A couple weekends ago I participated in the annual Bay to Ocean Writers Conference, hosted in conjunction with the Eastern Shore Writers Association. This year I did something new and exciting—the BTO coordinators tried out sessions to facilitate networking for authors, and I hosted one. As with any other endeavor, publishing and promoting a book is much easier when you have a supportive network eager to help you succeed. With the right partners in place, you can get your work in front of exponentially more eyeballs, earn endorsements, increase sales, and find yet more opportunities for positive exposure. The participants learned some tips on how to network productively with book promotion in mind, and worked the room to start forging these powerful, mutually beneficial relationships. I called it “Finding and Working with Power Partners to Promote Your Book.”

I also presented during a more traditional session: I did “Polishing Your Work for Publication,” one of my most popular talks full of great tips and techniques for writers at all experience levels. This talk introduced the most common problems that plague written works and offer simple ways to identify and resolve them in your own manuscript. Participants received tips on improving their work to keep readers’ attention, polishing their manuscript at the technical level, and getting objective feedback before they submit or go to press.

In addition to these public sessions, I also did a few private one-on-one sessions with authors who signed up in advance. It’s always a joy to “talk shop” with fellow writers and dig into their work to see how they can improve and better share their stories.

Thanks for the extra materials and the excellent presentation. I attend these types of conferences to pick-up ‘nuggets’ – bits of information that I didn’t already know, a handy tip, a good website referral, etc as well as to hopefully meet a few new people that I’d like to keep in touch with as my writing career develops. You have provided both. Thank you. – Larry Garnett, Author & Illustrator/Artist

The conference was sponsored by the Eastern Shore Writers Association, a nonprofit organization of writers from across the tri-state Delmarva Peninsula and happened last March 12, 2016 at the Kent Humanities Building, Chesapeake College Intersection of Rt. 50 & 213, Wye Mills, Maryland. For more info about upcoming events, please visit the Bay to Ocean conference website.