I've never been to a writer's conference and a 1-day sounds like a good way (and affordable) way to get my feet wet. This event is happening in L.A. next May and I wonder if anyone has gone to their previous events. It's being put on by Writing Day Workshops which hosts 1-day workshops on-line and in person across the country. But this is the only conference they seem to hosting. And if anyone knows of any other SoCal conferences they recommend, please let me know. And if there's a better forum to be posting this, please let me know. I searched and couldn't find one.
Writing Day Workshops — Los Angeles — May 2024
- Thread starter MrPinot
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I went this past May for the reasons you identify and loved it. I plan to go again next year.
The Writers Got Talent hour is very, very eye-opening.
If you go, perhaps we can say hey and compare notes afterward.
ETA: It struck me afterward that if you find a conference that any of your 'best fit' agents plan to attend, it might be worth it to try to go to that conference too. In other words, when I'm closer to actually querying I'll probably pore through all the conferences (that's right, damn it, all of them) and find the ones my dream agents are attending.
The Writers Got Talent hour is very, very eye-opening.
If you go, perhaps we can say hey and compare notes afterward.
ETA: It struck me afterward that if you find a conference that any of your 'best fit' agents plan to attend, it might be worth it to try to go to that conference too. In other words, when I'm closer to actually querying I'll probably pore through all the conferences (that's right, damn it, all of them) and find the ones my dream agents are attending.
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That's encouraging to hear! Did you pay extra and do any of the 10 minute Agent Pitch sessions? The idea is equally intimidating and appealing...
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So, on these live-gulp-in-person pitches, are they understanding if the writer, scared out of his mind, is just an eensy bit pickled?
Seriously, just the thought of standing in front of a panel or agent and pitching my book sounds so incredibly terrifying. I guess the more you do the better you are at it, though.
Seriously, just the thought of standing in front of a panel or agent and pitching my book sounds so incredibly terrifying. I guess the more you do the better you are at it, though.
It's a grab bag on both sides. Those insiders who are genuinely nice, those folks are pretty cool. And calming.
Yeah, just do it. It won't kill you.
Yeah, just do it. It won't kill you.
How does it work as far as results? Does the agent tell you right then and there if they have any interest? Or do they take your info and then email you their yay or nay?
Oh, I think it's not uncommon for the agent to say "Query me and mention this conference" and/or "the project sounds great--send a query and attach fifty pages" and similar. Because they are professional. So, they say affirming things.
Be professional. Make a good impression. Do the whole 'getting to know you' thing, you know. Don't be a jerk. Be nice. Find nice people. Have fun. Don't forget to be friendly and supportive of the other writers. Great energy.
And if the agent takes a different approach, a non-professional approach, it might feel yucky but then you know to cross them off your list.
Be professional. Make a good impression. Do the whole 'getting to know you' thing, you know. Don't be a jerk. Be nice. Find nice people. Have fun. Don't forget to be friendly and supportive of the other writers. Great energy.
And if the agent takes a different approach, a non-professional approach, it might feel yucky but then you know to cross them off your list.
So out of curiosity, I looked up the 16 agents that will be available for 10 minutes pitch sessions at the LA Conference for $29.00 a pop. I'd say 4 of them appear to be well-known agents for well-known agencies. In fact, I sent a query to one of them a few weeks ago. But the rest are either not listed on Absolute Write and Query Tracker, or called out as scammers or known to treat writers poorly. And oddly, three of them are actor agencies looking to expand into literary, but seem focused on screenwriters. In other words, buyer beware...
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Yes, the Writing Day Workshops definitely invites some shmagents to hear pitches. It's up to you to do your research and pitch folks who are worth querying.
The LA workshop is in-person. Those tend to have a lot less agents to choose from than the virtual ones. I just did the Chicago one and several of my top choices for my new manuscript were on this list. There were definitely a few questionable ones, but when I looked at the signup sheet they sent out, very few people opted to pitch them.
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I've done several of these pitch sessions. It varies agent-to-agent.
Most of them will listen to your pitch, and if they're interested, they'll ask for a query letter and pages. Usually more than they ask for with a cold query, but not always. 3-5 chapters + synopsis is common.
A few ask for full manuscripts right off the bat.
One just asked me to send the query and nothing else (which I thought was funny because even his cold query format included pages.) But that then turned into a full request so I am not complaining.
Something to keep in mind is that request rates from these things are very high. The more popular agents are listening to twenty or more pitches each day, and I think a lot of them just don't want to have to deal with someone asking for a reason to go with the no, so they say yes to everything. Or nearly everything. They also can't look at sample chapters, so they're having to request based on concept alone.
That's both good and bad. With some agents, pitching them at a conference can result in faster and more feedback on your query than folks normally get. But there are other agents who ghost nearly everything they request from a conference. If you have a premium QT membership, I highly recommend you looking at pitch/in-person query types in the timeline and looking at their response rate to those.
For this most recent conference, I only picked agents who had a good track record of responding to submissions they requested from pitch events.
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So I went to a version of this workshop in Toronto yesterday and here’s my experience and my take:
1. The quality of the talks are only alright. I feel that if you’ve done your homework, you may not learn a lot of new things. It might be more useful to someone who‘s just starting the journey and haven‘t researched much yet? The agent panels are more interesting, and there’s one where they read people’s first pages and tell you where they’d stop. That is eye opening and I highly recommend submitting your first page to get some real insight. (I didn’t, but I will if I ever go again.)
2. Having said that, you do get the feeling that the panel depends on who the agents are. And comments should only be taken as their own individual opinion. As they say, it’s a subjective business.
3. I did a few pitches. Would recommend it too; it’s not as nerve-wrecking as I thought, and it gets better after some practice. I recommend it because a verbal pitch is a good experience to have. You get to look at your query in a different way, and it’s easier to spot where the flow and transitions are wonky as you ”tell” it verbally. I think the priceless part is that in face-to-face pitch you see the real time reaction of the agents and can see where you have gotten them interested/excited, and where you may lose them or have them do a double take. If you pitch more than one, you may even spot consistency in their reactions and that is great feedback to have.
4. As for pitches themselves, all of the agents/editors I spoke to were very nice. And seem genuine. There was one I didn’t really connect with, but I guess that’s ok and it’s also good to know too. I connected really well with the rest and did get full requests out of the pitches, although I will keep my expectations low after seeing some comments above. But I got the invitation to query one who is perpetually closed on QM too so it’s good.
5. Overall, it’s a good experience and definitely not a waste of money or time for a first timer like me. I’m not sure if it’s worth every penny I spent (it’s not exactly cheap after you add in all the pitching cost), and the quality of the talk is not as great as I hoped (also there are a lot of disruptions during the talks as people come and go for pitches. And you will also miss part of the talk if you have to go for your pitch, so it’s like, they don’t expect people to stay for the full talk anyway.)
6. My overall recommendation: know what you want out of it before deciding to go or not, research the agents and don’t sign up blindly, and practice your pitch.
Hope this helps!
1. The quality of the talks are only alright. I feel that if you’ve done your homework, you may not learn a lot of new things. It might be more useful to someone who‘s just starting the journey and haven‘t researched much yet? The agent panels are more interesting, and there’s one where they read people’s first pages and tell you where they’d stop. That is eye opening and I highly recommend submitting your first page to get some real insight. (I didn’t, but I will if I ever go again.)
2. Having said that, you do get the feeling that the panel depends on who the agents are. And comments should only be taken as their own individual opinion. As they say, it’s a subjective business.
3. I did a few pitches. Would recommend it too; it’s not as nerve-wrecking as I thought, and it gets better after some practice. I recommend it because a verbal pitch is a good experience to have. You get to look at your query in a different way, and it’s easier to spot where the flow and transitions are wonky as you ”tell” it verbally. I think the priceless part is that in face-to-face pitch you see the real time reaction of the agents and can see where you have gotten them interested/excited, and where you may lose them or have them do a double take. If you pitch more than one, you may even spot consistency in their reactions and that is great feedback to have.
4. As for pitches themselves, all of the agents/editors I spoke to were very nice. And seem genuine. There was one I didn’t really connect with, but I guess that’s ok and it’s also good to know too. I connected really well with the rest and did get full requests out of the pitches, although I will keep my expectations low after seeing some comments above. But I got the invitation to query one who is perpetually closed on QM too so it’s good.
5. Overall, it’s a good experience and definitely not a waste of money or time for a first timer like me. I’m not sure if it’s worth every penny I spent (it’s not exactly cheap after you add in all the pitching cost), and the quality of the talk is not as great as I hoped (also there are a lot of disruptions during the talks as people come and go for pitches. And you will also miss part of the talk if you have to go for your pitch, so it’s like, they don’t expect people to stay for the full talk anyway.)
6. My overall recommendation: know what you want out of it before deciding to go or not, research the agents and don’t sign up blindly, and practice your pitch.
Hope this helps!