Here is my final conference post, at least until I find some time to write up the notes I have still have rattling around. In the mean time, friend and client Andy Dickenson (see his blog on the branding session below) has written his thoughts on the conference as a whole. Enjoy...

So then, a conference overview for the self-published and otherwise employed...

For the last few weeks, my wife Sarah and I have been debating the worth of the TV show Cheers.

Whenever we’re flicking through the channels and spot it’s on I immediately vote yes with the remote, regardless of the fact that there’s usually only five minutes of it left. But Sarah has never watched Cheers before, so she finds those five minutes hold little but a slow humour and in-jokes told by characters she doesn’t know, while I just sit there a little embarrassed trying to remember what it was about the show I so loved.

And it dawned on me the other day that a lot of that had to do with missing the opening credits. It’s when you hear the warm fuzzy chords of “Where everybody knows your name...” that you begin to relax into the comfortable charm of Sammy, Norm and the gang. And, if you’ll forgive my rather lame analogy, I’m beginning to feel a little like that about the SCBWI...

Last year was my first “Scooby” conference and I remember the initial discomfort of wondering, “Do I fit in?” My immediate impression, recorded here, was “that you are surrounded by others all chasing the same goal as you, that they're actually your competition”. That can feel inhibiting, but it’s also a show of strength.

So this year I had, controversy of all controversies, my self-published novel, The Last Days, to tout around. But was that really so worrying? Not anymore, it seems. While last year the conference, myself included, seemed a little suspicious of publishing on the Kindle, Kobo, iPad etc, this year it seemed to positively embrace the form – and with a number of lectures and seminars almost purpose built for those starting out on their own publishing adventures.

Of course, that doesn’t mean self-publishing is “all good” and you’ll find its pluses and pitfalls discussed elsewhere here on blogs concerning The State Of The Nation etc. But, for me, to be able to engage in questions such as…

With so many novels being published every hour on, say, the Kindle, how do you attract people to yours?

Without librarians and physical bookshops to filter them properly, who are the gatekeepers of e-Book quality?

And, is the dominance of Amazon forcing traditional publishers and agents to play safer with the products they try to sell?

…indicated both a healthy and effective debate.

The good news is that that conference felt like it was getting to grips with the subject, with lectures on Transmedia, Becoming a Brand and Performing/ Marketing, as well as, if not better than, anyone else.

But, beyond all this, we had fun, we tested each other’s ideas, made each other laugh and, for me, there really was that continuing sense of “community” that Celia Rees referred to in her opening lecture.

I found myself talking with people I was too shy/aloof to wander up to last year. Second time around, an anxious writer hopefully realises there are people within SCBWI he can genuinely share problems and successes with, as well as support – and that they may spread further than the conference walls and into the everyday and cyber worlds outside.

It’s already been noted that after the initial elation of hanging around with like-minded creative types for one weekend a year, that sense of “Yes, it can be done” soon comes to an inevitable crash – perhaps when you get your first rejection letter or you realise your place on the Amazon charts.

But just like Cheers, the conference reminds us that there are friends you can fall back on. Where everybody (well, lots more people now) know your name...

And that’s not just warm and comfortable. It’s also, perhaps, its greatest asset.

You can find Andy's fantastic book, The Last Days, here.