I just got back from the world’s largest indie author conference, Author Nation, in Vegas. My hope was to meet other authors like me and to get inspired to do more book promotion — a task I hate and procrastinate on…badly. I’ve been a published author since 2023, but this was my first writing conference. It really paid off for me! I met amazing authors, got tips for every part of my author business, and just plain had a lot of fun. Throughout the event, I noticed a few themes emerging from the various conference talks I went to. So, if you’re an author that didn’t make it, here are the messages I got loud and clear from the conference this year.
AI Is Changing How We Work But Not Necessarily How We Write
Joana Penn, my favorite writing podcaster, was at the conference and gave an amazing talk called Creative Partnership — Embracing AI to Amplify Your Writing and Author Business. It started out with 21 ideas for using AI for your author business. She included prompt examples for how to do research for your next book, create book cover images, book trailers, sales descriptions, AI translations, and many more ideas for creatively harnessing the power of AI. What she didn’t include was how to write your book with AI.
Most (but not all!) authors are skeptical about using AI with their actual writing. There’s something important, we think, about knowing a human is behind the art we’re consuming. While I did meet several authors who are busy churning out AI-assisted work (primarily, it seems, in the romance genre), most are simply using it to make the tasks they hate (promotion, sales, etc) much, much easier.
AI was embedded into the very fabric of most of the talks I attended. Whether speakers were talking about building community on YouTube or hiring people to scale an author business — everyone is using AI in some way. Stuart Grant gave a great talk about Website SEO (search engine optimization) and GEO (generative engine optimization). He shared tips on how to animate your cover and make it pop on your website. Donovan Scherer stressed the importance of creating a stand-out selling sheet when visiting your local bookshops to get your books shelved. AI can help with that.
What message did I walk away with regarding AI this year? Use it, or risk becoming irrelevant because you won’t be able to keep up without it. That makes sense to me!
When It Comes to Marketing, You Don’t Have To Do Everything
I cannot tell you how much I appreciated Becca Syme’s talk entitled, Marketing for Introverts. One of the most stressful things about having a book is knowing that I should be marketing it, but feeling like I don’t have the time to do all the things. Well, no one does. Becca has been a coach for over 6000 authors and she knows a thing or two about how to help us be successful.
Becca did an amazing job of introducing a framework for prioritizing your marketing efforts — one that takes into consideration what you like doing, what you’re good at, and what’s working for your genre. I loved it so much. She basically gave us permission to stop doing the things we hate (hello, TikTok!) and to keep our marketing efforts down to the few things that may actually bring us energy and that work. Bravo on this one. This was exactly the message I needed to hear at this conference!
Specifically, she said start with 1-3 things that you’ve prioritized and when you’re ready, you can add more. If you decide to do more than one, stack rank them so you know what’s more important. No need to overwhelm yourself with marketing activities. The most important thing to do is to keep writing.
I’ll also mention that it seems a lot of authors hate social media and in particular TikTok. I met plenty of successful authors who have completely avoided TikTok (and other socials) while they focus on other things (speaking engagements, YouTube, ads, new books, etc). That’s a path I can get behind!
Constraints Are Helpful
The opening keynote speaker was Drew Davis, who gave a talk called The Cube of Creativity. It was a hilarious and excellent talk about what kinds of constraints you should impose on your project to really knock it out of the park. After all, it’s easier to be creative when you have a specific “box” to work inside of. His suggestions made a lot of sense:
- Eliminate the unnecessary
- Define the outcome
- Limit the options
- Raise the stakes
If you couple that with purpose and buy-in, you’ll have yourself a great framework to get big projects done quickly. It was a very inspiring talk, but also a great reminder “that we all need to acknowledge — even create some constraints to be more successful “think inside the box”, so to speak. After all, projects grow to fill the space they’re given, don’t they?
Since he was the opening keynote, many talks echoed his sentiment and called out the constraints they were suggesting.
Be Yourself
In a world of AI, the only thing that’s going to set your project apart is the humanity you bring to it. We heard this at a panel discussion about long-term indie author careers and we heard this from James Patterson, who was the closing keynote speaker. None of the most successful authors at the conference followed in another author’s footprints exactly. 100% of them followed a path that can only be described as “doing what they liked”, which often included hopping genres and doing side projects that they found fulfilling.
Johnny B Truant has never done any social media marketing. Joana Penn has books in several genres, two distinct pen names, and is now getting a master’s degree in, basically, death. James Patterson wrote a book, worked at an ad agency, and went 20-some years before writing another successful book. He didn’t hate the ad agency. In fact, the skills he learned helped him market his own books later. From creative Kickstarter campaigns to thrilling movie trailers made by AI, the best advice our successful author friends had was to be yourself and work on the projects you’re excited about. Your career will naturally follow.
Be Creative
On that note of being creative. There really are no rules in the indie world. On Day 3 of the conference, J.D. Barker, New York Times Bestselling Author, spoke about his career which wove in and out of indie and traditional publishing. His first book was self-published. An article written about the true story of him failing to visit Stephen King appeared in Publisher’s Weekly propelling him to sell 250,000 copies. His next two books were traditionally published as part of a two-book deal. When they turned into a trilogy, he self-published the last book. Now, he owns a successful hybrid imprint at Simon & Schuster. This is a business model he seems to be pioneering. He’s also been trademarking his name in various fonts and licensing them to his publishers. A brilliant, but dare I say annoying money-making strategy that seems to be working for him.
I’m also in awe of James Patterson’s co-author business model. I think he mentioned that he’s got over 20 manuscripts in his office at various stages — many of which he’s working on with other authors. No wonder this guy has sold more books that anyone else in the United States. (Side Note: I appreciated the fact that he was wearing a Wisconsin shirt during his interview. On Wisconsin!)
What’s the main take-away? The rules you play by may not actually be the rules. If you don’t like them, break them and ask for forgiveness later. There is always a more creative way to get what you want, so don’t forget to question those rules.
Be Consistent
This is a bonus theme. It’s not new, but I heard it over and over and over again at the conference. Successful authors write every single day. We publish content on our blogs, podcasts, YouTube, and social media regularly. And we show up, even when we don’t want to. We’re also voracious readers who read just as much as we write.
Overall, Author Nation was a great conference and I’m really glad I went. I’ve already got my ticket for next year. Want to come with me? Tickets go on sale to the general public in December. Ping me if you end up going. I’d love to see you!
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