest regret about not going to RWA16. I really wanted to tour Coronado. 🙂
BatmanErica Aren’t all writers? 🙂
You would think building an audience would be a workshop for both trad and indie published authors
Maybe the shift in the topics had to do with the level of the audience. Maybe they were at the very beginning of self publishing so they were starting at level one– building an audience. Hitting the lists would be for the next level up. But in the past RWA national has had three tiers of workshops- beginning, intermediate and advanced. So having everything geared toward beginners is odd.
BatmanErica Alot of Traditional authors don’t feel like they can build their audience. Since they have no control over anything with their books, they seem to think that only their publisher can grow their audience.
Trish McCallan but we know they can set up a mailing list and FB, etc. That’s stuff the publisher can’t screw up 😛
Well most trad authors don’t have a say in their cover either, or who they get to work with for their editor- or even in some cases what makes it into their books, plus pricing, and release scheduling- so there are quite a few things that trad authors wouldn’t get out of those topics.
BatmanErica Trish McCallan Yes, exactly. But most don’t seem to put much weight on newsletters. Very short sighted IMO.
What about networking Zoe? Alot of authors hit nationals/RT/NINC for the networking opportunities. Did you come back with any new contacts, author projects? Ect?
Data Guy’s slides are up on the internets: http://authorearnings.com/2016-rwa-pan-presentation
Whoops, that must have been such sensitive info she was about to share the internet police intervened. 🙂
Trish McCallan the lolcats got her!
Any other questions for Zoe?
Sub-genres have always waxed and waned, but there will always be a hard core fan base for every sub-genre. And even when interest slows in one sub-genre it always cycles back around again. SEALs were dead in 2011, now look at how hot they are.
Oh dear, my not knowing what to say is contagious o.O