Patricia commented on my ACFW Blog Post. Her comments are bolded:

Planning on going next year?
Probably, depending on a number of factors. I’d love to go again, though. I think I get more out of ACFW than RWA because MOST of the Christian publishers attend ACFW. Only a few Christian publishers attend RWA. When I went to RWA last year, I believe the only Christian houses attending were Bethany House and Steeple Hill.

Maybe when you’re rested, you could give us just a little about the workshops you attended?

I didn’t attend all of the workshops I signed up for since I got tired a few times and needed to rest, or sometimes I’d bump into people and we’d sit and talk and skip the workshops. This information is kind of sketchy, so read at your own risk, and take the following words with a grain of salt!

For the Continuing Education session, I attended Jim Rubart’s and Chip Macgregor’s class on Marketing Your Fiction. Basically, you need to find something you’re good at…something marketing related, and do that to market your stuff. For example, if you can’t stand blogging, then don’t start a blog! Also, you need to shock editors, agents, people, about your work. Give them material that’s not the norm. When you write a thank-you note for your rejections, think of writing something with some spark that’ll make that editor remember you! I missed part of this workshop since I had appointments. If you really want to know about all that was said, it’d be best to buy the CD. Marketing is all about getting people to like you and help you promote your material, build a tribe and they’ll help you promote your stuff. That’s all I can recall off the top of my head.

I went to Terri Blackstock’s workshop on writing suspense. Very interesting. You need to raise the stakes in your suspense stories and not make them too predictable. She used the movie Ransom? to illustrate what she was trying to tell us. We were supposed to watch this movie before attending the workshop, but I didn’t take the time to do that, but still gleaned lots of great information from her teaching.

The mock acquisitions meeting that Thomas Nelson did was quite interesting. It was great to see a re-enactment of the dialog that editors have when trying to decide if they want to publish a book. People asked questions afterwards.

That’s a brief summary of what I can recall from the conference.

Was this your first ACFW conference? If so, any thoughts from the perspective of a first-timer?
Nope, it wasn’t my first conference! If memory serves me correctly, it was my third conference. If you’re a first timer, just go and enjoy, take good notes and make lots of connections with authors!

Oh, got another rejection today! I’m not typing the full rejection on this blog post as I promised I would. Why? It’s too lengthy and I’m tired of typing. But, she gave me great feedback and I’m going to re-submit this project since she suggested I do so.

~Cecelia Dowdy~