Refreshing Times

This past weekend, I attended the Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc. Conference in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The conference began with a cool skit to open the training sessions for the weekend. This skit included one opposing person reading a script of negative thoughts on the left side of the stage and one positive person on the right side of the stage all near the main narrator (author) . When the negative person reads bad thoughts, the positive person cheers the author on with pom poms and encouraging thoughts. After that, the narrator (author) introduced the weekend sessions by mixing all the instructors and sessions in songs and narration.

​​My first session on Friday I went to was “Taking Out the Mystery of Poetry.” I needed this session since I do not often write poetry. When I authored a poem, I was not sure of all the ins and outs. The instructor mentioned that poetry is an economy of expression for connecting personal to universal connections and personal growth. Poems should be accessible, meaningful, flexible, and emotional. What poetry is not is a dissertation on emotion. Also, using literary devices like metaphor, simile, and imagery is important. One of the websites that the instructor mentioned was:  https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-poetry 
 
I was so excited when I met another author in the poetry session that remembered me as a  previous guest speaker for the Oklahoma Christian Writers. I   received some positive feedback from the author that I did an excellent job as a presenter. I mentioned this was my first author guest speaker opportunity, but I have been on author panels.

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​After this session, I was interviewed by some podcasters asking a little bit about my author’s journey and how I liked the conference. I believe the clip will show up in a future podcast release.
 
Next, I went to work at Basket Wars which is where authors donate a basket of books and swag for an auction . The money from the auction helps with scholarships to the conference. I won a “one day conference” scholarship. The scholarship recipients are required to work at the Basket Wars station.

​I then attended “Improving/Creating Blurbs and Keywords.”  One thing I learned was the blurbs should be no more than 150 words on the back of your cover of your book. Then, I began to think about how my upcoming book cover description should be. So, I have some work to do on getting my next blurb ready for my upcoming book. During the keyword part of the training, the instructor said that the keywords on Amazon are designed to be about 50 words for each keyword. I mentioned to the attendees that sometimes if you put too many words in the keyword blank, it can be too much especially realizing that the reader may not want to put that many search words in the search line on the Internet as long keywords. So, limiting to a couple of words can be better in one keyword blank.
 
A lawyer and publishing company CEO held another session that I attended called, “All the Legal Smeagle Staff Writers Need to know” where discussions were about intellectual property, trademarks, trade secrets, patents, copyright laws, and ISBN’s- 13-digit identifiers for identifying a book and e-book. A question that was answered related to getting a copyright for your book. The question was “How long is a copyright for?” Death plus 70 years. The instructor mentioned that it is not necessary to get copyright from the copyright office, but it is necessary to have the copyright symbol on books you publish to include drafts to protect your work. For more information, go to www.copyright.gov .  Also, it is free to get a Library of Congress Control Number.
 
During the session on “Book Launch Success: Marketing Strategies for a Successful Release,” the instructor asked us to assess our strengths (what we are naturally good at), what is your target audience, and needs for authors such as a website, newsletter, and a launch community.

The night rounded out with the Famous Author’s Banquet. I was recognized for putting out a blog on the Five P’s of a Successful Author (purpose, passion, persistence, patience, and possibilities) , my published book, “Eli’s Shenanigans,”  and two published works in two anthologies called “Flights of Fantasy” (Night-Light! Night-Light poem), and “Visions” (Poor Pluto Story).

On Saturday, I learned about the “Business of Freelance Writing” which discussed keeping track of expenses and income on your business. There are a lot of programs out there for keeping track from printed ledgers to online programs like QuickBooks, Excel, and other similar programs.
 
All the sessions were great but I liked “The Art of Hustling” which really broke down the word “Hustler” as an acronym for Honing (Know your Niche), Unconventional (Think outside the box), Simplifying (Be intentional), Timing (Seize opportunities immediately), Learning (Stay in the know), Engaging (Network, Socialize, and Collaborate), and Recharging (Relax, Reflect, and Reward). I had the most fun with this presentation. The instructor later sent me a Facebook post stating, “Mark, thank you for attending the Art of Hustling ! You’re a natural!”

​Saturday night rounded out with a banquet with some authors dressing up as different characters like superhero’s, gangsters, 40’s and 50’s, and other interesting costumes. After the costume contest, the writing contest winners were announced. There were over 700 entries in 37 categories. I entered three categories but did not win. That is okay. Now, I can prepare for next year’s contest.
 
I am super excited about attending next year!