Are You Conference Ready?

The WW conference is coming up and you are probably tired of me blogging about it, but alas, I take at least a month to prepare for the conference.

This is my check off list for the conference:

Edited Manuscript–first chapter

Query letter–addressed to whomever I am pitching to

Synopsis

Verbal Pitch–memorized AND practiced–in front of other people, but I take it with me just in case.

Elevator Verbal Pitch—The one or two sentence condensed version of my pitch, so that when people ask me, “Oh, what are you writing.” I can answer them in a succinct manner.

Business Cards–I order mine from vistaprint.com–This helps me network with other writers.

You may or may not want to put together a dossier by getting folders, having the first chapter, the query letter, and the synopsis printed and ready to hand to an agent if they happen to request it.  Is this a requirement?  Heavens no.  But I would have all of the above written and ready to email in an instant.  If you get a request from an agent, you don’t want to come home from the conference and be rushing around trying to get a submission together.

I would say that one of the most important things to do is practice your pitch in front of other people.  Know how long it runs, aim for 3 minutes, 5 minutes at the absolute max and that would only be for one on one consults.  If you are doing group consults, keep it to 3 minutes.

Most of all go to the conference of the mind to learn, meet new people, and have fun.  I know that it’s terrifying to go in front of an agent and pitch your work, but for the most part they are really nice and understand that you are nervous.

My first year, I remember I was terrified.  I rewrote my pitch the night before (no idea why I did that) so I didn’t know my pitch as well as I should have and  I sat down and just started to spiel it out (which I know better than that). The agent stopped me, told me to calm down and take a deep breath, and to just talk about my book.  He was very nice.  So don’t worry, they understand how nervous you are and generally don’t hold it against you.

And the thing is, I like public speaking.  I did speech and debate in college.  I know how to prepare, but pitching to agents is still nerve wracking.  So if you are pitching, practice is your best weapon to combat that nervousness.

If you want some more conference tips, check out Mary Andonian’s website.  She has done past articles on how to prepare for a conference.