Hi, Francis. My name is Beth and I was in a different NYC pitch group a few years ago. My novel is now scheduled for publication by St. Martins in late 2014. I credit the NYC for helping me achieve this goal in one of several ways, but it was not the only thing that pushed me forward, of course. I can also credit my college English professor, among others.
If I might ask. How did the conference help you land the deal? By getting you in front of an editor? If your novel could stand on its own (and it obviously did, congratulations), you could have gotten it published with a query to a publishing house or to an agent.
There are many others who frequent absolute write that can point out the error of your thinking.
There tends to be a flurry of activity whenever someone posts a negative comment. I was called a sock puppet 3 years ago when I was asked by someone to defend the conference with my positive views, which is what got me to find absolute write. I was a sock puppet then, but I soon learned more from frequenting absolute write and discussing things with the moderators and frequenters.
I was going to share my thoughts and make it clear that you don't speak for those who had a very different experience from you...
Likewise, you don't speak for everyone who enjoyed the conference either. Just saying'
I would refer people to my other comments both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE regarding the NYC conference without repeating myself.
You can't tell the world emphatically that the NYC pitch won't help them get published or provide useful knowledge about the publising world. That is a false statement. I'm not saying you are trying to lie for the sake of others on AW, just that your statement, based on my experience, is false.
You are correct. I don't think I ever talk in absolutes. I am an engineer by trade and tend to couch my words much more than that. But what I can tell you is that I have met at least one person who thinks a book is sold on a pitch and that he must return to the NYC pitch and shop to try to sell his books, rather than sending out querys.
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And one last thing--this silly criticism re "writing a check" ... well, I wrote a check for other conferences too. I had to pay for it. So what?
The fact that I wrote a check doesn't mean there isn't a screening process. The fact that you apparently feel you should never have been accepted is a Woody Allen effect, isn't it? What kind of conference can it be if it accepts a bad writer like you? That seems to be the argument you are making.
And your crit here re writing: "What it didn't do was teach me anything about writing ..."
I had writers in my group, good ones, who were there to learn about their novel and the business. They weren't there to workshop their actual prose. That isn't what this conference is about and it's not advertised that way. You know that. Complaining you didn't get taught anything about your writing? Well, you might as well you didn't learn anything about book store stocking. If you were a bad writer and learned nothing that helped you with your grammar, for example, that wasn't the fault of the NYC pitch.
You don't speak for me, Francis Bruno, or for anyone else I know who had a great experience.
I never claimed to speak for anyone but myself. If I did, let me know where and I'll correct. As for writing a check, my concern is that the NYC P&S conference I attended had one session on writing a pitch. This was moderately useful, but it was more a group setting with not a lot of input from the moderator. The rest was all pitching to publishers.
I wrote checks to the following:
Viable Paradise
Uncle Orson's
David Farland's Short story master class
Superstars writing seminars.
NYC P&S
Superstars is the business of writing, so they assume you can write and do not have an admissions process. The others (except the P&S) all do. The others (except the P&S) also gauge your level of writing so that you can join invite only forums such as codex.
The only one where I applied and I was accepted regardless of the quality of writing is NYC P&S. I can't say my application was never read, but I suspect it wasn't. Here's why:
My pitch was skewered. I was told it wasn't publishable and I needed a new idea asap. Then they moved on to the next person. No help given to fix. no ideas tossed around, nothing. I wasn't the only one, either.
The conference new my pitch prior to going in. They could have written me back something like: good baseline idea, but it needs reworking. Or maybe: you're not ready yet, please try again next time. Instead, I was put under tremendous pressure to the point I considered giving up and going home. It might have destroyed my aspirations had I not been strong enough.
Instead I pushed through the night and proved to myself I could come up with a good idea under pressure. In fact two good ideas.
Good luck with your werewolf novel.
Thanks, however, it's pretty much trunked. I have been doing mostly short stories and with my PhD program haven't had much time to write. I'm just curious if you picked this up from my posts or was told what I pitched at the conference?
Good luck with your novel.