Saturday Breakouts One

Saturday Breakouts Session One (Choice of one from four)

1. Dealing with Author Overwhelm in the Digital Age (SPA Girls)

Feeling overwhelmed? Panicked? Like you don’t have enough time in the day to do everything you need to do? Don’t worry, author overwhelm is a common and not-so-surprising side-effect of the Indie lifestyle. Join the SPA Girls for an informative, honest and often hilarious look inside our publishing lives, and learn tips and techniques for creating focus and setting the right kind of goals for you and your writing career so that you can stop feeling panicked and get back to writing.

Speaker Bio: SPA Girls
The SPA Girls (SPA = Self Publishing Authors) is the code name for four Indie authors who are trekking together through the brave new frontiers of self publishing. Trudi Jaye, Wendy Vella,  Shar Barratt, and Cheryl Phipps run a weekly podcast talking about self publishing best practice (www.spagirlspodcast.com), where we interview guests, talk about our own successes and failures in the self publishing world, give tips and advice based on what we’ve learned, and generally try to help people just starting out on the self publishing journey. We’re keen to help other authors take the first step on this exciting and rewarding self-publishing adventure!

2. How to Inject Emotional Punch Through Pacing

In key scenes where plot and story are established, where tension builds or romance blossoms, we as authors need to focus on choosing the appropriate pacing to bring emotional punch, to ensure our characters feel every skerrick of emotion, draw out every ounce of tension, and make our readers enthralled.

This workshop will help you dissect emotional beats to determine appropriate pacing and focus on how to draw out the tension between your protagonists. Finding the right balance, slowing things down to focus on the minutiae or ratcheting things up to a knife’s edge, will not only enhance your writing but will have your readers begging for more.

Speaker Bio: Cassandra Dean and Lucy Clark

Cassandra Dean is an international, best-selling author in a variety of genres, including historical romance and erotic romance. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Communication Studies & Professional Writing) and is an Editor with Decadent Publishing. Cassandra has presented workshops at various State, National and International conferences and lectures regularly at the SA Writers’ Centre and was a finalist in the coveted R*BY award in 2016.

Lucy Clark is an international, multi-published author of over 65 romance novels. She has over 20 years industry experience and holds a Master of Arts (Writing & Literature). Lucy tutors in English at university and will commence her Ph.D. in 2017. Lucy has conducted workshops and tutorials at State, National and International levels, has finalled multiple times in writing competitions and was awarded the coveted R*BY award in 2014.

3. Getting Out of the Slush Pile.

Manuscripts in the slush pile do eventually get read, but most get rejected. Anne Gracie will share some real editor feedback on a variety of submissions, and outline some ways you can maximise your chances of getting out of the slush pile—in a good way.

Speaker Bio: Anne Gracie

Australian Anne Gracie started her first novel writing by hand in notebooks while backpacking solo around the world. Hooked on Georgette Heyer from the age of eleven, Regency-era historical romance was a natural choice. Now a best-selling, multi award-winning author, Anne has written more than twenty books, which have been translated into more than eighteen languages, including Japanese manga editions (which she thinks is very cool.)

4. The Hidden Traps of a Writers On-line Platform

There are so many different elements that can go into forming an on-line platform, but there are many traps that writers are not aware of. Are your cross-platform posts missing the text? Are you missing the photos? Were you hit with charges you never expected when you had setup that website? Are you leaking your personal contact details across the web without even knowing it? Have you inadvertently given out your personal profile on Facebook?

In this session, you’ll learn about many of the hidden traps of building an on-line writer’s platform and how to avoid them. Learn about the real costs of a custom domain and how to protect your private contact information. Learn about the differences between a Facebook profile and a Facebook page and how to avoid those annoying “Friends Request.” Learn how to cross-post across different social media sites without looking like a dweeb who can’t complete a sentence. At the end of the day, it’s about protecting yourself and your reputation.

Speaker Bio: Judy L. Mohr

Kiwi Judy L Mohr is a writer of fantasy and science fiction with strong thriller roots. She is also a freelance editor with Black Wolf Editorial Services, working on projects from writers around the world. When she isn’t writing, editing or doing something for writing within the local community, she is hosting her own radio show about science, Conversations in Science, on KLRN Radio. Whether it is through her editorial work, the science show, or her other activities, one thing is clear: she loves sharing her knowledge and imagination with the world.