Where I was, what I was doing, Part Two.

Due to jet lag, I got a late start on the conference on Wednesday, the 29th. Fortunately, I was able to get up and get going in time for the PRO Retreat.

In RWA, there are various sub-groups aimed towards serving the needs of every member. The PRO subgroup is aimed at people who have finished a manuscript and sent it to an agent or editor. (If you get accepted, then you move into the Published Author Network group, but I'm not there yet.)

The PRO retreat ran from 2:00 to 5:30 and was packed full of things to help unpublished authors reach their goals.

The Keynote speaker was Carolyn Pittis, the Senior Vice-President for Global Marketing Strategy and Operations at HarperCollins. Carolyn is a supergenius who understands her field better than anyone I've heard speak on the changing environments of publishing and creating. I take notes very quickly (all those years in graduate school come in handy for something!), but even I could hardly keep up with her insightful analysis.

If anyone who was at the retreat wants to chime in on anything I missed, please feel free!

I've been hearing about "The Digital Revolution" since I was in Library School back in 1996. In these last six months, the revolution come into fruition faster than it was in the last 15 years. Since Christmas 2010, the new players in publishing - Apple, Google, Amazon - and in retail - CES reported over one hundred  new electronic devices in the past year- caused the biggest jump ever in the purchase of e-books.

J.K. Rowling has left traditional publishing to go completely to online sales. On the other hand, Amanda Hocking, one of the most successful e-writers ever, has joined a traditional, paper-based publisher in order to get her books into Wal-mart and other brick and mortar shops.

The rise of new tech, the increase of data, and the wider demand of consumer choices has created an atmosphere that allows writers to chose paths they never would have thought of. No longer is the NYT or the USAToday bestseller lists the only choices in the path to success.

Authors deciding to publish their books have to ask themselves some key questions:

1. Money: What is my break-even number? How much money do I have to make as a writer in order to write comfortably?

2. Marketing: Do I have to have marketing reach on my own? How much do I need? And (here's the big one), how much do I like marketing?

3. Collaboration: Contrary to the myth of the solitary writer, writing and publishing is an act of collaboration. How much do you need to control your work? How well do you take feedback? Can you handle someone  telling what you need to do to make your work more market friendly?

4. Author Equity: How much do others like your work? What might I do to increase my work's popularity?

Next time, I'll be talking about what authors need to focus on in today's market.