Conference to help writers and illustrators break into publishing

BROOKE HARTMAN: “And for the conference, we try to take a sampling of resources or agents or editors or other authors who have experienced that type of publishing. We dump them all into this big conference so that authors can say "OK, I want to learn more about this type of publishing or I want to edit my book more because I think I'm at this stage of the writing process.” “And so they can pick and choose from various breakout options during the day, or workshops and it will help them in their writing process however they would like to go about it because there are so many options on how they can do that.” TRIPP CROUSE: So it sounds like a really good opportunity for somebody no matter where they're at in the process, or where they're at in their steps. HARTMAN: “Exactly.” CROUSE: “They can go to the conference and get a leg up and know where to go from there.” HARTMAN: “Exactly.” If they've written a few chapters of a novel, and they're like "I don't know where I'm going with this," actually the conference would be a great, great idea, because people there are going to tell you these are the genres that are selling right now; if you want to self-publish this is how you're going to go about this; if you're in the process of editing this manuscript here are some ideas to take with you when you go about doing that; if you have already written a book and you're like "now what do I do?" the conference is great for that too because you can vet your different options. ... “It's a really fantastic opportunity for writers, especially writers who live in the state because it's hard for us to leave and go and participate in these opportunities elsewhere.”