Bournemouth Literary Festival - Panel Discussion on getting published.

Last night I attended a panel discussion at the Bournemouth Literary Festival on getting into publishing. It was led by Penny Legg and the three authors on the panel talked about various aspects of publishing from their own experience. The panel included Martin Baum, John Houghton and Jackie Edwards; all with very different writing backgrounds.

The panel - Jackie Edwards, Martin Baum, Penny Legg & John Houghton
Photo by Joe Legg

The discussion was very well led by Penny and covered everything form how to approach publishers, what they are looking for, the importance of having a niche product, marketing, getting an agent and the financial side of being a writer. All the information was very useful and was enriched by discovering the different routes each of the writers had taken.

It was certainly food for thought and well worth the journey over there. The festival organisers asked for feedback and this event was very good but I thought the festival would benefit from being more condensed (a weekend event for example.) Mainly to make it easier for people not based in Bournemouth to attend. However saying that it was definitely worth travelling over for this single event and if it is on again next year I will certainly attend. Hopefully by that time I'll be several steps further along the getting published route. Here I am with some of the other writing buddies who attended - Jimmy Marsh and Joe Blackmore.

Joe Blackmore, Jimmy Marsh & me.
Photo courtesy of Joe Legg

All in all a valuable evening of learning and one that we all benefited from. Events like this for newer writers like myself are brilliant way to gain an insight to what you really should be doing to find yourself in print.