#33 - Conversations from the Northern Colorado Writers Conference

This episode, recorded in collaboration with the Northern Colorado Writers Conference, opens in a conversation with Rich Keller, Assistant Director and Electronics Media Manager of Northern Colorado Writers, as well as an author, editor and the publisher of Wooden Pants Publishing. Rich talks about:

• the use of humor in his writing and publishing and how specific humor can be for different audiences
• the "Wooden Pants Readings" programming being used to help build this up
• how Rich has learned more in the past three months than he did the entire other year
• the difference between IngramSpark and CreateSpace and how Rich has been using each for print books
• use of Embedded Fonts and TrueType Fonts in a print/POD file
• the five year plan that Rich has set up to be doing writing and publishing full time and the importance of time and patience

The second part of this podcast features a panel conversation between Kelly Baugh, Carrie Visintainer and Mark Leslie (aka KWL Director Mark Lefebvre, with his author hat on)

Kelly Baugh, author of the new novel Miss You Once Again (Hot Chocolate Press) mentions:

• The inspiration for Kelly's book that came through her grandmother
• How Kelly had joined a write's group, spend a lot of time listening, and then attended the NCWC and started pitching the book idea
• How Hot Chocolate Press picked up the book unexpectedly after Kelly had given up on it
• The cookbook that this book inspired; particularly the manner by which Kelly's publisher kick-started the idea
• How Kelly could have written a whole cookbook on desserts alone as part of this project

Carrie Visintainer, author of the upcoming book Wild Mama (Thought Catalog Books) discusses:

• How her writer's group helped Carrie decided to combine her travel essays into a book about traveling with children
• How, when the book was finished, instead of feeling excited, she felt like she wanted to puke due to the next steps involved
• How the business plan or book proposal was as important as the manuscript itself
• The manner by which her agent made the manuscript into a much better book
• How closing one door can often open several other doors

Mark Leslie talks about:

• How embracing both traditional publishing and self-publishing has, essentially doubled his writing income
• Remembering that publishing is a business and that some books don't make economic sense for a publisher to produce; but that doesn't mean it won't make economic sense to self-publish
• How publishers and agents are constantly scanning the bestseller lists for self-published titles in the same way that they read from the slush pile

At the end of the conversations, KWL Director Mark Lefebvre talks about how a fantastic book meant for traditional publishing can be applied in the new world of DIY publishing and spotlights Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages. LINKS Northern Colorado Writers

NCW Podcast - Episode #7 (Featuring Mark Lefebvre from Kobo)

NCW Podcast - Episode #9 (Authors Panel)

Wooden Pants Publishing

Hot Chocolate Press

Ingram Spark

Old Firehouse Books (local Fort Collins bookstore)