San Diego Writers Festival Wraps Up With A Focus On Getting Published

Speaker 1: 00:00 Writing is such a powerful thing to do. It can change your space, take you deeper, help you connect with yourself. The San Diego writers festival is bringing writers together to talk about storytelling of all sorts. It's the second year they've done this last year. Thousands of writers showed up to the first festival at the San Diego library, downtown creating a great sense of inspiration and community. This year. It's different, it's online, but it's just as inspirational. And the upside is that. Even if you miss the early sessions, you can go back and watch them joining me as the founder of the San Diego writers festival. Marty Friedman. Thanks for being here. Speaker 2: 00:37 Thank you for having me Speaker 1: 00:39 And at least Capron who works with San Diego's premier literary agency, the Sandy Dykstra agency, which describes itself as the premier agency for authors to find and sell books that make a difference. Thank you for having me now. The writer's festival has taken place over four Saturdays and the final Saturday is this coming weekend. So what is the focus of this coming session? Speaker 2: 01:00 Um, the focus of this session, I'm really excited about this one is publishing and platform building, um, my co founder, uh, Jennifer Thompson, shout out to her. She's awesome. She's going to be doing a really cool session on author branding, um, and platform building the most amazing agent. I know at least prawns, she's going to be doing two sessions. So one is I'm avoiding the slush pile. People love that one. And if you're wondering what an agent does or you're wondering what an agent, you know, um, how to not end up in the circular file, as they say the garbage, and then we're going to be doing publishing one Oh one. What every author needs to know about publicity, we're doing an agent pitch Fest, um, at this moment that you're hearing it. You can still sign up to be on the wait list. There all the spots are filled up, but in case there are some people that drop out. You might want to put your name on the wait list. What is a pitch Fest? Every author gets seven minutes. So you have to summarize your book and why it's something that the agent should pick up in like three to four minutes. So this time we're going to be doing it through zoom sessions and breakout sessions. So the public itself won't get to see the pitch sessions. Um, cause I think that the writers would be too nervous, but people are signed up beforehand and then they get to pitch three different San Diego agents. Speaker 1: 02:26 It's quite an opportunity for a budding writer. Now, at least you were working with authors who want to get published. Are San Diego authors getting published much these days? Speaker 2: 02:35 Oh, certainly. I mean, why we'll say as an agency, we work with writers all around the world, not just in California or San Diego, but, um, but absolutely. I mean, there are one thing that's nice is that even, you know, during the pandemic, when we're all stuck at home, we need entertainment. We need books to read. And so very, very fortunately book publishing has remained. Um, you know, if you hookups at first when all the shutdown was happening, but overall has remained a pretty vibrant industry. Um, and it's the time to really focus on if you have the mental energy to do it, really focus on writing as healing and working on projects, if you can. And you know, using this time to maybe come out with a marketable project at the end of all this a lot of time in front of our computers right now. Speaker 1: 03:23 Yes. So this weekend, you're going to be talking about how to avoid that dreaded slush pile, you know, the pile of rejects or literary agency, how many books a week do you get pitched and how many actually make it? Speaker 2: 03:34 Yeah, great question. Um, yeah, so most agents and of course us included are getting hundreds of queries every single week, and those are hundreds of unsolicited queries. So one of the best things any writer can do is to learn how to make some direct connections with whichever agent they are approaching and learn how to bypass that, you know, dreaded slush cycle. Um, because it is tough. Publishing is a difficult, difficult business. It's hard to really figure out the tricks of the trade and to learn how to make those valuable connections and get to the next step. So everything that I'll be talking about and the focus of really everything that Marnie has organized on Saturday will be about understanding the landscape of this industry that all the writers want to be a part of. Speaker 1: 04:27 And what are you looking for when you read a manuscript at least? Speaker 2: 04:31 Oh my goodness. Um, so I mean, of course it depends on what any particular agent is specifically focused on, but I'm looking for stories I have never heard before. And I'm looking for voices that feel fresh and new. And I think that's probably a key question that any writer should ask him or herself is what is your perspective or approach contributing to that? No one else is quite doing. What is truly new about your work? Does it make a difference Speaker 1: 05:03 How willing an author is to work with you to make those painful changes that you know, will be needed to get a book published? Speaker 2: 05:09 Absolutely. We are looking for a partnership with an author. We are hoping to have a team player who can be, we can go on this publishing journey together for hopefully many years and many books to come. We look to develop careers and long lasting relationships. So yes it is vitally important. Not that an author just listened to everything we say, but that we can communicate clearly with each other and be on the same page about the priorities for, for a particular book project and get to a finish line where it really works well on all levels. Speaker 1: 05:44 Hmm. And are you expecting that this pandemic quarantine will produce any good books? So you're getting somewhere. Speaker 2: 05:50 I was a little bit worried when the pandemic started about everybody's mental space and things just getting very slowed down and they were for a while at the beginning. Um, but now we are seeing that lots of exciting stuff is happening. There's also a wonderful sense of inclusivity right now, more than ever in publishing, which Marnie has been a huge part of what this festival as well is making it accessible and inclusive for all types of writers and all types of people. And I think that is, we're seeing that in the industry as a whole right now. So this is a great time for all voices and all types of writers and human beings. And I really love that. Speaker 1: 06:30 Marnie, you are also a great motivator of writers in this time. Right Speaker 2: 06:35 Now, my, my specific, uh, passion is community. Cause I know so many people are struggling and, and the writing to heal. I think, um, you know, it, it's been such a healing force in my life and I've watched it, I'm a memoir teacher. And so that I didn't expect it to have such a healing, um, impact on the writers that I work with. So that's my big passion right now. Speaker 1: 07:00 Can you give us a couple of ideas that you've learned about why writing is so healing, Speaker 2: 07:06 Expressive writing has finally been studied and been over 300 research studies to show it that it's effective. And I think one of the first reason why it's so effective is we walk around all day and we, we deny our feelings and we put on a mask and we say, everything's okay. And we just, you know, buck up and keep going and expressive writing can really help you tap into this is how I feel. And it's okay that I feel this way to not approach it with any shame or blame, uh, to accept where you're at and doing that actually allows you to move through it to a more creative place. Um, so that's just one, you know, really simple secret. If you can do it at least four days a week, um, they recommend 20 minutes, but you can do two minutes, three minutes and just write, you know, today, I feel you don't have to moderate or pretend you just get to say how you truly feel. Speaker 1: 08:06 That's how it's helping the individuals you were talking earlier about community. Do you have a sense of how San Diego is growing as a writing community? Speaker 2: 08:14 I feel it's really growing right now, also the kids, right? But I'm so blown away by what's happening with kids, right. You know, so much is going on in our world right now. And kids are really wanting to have a voice. And so we started the kids, right contest. And just watching that start to blossom. We've been shocked at how much people are craving this community and wanting it to grow. So if anyone that is hearing this that doesn't know about us, please join us on Saturday. We'll hopefully walk away feeling inspired and you'll have more tools in your tool belt. Speaker 1: 08:50 And for people who want to go back and perhaps watch one of the sessions that have already happened. Do you any tips about ones that might be particularly relevant for, for new writers? Speaker 2: 09:00 So the screenwriting panels people are really interested in, but go back and look at all the, the offerings of John Vorhaus spoke about how to have a creative process, especially when you are under stress, how to connect to your creative process. Speaker 1: 09:16 Okay. And this Saturday, the session starts at 10 o'clock and runs till after six o'clock. All you have to do is go to San Diego writers, festival.com and sign up and it's free, right free 100% Marni Freedman the founder of the San Diego writers festival. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. We really appreciate it. And at least Capron from the Sandy Dykstra agency. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.