Troubador Self-Publishing Conference, Leicester

 

Queen's Building, De Montfort University, Leicester

It has been a week since I returned from the Troubador Self-Publishing Conference in Leicester and I've not had the chance to really revisit my notes and take stock. The conference was held in the Queen's Building (Engineering & Computing) of De Montfort University, a very modern campus situated between the city and the River Soar.

You will need a cuppa and maybe a plate of biscuits for this blog post as it's long!

Having arrived on Friday (to do what sightseeing I could), I checked out where the university was so I knew where I was going on Saturday morning. It was easy to find, yet the following morning I managed to take a wrong turning and had to double back! I was still in time to register before the first session. 

On arrival I received my lanyard and goodie bag. There were refreshments, including croissants, but I sat down to go through the booklet of what was happening throughout the day and chat to a couple of people. There were various stalls - Troubador (two), The Book Guild (a sister company) and Jericho Writers. I didn't approach any of these until coffee/tea breaks.

We all headed to the theatre for the introductory speech before we headed off to our first masterclass, run by experts from Troubador. I had decided to choose workshops/talks on aspect of 'business' that I'm not so good at to get the best out of the day, so the first one I chose was Editing: What Is it and Why Does My Book Need It? During this three-quarter hour session we learned about the different types of editing, and how they can benefit your manuscript. These include:

• Assessment/review, a big picture edit which includes strengths and weaknesses (structural). 
• Developmental edit offers a more in depth edit where specific sections are highlighted for attention.
• Copy edit/line edit are similar. Again they are in depth and corrective edits. It looks at spelling, punctuation, grammar, inconsistencies, clarity, and potential legal issues.
• Sensitivity edit is good if you don't share the same gender, race or culture of your characters.
• Proofreading is the final edit, purely corrective, looking for any corrections and errors introduced in typesetting.

Things to think about - do you have any skills in these areas? Self-editing is not a good idea except when you are still drafting because our brain puts in words we've missed and a whole lot of other things. You really need someone who knows what they are doing. There was guidance on how to find editors.

You may not need all these edits, and of course they all costs money, and I can tell you they are not cheap. Also, always choose an editor who specialises in your genre. Don't go to someone who specialises in sci-fi if you are writing romance.

I can tell you that during the process of bringing Tinsel Street to publication I initially had an assessment/review with a book coach, and my book was very much better for this as she gave me advice on how to tackle my plot hole and how to go about editing. I ended up changing the timeline and moving things around, as well as introducing a new character, pushing another to the sidelines and writing whole new scenes. I shall be forever grateful for her input. I also paid for a copy edit with Troubador. If there are any mistakes now, it's down to me! I have a friend who is a very good proofreader/beta reader, and she will tell me when something doesn't make sense.

The goodie bag

The second session I chose in the morning was The Importance of Metadata for Discovery and Sales with Clive Herbert, Head of Professional Services, Neilsen BookData. Now I have to say I got rather lost in this one. Thank goodness Troubador sent out the slides of each session after the conference. I did make some notes (I also took photos of some of the slides in some sessions), but a lot of what was said went over my head (as it seemed to do for some others). If you totally self-publish and don't use a service like Troubador or other indie publisher, this may not worry you, as this is all dealt with in-house. However, if you self-publish without that help, it is up to you to get everything right. I found it very daunting and wish I'd chosen another session! The one on the British Library would have been my second choice. However, basically it is about how to describe your book using all the right information from Title, format and ISBN number down to keywords - he suggested using longer phrases. If you have ever used Amazon to self-publish, this will be familiar to you, especially keywords with their sub-genres. I always find this bit difficult, but if you want readers to find you, it is important.

The final session of the morning was Keynote speaker, Suzy Quinn, a bestselling author and writing coach. The talk was entitled How to Self-Publish a Bestseller. She had a great presence about her. She made it fun but informative. Suzy said that most published books aren't bestsellers (which came as no surprise to me) and that most bestsellers are not universally loved and that's okay! She also told us that bestsellers are for a pre-made audience - specific genre and sub-genre readers. The suggestion was to identify your group of readers and target your book to them. You need a good hook, a one line sentence premise - simple and snappy. Make your book intriguing and have a clear message of what it is about. If this makes you feel better, Suzy said that a true debut bestseller is rare. Writing a series or similar books is a good idea (so that's not me then!).

A few other things:

• Character is key to successful books.
• Have character combos - sidekicks/friends which create contrast. The more different, the better.
• Ideas/attitudes of your characters need to be different. This creates conflict and drama.
• The characters potentially change each other.

After this, we broke for lunch. This was held in the Food Village across from our  building, and we were in the staff area, much nicer than the student cafe! There was a choice of hot food with salad and a dessert. This was a good chance to meet others and I joined a lady on her own and was joined by a gentleman. We had a good conversation over lunch, about our writing - whether or not we were published, and what we wanted to do next. We talked about where we'd come from and a bit about ourselves.

Just finished lunch

With lunch over, we were back in the theatre for a talk on How to Make Your Book Self-Publishing Ready with Debbie Young. This was a most informative talk and I made copious notes. This included how to look at your manuscript in its first self-edit and drafts. What to look for (speech tags - one of my things...starting speech and forgetting to end it, or putting them in the wrong place, like when you break speech up) and reading your manuscript in a different format with different fonts. There was further advice on using editors when you have completed what you hoped would be the final draft (it never is!).

There was a section of building confidence as a writer and here are just a few tips:

• Network with supportive authors online and offline
• Choose writing groups carefully
• Go to indie author events and spoken word nights
• Avoid comparisons
• Read a past first draft and see how far you have come
• Get the right metadata/keyword (oh, that one again!)

My notes get a bit muddled here as they move into my next session, Creating Buzz for Your Book: PR Strategies to Captivate Readers. However, I think the piece on networking and onwards come from that session. There was advice on developing relations with journalists (a bit out of comfort zone, that one), but it was suggested to start with regional media first.  Other advice:

• Cultivate relationships with your local bookshops
• Be aware of industry events
• Outreach/pitching

There was also a section on social media, age groups that use each one and what you have time for. You can't do everything and it will depend on how much time you have for this. Choose the one that works for you. I do use a lot of social media - X, BlueSky (infrequently), Facebook Author, Blog, Substack, but I have been away from Instagram for so long, I'm not sure I would know what I am doing now. YouTube interests me, but though I have a channel there (for the odd video on my days out), it is time consuming. The overall theme was make it fun!

Awareness Day calendars (find on Google) was mentioned and how to engage with other book clubs and authors. Follow those people who you think would want to read your book and follow authors whose books you enjoy. Boosted posts was mentioned. This is a paid advertising scheme through Facebook, which I haven't yet used.

The last talk was Your Next Steps in Self-Publishing and the difference between self-publishing and traditional publishing. This was the pros and cons of both which I have spoken about before. A very worthwhile talk, especially for those who have not yet made up their minds on which way to go. I would say, as I have before, that even traditional publishers expect you to do a lot of the publicity yourself now. Things are changing, and self-publishing is becoming more recognised. and the reputation it had as being a second-rate way of publishing books, is being overthrown. A lot of authors now have a foot in both doors and some choose to be self-published as they have all the control over important things like book covers, titles, and layout. It is also far faster. You can wait two years to get your book out there going down the trad route. Under a year, anything from a few days/weeks from hybrid or doing it yourself to six months or so with Troubador.

The theatre

At five o'clock we adjourned back to the Food Village for a drinks reception. This was a final chance to network and relax after a day of talks and workshops. I swapped details with two people and spoke to others. It was a nice end to the day.

Other thoughts about the day:

• There were more men at the conference than go to writing workshops and writing groups..
• The age group, though varied, was largely older. I wondered if this was because people had been trying for years to get published!
• There was a great mix of genres from those writing more academic books/self-help to those writing YA, poetry, historical. Across the board, really.
• There were regular breaks for coffee/tea with time to chat to other delegates and Troubador, The Book Guild and Jericho Writers. I said hello to Troubador. They had a few books on their stands (they had two), but I joked mine wasn't there! I also had a nice chat to The Book Guild and may well consider them in the future. Jericho Writers have a great website and they used to have forums I participated in, but then they introduced a membership, so I bowed out. I will look again at them because I think I may have misunderstood about the membership. This might have been for mentoring, but at present I have not been on their website, and I didn't get the chance to talk to them on the day.
• The sessions were either inside the theatre upstairs or in rooms on the ground floor. The venue was great, if a little cool. I kept my jacket on for the last few sessions.

Would I go again? It would depend on what the talks/workshops were on offer, but certainly it was worth the trip. Some things I knew a lot about, others not so much. One thing I know I should do is sign up to Public Lending Rights. I thought this was just for library books, but no, it also includes people looking at your book in the British Library. One might miss out on some royalties, and considering how little we earn as writers, if at all (I will never recoup what I've spent), it is worth it.

Downstairs

Upstairs by the theatre