Sharley, I think the title of that workshop tells you all you need to know.

I guess the conference title does seem that way, but the book doctor sessions are with creative writing tutors and authors, rather than self-publishing experts/agents, etc. A friend went last year and found it very helpful in terms of progressing her novel (which is incomplete).

The afternoon session is publishing-oriented, but the morning session looks quite good with workshops on:
(1A) increasing the emotional effects of your plot by yoking it to both sub-plot and the relationships of your characters, or (1B) one on Showing and Telling, and how to use both to make your storytelling in fiction and non-fiction more vivid and compelling than ever.
(2A) improving your prose style through understanding structure and the important roles of different parts of speech, or (2B) a workshop on mastering the basics of Point-of-View, and how to use decisions about P-O-V to control and bind together the other elements of your work (e.g. characterisation, description and plotting) 
(3A) the importance of concept. At this clinic, we'll tell you if your concept hangs together - and if not, how to fix it. Or, (3B) a class on how to create convincing and engaging characters. We’ll be teaching you techniques to ensure you know your characters both inside and out, and how to bring them alive as characters-in-action.

I'm not selling it, btw, as I shan't be attending. 

The good thing is that with all the different conferences, there must be something to meet a writer's needs at one of them. 

 

I went to the 'Getting Published' conference in 2012, and I really enjoyed it - I didn't go for the whole weekend, as it was quite expensive and I had travel costs to factor in (from Inverness!) , but I attended workshops and agent one-to-ones and was very satisfied with the whole experience. It just felt very professional, and I thought there was a lot of excellent advice on offer from a broad spectrum of people - and self-publishing was definitely not ignored.

What I would say is that there seemed to be quite a few 'old hands', which I personally found a bit strange.  If you're coming to one of these events with an open mind, there's no doubt that you'll learn a lot.  I did.  So why do people feel the need to be a regular attender?  Go, learn, put into practice.  And then send out your stuff.  Unless it's seen as a networking event, of course (which I am useless at and would hate).  If I hadn't found an agent, I don't think I'd have carried on attending events myself, though.
 

What I would say is that there seemed to be quite a few 'old hands', which I personally found a bit strange. 

Yes, I always find it odd when people go to the same event (or even the same kind of event) over and over again - I know a few people who do York, or Winchester, every time, which is a lot of money. Obviously, the workshops are varied year to year (though there are always the hardy perennials that loads of people want), and so are the agents and so on, but it still surprises me. And if you're only coming for the chance of one-to-ones with an agent, it's a very expensive game.

(Mind you, when I did the Swanwick Writers week there were people who'd been coming for years and years and no longer bothered with the writing at all. But I think that's unusual. And such a contrast from the driven, industry-orientedness of, say, York, it was quite funny.)

I do think it's quite easy to become a course junkie, (as some become how-to-write-book junkies.) While you're still doing courses and finding mentors, you're saying to yourself and others, "I'm still learning. I'm not there yet and I know it." Obviously courses and mentors and stuff can be very good things to have, but they're also a way of postponing the moment of truth.

So when someone goes on and on turning up to the same kind of event or course, I think sometimes they're really fending off the moment when they'll have to nail their colours to the mast and say "I'm as there as I'll ever be. This is my best." That's a frightening thing to do. It's a parallel situation to some of  the aspiring writers who go on and on revising their novel for ten years without sending it out, nor writing anything else.
Edited by EmmaD at 22:35:00 on 02 February 2014

Obviously the pitch and/or opening pages would have to be pretty polished but, as I'm just embarking on my fourth novel, I'd find feedback on the overall sellability of my plot quite useful.

I know plenty of people who've done this. I think it depends whether you're a writer who finds feedback at this stage useful, or disconcerting.

Book Doctors should be useful, though the conversation inevitably a bit more developmental, as we keep having to say, "I don't if if you were planning to ... but..."

Agents I think will vary from the fantastically useful to friendly and fairly helpful to the not-really-useful-at-all, if they decided fairly quickly that it's not for them.

But y'never know; if they like the idea and there isn't much of it written, it might up the chances of them saying, "Well, I'm not sure but I'd be happy to see it when it's finished." Agents are gamblers: they may have to be horribly narrow-minded with the market in the state it's in, but they can never resist the fear that The One might get away.

Plus, you could look at how long the sessions are. If it's 15 minutes, it's is actually quite a long time: I'm always startled how much I can say and hear and respond to, in that time. Actually, ten minutes is always longer than I expect. It's just as well that the ones I've done have had Obergruppenfuhrer Susan Franklin with her clanging bell to keep everyone in order and make the sessions run to time!

I've done York twice - once at the end of my first draft, which was helpful from the point of view of general feedback which gave me the confidence to keep going.  I got a lot out of the workshops, and just from spending time talking to people.

I went a second time, as a fairly last-minute decision, but with a final draft and a bit more of a clear idea of what I wanted to get out of the weekend, and I finished up with an agent.

I'm not sure what the "success rate" is like for York and Winchester, in terms of people being offered representation, but it worked for me, so I'm glad I chanced the second attendance.

I would actually quite like to go again at some point in the future, just because the workshops are great and it's a fun weekend, but it would be a bit of an indulgence at this stage!

Yes, it's by no means only the "trying to find an agent/publisher" stage which the conferences can be good for.

I still remember the feeling, approximately a hundred years ago, of going to a "Book Day" organised by one of the women's glossies when I was first writing (I think it was She, which dates it!) and of course there were lots of aspiring writers there. I had such a strong sense of there being a whole industry resting on what I could do. Not that I was doing it well enough yet, but that there was a road already there, for me to walk down. It was probably as energising as anything else I've done.

Goodness knows what going to the real Writers Conference kind of thing would have been like for me thn, but I don't think they existed, or if they did, I didn't know about them.

Hmm (stolen from Astrea). 

I applied to the London Author Fair on the morning bookings opened (in fact within two hours of the bookings opening). However, I've just received the information on the agent I will be 'pitching' to and it has ignored my choice completely. In fact, I'm unsure of the relevance of the agent chosen.

I've never had this issue before, especially being an early bird in terms of bookings and I don't think it bodes well for the organisation as a whole. Every other conference I have attended has taken my choices into account (or else, why request them?). It would be interesting to see if any other WW member has signed up and been allocated their choice. Or not.

That sounds completely bonkers. Either their system doesn't work properly, or they think all agents are the same and it doesn't matter. They ought to give you a refund...

I agree. Unfortunately they have changed their website to reflect the policy of choosing a time and not the agent. I am positive this was not stated when I signed up, especially as I tend to follow instructions to the letter for this sort of thing, checking and double-checking before pressing send.

I went off and checked out each agent and read the agent submission preferences on their websites, etc. before making my choice. I also made sure I sent in my choice within two hours of being able to do so.

I would never have signed up for this knowingly. It's clear the website has been amended to reflect either their new stance (which I am erring towards) or to clarify a previous unobvious stance, but I can't prove it. I shall, however, ask for a refund.

Ah, just had another email from them:
 

We had always asked for preferred time, as we knew we wouldn't be able to accommodate agent requests. We elaborated shortly after slots opened.

 

So it is quite likely that I booked before they elaborated.

 

Ooh, I signed up within one hour and two minutes of the slots opening. Methinks I def beat them to making their changes. They've offered to revoke my one-to-one and give it to someone else. I wonder if they will be so keen to do so with my money.

Edited by Sharley at 19:01:00 on 06 February 2014

Quite apart from you, as a customer, if I were an agent I'd be pretty fed up to think that the system was feeding me writers who having chosen me, but only the fact that they want a slot at 10.40. A waste of both parties' time, and makes the idea of "doing your research" a complete nonsense.

Mind you, judging by the line up, I don't think they're necessarily interested in making the traditional links with agents and mainstream publishers - it looks as if a lot of the focus is on self-publishing.

I agree about your point about the agents. Why would they want me to 'pitch' to them if I don't think they are relevant for my work/my aims? The agent they allocated to me was interested in adult/children's fiction but that's a very broad remit. I wanted someone who had more specific requirements, so I knew that person was particularly interested in my genre.

I also agree that it's strange having agent pitches, yet many of the workshops on self-publishing. However, there were a few workshops I thought would be quite interesting (and I was meeting a friend!).

I have to say that after emailing a few times today, I have received an email agreeing to refund my monies if this is what I want to do. 

Although I wasn't going for the pitch alone, I do feel that this was one of the factors that swayed me into trying out this conference, so I will bow out of this one.



 

Oh, sorry you've had such a hassle, Sharley,  but good you got your refund thanks for letting us all know.

I think it depends whether you're a writer who finds feedback at this stage useful, or disconcerting

 I suppose I want someone to tell me whether an idea is worth pursuing or not, although I recognise it might not be possible to tell until the novel has been worked on. But I feel that many of my ideas are quite wacky,  in a way that often people don't get it, but also in a way not wacky enough so that people sit up and take notice. Has anyone else been in this position of  feeling it's time to start over again but anxious you are writing something – however good it is – people might not want to read?

Not sure about wacky in general, Anne, but last year at the Winchester Conference I spoke to a novelist and creative writing tutor who advised that my idea to change from first to third in one timeline, while doing the opposite in the other timeline, might put off potential commercial publishers. My idea was to show someone becoming move removed from themself in one timeline, while they came 'alive' in the other.

I took on board this advice, as I want to be published and this was just an idea.

Following my posting of the workshops at Getting Published and my refund from the London Author Fair, I am now poorer and attending the former.