The San Francisco conference (very advanced! pefect for all of us ready or almost-ready to think about publishing) was wonderful - every day filled with optional workshops, lectures, seminars. I learned so much about the publishing business - enough to give pause to the most ambitious writer!

Process: First there is the writer - YOU; Then, if you so choose, the "book doctor" (free-lance editors) helps you get you book into shape for pitching to agents (they charge from $60-$125 hour!)

Then there are the agents to whom you "pitch" your book in various required ways (query letter or book proposal, face-to-face in "speed-dating, as at SFO), etc...

Then, IF an agent decides to represent a writer s/he is the one who tries to sell the idea of the book (and the book) to an editor.

Then, IF the editor likes the book s/he tries to sell it to the publisher. Once the book is purchased it takes about 18-24 months to get it to market.

And THEN? Distribution and promotion. 90% of the time it's the author's job to sell it! This means an author should try to have (and "pitch") a "platform" (some agnets and editors want this in the "pitch": a blog, a website, an e-mail list, an "in" to interviews and book reviews, an audience in mind, contacts, etc.

The whole process seems both exciting and daunting!

At the SFO "speed-dating agents" (three minutes each with however many editors you can get to - I stood in line and made it to three in the alloted hour; most writers made it to four), two agents ask me to send them a book proposal and/or sample chapters (somehting which happens at these conferences, but the agent/agency may still not like the book and may turn the writer down, which happens much of the time).

At the "Ask A Pro" (at which nine writers sat at a table with Editors and had 5 minutes each to talk to an Editor, and then got up and stood in line for another table) one editor asked me to send her the whole manuscript without an agent first. So I count the conference a success on any level.

Still, I am having second thoughts - I am not sure the book is in the shape it should be in before I send it anywhere, and I'm not sure I have the time to finish it up to my satisfaction before I go to Korea for three weeks Mar. 3. I am in the process now of thinking and editing and deciding what to do. I don't want to miss these opportunities, but I don't want to blow them either. My advice:

My advice: Memoirists, poetry, and fiction: Have your book done, complete, ready to send before you meet with agents/editors. Nonfiction: Have several chapters completed to attach to book proposals.

Agency websites I found particularly helpful: Larsen-Pomada Agency; Katharine Sands Agency; Ted Weinstein Agency; Nathan Bransford Agency - lots of info about pitching, query letters, book proposals, etc.

querytracker.com is where I am researching agents and keeping track of queries - good site!

Books by Micahel Larsen and Katharine Sands.

Self-publishing: I also learned about, and am highly attracted to, self-publishing on the web. (This would be a start for you, too!) This process is no longer the old "vanity press" method of paying someone to publsih your work with limited distribution. Some authors publish and print a run and then help to sell their own in-hand books. Others "print-on-demand." so that the book is printed when it is sold. The author controls everything! Agents and publishers scour these book sites and when a book has sold 500 or more they might decide to convert these books to publishing house books for wider distribution - an excellent way for a first time author to start. Reputable places work with authors to self-publish - Amazon, for example, sells 25% of the books sold in this country, and have a highly respected self-publishing arm. And iiuniverse, among others.

For $10 + I purchased my domain url - katharineenglish.com (you should go to GoDaddy.com and purchase your own name so no one else gets it), and I am going to learn how to set up a website for my writing.

Hope this information is useful to some of you...