This past Saturday I attended my first writers conference. It was free and not to far away.

“Getting Published: What Do Publishers Want?” was the first seminar I attended. While the information obtain was not earth shattering new I still enjoyed being in the presence of actual publishers. Copious notes were taken for me to share with fellow writers who had not attended the conference.

I got two things out of this . The first was that small independent presses are willing to work with the author up front without a literary agent. In fact most prefer you don’t have one. Second, I was introduced to five more firms I can send my query letter to. For me these two things were worth my attendance.

The next seminar that caught my eye was “How To Write for Children”. One of the presenters was a 12-year-old boy who has three books in print. Most of the information was not new to be but I did learn again two thing. What I gained from this was two more publishing house names that I had not come across through the Writer’s Market book.

The last seminar I attended was “Traditional Publishing vs Self Publishing”. This section reaffirms what I have been doing since last March which is creating an online presence through social media outlets.

One of the panelist stated that people who go the traditional route are taken more serious. Also, more doors are open to them through the contacts they meet apart from the publishing house they are with.

If you are an aggressive individual and can promote yourself well self- publishing would work for you. If that is not your style and you need the help of a publisher it was recommended to try to get your book in print.

At the moment I am trying to go the traditional route. My books deserve the chance to shine in this avenue. For the past three weeks I have steadily been submitting query letters, chapters, synopsis and cover letters to various publishing houses. The list I am working from is only half way crossed off. A deadline in my head has been given and when that time frame comes then will be looking at self publishing.

Whether I am aggressive enough to promote myself remains to be seen. At least in this day and age I’m fortunate to have the option of ebooks where years ago that was not the case.