Romancing the Lakes Conference

Mystic Lake Casino proved to be an inviting venue location
for our very first Romancing the Lakes Conference and the chefs put out their
usual fabulous buffet along with appetizing food for the entire conference. Even
though we spent the day inside, the weather outside was picture-perfect as we observed
the golf course through large windows at the Meadows Grill on Saturday evening for dinner.

Nancy Evertz started out the morning by showing us how to create taglines for our fabulous masterpiece
novels so we can pitch them to editors and agents. It’s all about editing a one page story summary down to about thirty to fifty words. And yes, it can be done!       

Our attending editors, Terri Bischoff from Midnight Ink, Denise Meinstad from Fire and Ice the YA division of Melange Books and Jane Bolander from Melange Books offered information on their publishing companies
and answered all our questions about publishing.

Since we were at Mystic Lake Casino, which is owned and run by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, we brought in a speaker to talk about all the changes the Indian tribes have experienced from
the painful 1800’s up to the major success of their casinos today. Elizabeth Poitra, a member of a tribe in northern Minnesota, gave a compelling presentation filled with personal stories.

Our luncheon speaker, Connie Brockway, gave a heartwarming personal
story of her career from her first published book in 1994 to being selected by
Amazon’s Montlake Romance Publishing to author their first book release. The
Other Guys Bride, a historical romance set in turn of the century Egypt was a
story she’d wanted to write for many years and now it had found a home. It was definitely
a journey of highs and lows, but one that brought her to where she is today, a
New York Times and USA Today bestseller author. We were honored to
have Eloisa James, a New York Times bestseller historical romance author, a
Minnesota native and longtime friend of Connie’s join us for lunch. 

After lunch, J. L. Wilson took us on her publishing journey from small publishing houses to self-publishing. She feels it is in her best interest to use all publishing venues available to build readership and fan base.

Laura Breck showed us how to make blogging work by using group blogging. We had hands on experience as we all worked together to create a new unique group blog for our specific niches. Blogging is another
way to build that all important fan readership base.

 If you are interested in self-publishing and marketing, Dari McDonald’s company can direct you to the appropriate people to help you through the process. 

Saturday evening was filled with a chocolate fountain, gift basket auctions, chatting with book cover graphic artist—Christopher Edmond, author headshots taken by Kristy Johnson—a professional photographer, a book signing and an opportunity to pitch your story tag lines to editors. A truly fun evening was had by all!

Sunday saw many tired faces arrive for breakfast, but after coffee and food,
all were ready for the day. Our morning speaker, Lois Greiman, has authored more
than thirty books over the years. Her first book was published in 1992 and she has
over two million books in print. Not bad! But as we all know the Road to Publishing is a long, rocky road
and Lois’ journey wasn’t easy. She shared her ups and downs through the years
from having publishing contracts, back to not having contracts to self-publishing to having contracts again. It’s been a wild journey likened to the Wild, Wild West but through it all she has had her horses to keep her sane.

 Last but not least, Sara Poulos,a professional lawyer, gave us the scoop on copyright laws. I think we all
learned a lot about the legal aspects of writing and how our laws fall prey to different interpretations for each case.

All in all it was an awesome first conference. Hope to see everyone at the next one!