I have just spent 4 full days at a writing conference. No, more than that. It was Women In Publishing Summit, my second time.
There were about 2 or 3 male speakers, otherwise we were all women. Writers, agents, publishers, designers, and all the other publishing industry roles I forgot to mention. Perfectly organised by Alexa Bigwarfe.
I am exhausted, but it was worth it. Like last year, I met a lot of interesting women, mainly other writers, and I learnt a lot.
Will it be easier to publish my books in the future? Maybe! I think so.
I find marketing and selling very hard. I can’t even haggle in countries where everybody does, In The Gambia or Egypt, they gave me a price, I paid, they fainted. They were expecting a tenth of the initial price. Well, I made somebody happy…
So talking to the local bookshop or contacting anybody with the publicity activity is a nightmare for me.
However, maybe, just maybe, I learnt something. Maybe I will manage… You probably think:
“Nope,” Well, I might surprise you and myself.
Whatever happens, the conference was worth it.
It also made me not to concentrate totally on the war in Ukraine. Of course, it is still on my mind. But I will write another blog post about that.
Eva Hnizdo 
Must have been an amazing event indeed. Learning from the experience of all stakeholders in the publishing industry is something every writer would love to have an opportunity to. Thanks for sharing. 😊
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Yes. It was wonderful
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Amazing. Would you recommend any type of publishing from experience. Is traditional better than independent or vice versa?
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It is complicated. Traditional publishing is less work for zou providing zou can get an agent and a contract. They wouldn’t take authors without an agent, and it is hard to get one. If you do, the advantage is the publisher does everything, but you have less power and lower percentage of royalties.
Self publishing is in my opinion hard work, and can be expensive as you undoubtedly will need to pay editors, cover designer sand many other specialists, unless you are an expert in self publishing. Higher royalties, of course, almost all the income.
Hybrid or partnership publishing is in the middle. They need to believe you are worth them investing money. You get some investment and more decisions on cover etc. That is what I have done, the publisher paid 60% , I paid 40%, and get 40% royalties. However, there were some services hat I paid for as an extra as the publishing contract was rather basic. I write literary fiction. No money in that unless you become known. Apparently young adult, horror, fantasy and romance can earn well. I have no plans to write in those genres though. Don’t read them either. That is not saying I have anything against them. And BTW don’t take my advice too seriously., What do I know? 🙂
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