Welcome to the T&T Panels, open to EVERYONE in the publishing industry whether you are a reader, unpublished writer, author or publishing expert.
New to Self-Pub Fest? See the Participate page or email me (morgen@morgenbailey.com ~ NB Morgen with an ‘e’) if you’re interested.
Click HERE for The History Behind the T&T Panels.
The link to the T&T panels ongoing is https://us06web.zoom.us/j/
The panels should run around 45 minutes but we do sometime chat for longer.
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So future dates/topics are below, with recordings from previous sessions at the bottom of this page and on the Taken Place page. NB Timings are UK time.
- T&T #21 ~ Tuesday 16th June @ 6pm: podcasts: Do you host one? If so, what is it called? Why did you create it? Do you listen to podcasts? Do you have a favourite writing-related show? How long should an episode be? What kind of host do you prefer? Male… female (does it matter depending on the topic)? From your country or another? ~ SJ Banham ~ four slots remaining
- No T&T on Thursday 18th July – see you at Capital Crime, London?
- T&T #22 ~ Tuesday 23rd June @ 6pm: advice you’d give wannabe writers ~ Ali Bacon ~ four slots remaining (different readers, authors, publishing experts to 2nd April discussion)
- T&T #23 ~ Thursday 25th June @ 6pm: ‘scammers’ / ‘spammers’?: do you get bombarded with ‘I’ll help you’ on a daily basis? Do you reply? How do you tell who’s real and who isn’t? How do you weed through all the spam posts on social media? How you stand out from the crowd? ~ BB Elsin ~ four slots remaining
- T&T #24 ~ Thursday 25th June @ 6pm: the price of eBooks (revisited) ~ should I sell my eBooks for .99 or 5.99? How much would you pay for an eBook? ~ five slots remaining (different readers, authors, publishing experts to 19th March discussion)Â ~ five slots remaining
- T&T #25 ~ Thursday 2nd July @ 6pm: book covers ~ how you design yours… do you judge a book by its cover? Should you? o you design yours? If not, who does it for you? How much do they charge for an eBook and paperback? As a readers, do you judge a book by its cover? Should you? Which are your favourite covers… of your own and/or another author’s? ~ Damiano Polcaro ~ Jacqueline Lambert ~ three slots remaining
- T&T #26 ~ Tuesday 7th July @ 6pm: book reviews ~ do you leave bad ones? How do you react to bad reviews on your books? Are you kinder when leaving a review for a book rather than another household product? How do you balance positive and negative/contructive reviews? Have you learned from a specific review of your book? ~ BB Elsin ~ four slots remaining
- No T&T on Thursday 9th July due to a prior booking (WI talk)
- T&T #27 ~ Tuesday 14th July @ 6pm: writing competitions ~ do you enter them? If so, how often? Do you have favourites? How much do you pay on average? Do you have a fee limit? Do you prefer themed or open competitions? Do you judge writing competitions? If so, what’s your area of expertise? How much do you charge? Do you judge for online or in-person competitions? If the latter, how far would you travel? Have you run a writing competition? If so, how did this come about? What was great, what not so great? Do you still run it? If so, please give us the details. If not, why did you stop? ~ BB Elsin ~ four slots remaining
- T&T #28 ~ Thursday 16th July @ 6pm: writing (for) magazines: do you buy writing-related magazines? If so, paper and/or online? Are they instructional / informative (e.g. Writing Magazine, Mslexia etc.) and/or purely for reading (e.g. People’s Friend for the short stories)? Have they helped launch your writing career? Do you write for magazines? If so what genre? For your own country and/or in other countries? How did you start? How do you find new opportunities? How much do they pay? Do they? Do you get paid on acceptance or publication? ~ BB Elsin ~ four slots remaining
- T&T #29 ~ Tuesday 21st July @ 6pm: social media advertising: do you post for free, pay for Amazon Ads, Facebook Ads, do you pay for a social media scheduler such as Buffer or Hootsuite? If so, what have you learned from these processes? What would you recommend we avoid? What kind of adverts do you run? How do you choose your keywords? How do you find your competitors’ books? Do the adverts make a difference or do you get more traffic from your profile pages? ~ BB Elsin ~ four slots remaining
- T&T #30 ~ Thursday 23rd July @ 6pm: where in the world: locations you’ve used/want to use for your writing or read, edited, published etc. ~ SJ Banham ~ four slots remaining
- T&T #31 ~ Tuesday 28th July @ 6pm: book launches ~ how do you launch your book? Do you do launches online and in real life? How do they differ? Did you do the launch yourself? If not, who helped you? Did you launch online first or in person? How long ahead did you prepare? Did you create pre-orders? Which social media platforms did you use/find most productive? If you launched your book in real life, how did you get the ‘gigs’ and where did you go? How do you continue to market your book? ~ five slots remaining
- T&T #32 ~ Thursday 30th July @ 6pm: alpha and beta readers: who reads your writing before it’s published? Do you have readers you’ve never met? How did you find them? What kind of feedback do you get? Do your family and friends read your writing? Are they honest with you? Other than you, who’s the last person to read the book/story before it’s published? ~ five slots remaining
- T&T #33 ~ Tuesday 4th August @ 6pm: I’m not yet published: a panel of unpublished authors ~ five slots remaining
- T&T #34 ~ Thursday 6th August @ 6pm: the books you wish you’d written/been involved in: from any era ~ a question I ask of authors at festivals! ~ five slots remaining
- No panels for a while as I’m teaching at Swanwick (8th to 13th Aug ~ will I see you there?) then we have a family wedding and other commitments
- T&T #35 ~ Tuesday 25th August @ 6pm: characters (revisited): how do you name your characters, make them distinctive (in looks and voice). Do you base them on people you know? Who are your favourite characters from fiction you’ve read? ~ HJ Furl ~ SJ Banham ~ three slots remaining
- T&T #36 ~ Thursday 27th August @ 6pm: what readers think of the books they read and what format do they read (eBooks and/or paperbacks)? (a readers panel) ~ five slots remaining
- T&T #37 ~ Tuesday 1st September @ 6pm: publishing routes: get an agent, publisher, self-publish or a mix? Which routes have you taken to publication? Do you want to publish but don’t know which path to choose? Have you self-published but now want to find an agent/publisher instead of, or as well as, continuing to self-publish? Have you been traditionally published but now want to self-publish? What’s holding you back? ~ five slots remaining
- T&T #38 ~ Thursday 3rd September @ 6pm: scriptwriting revisited : On Thursday 28th May David Wake and I (Morgen) talked about scriptwriting. Two authors wanted to attend but were involved in the theatre so we’ll be running it again today.  Do you write scripts? Do you read them? What advice would you give to wannabe scriptwriters? ~ author tba ~ David Wake ~ author tba ~  two slots remaining
- T&T #39 ~ Tuesday 8th September @ 6pm: taboo topics: something you’d never write about ~ and banned books ~HJ Furl ~ four slots remaining
- T&T #40 ~ Thursday 10th September @ 6pm:Â tell us about your writing ~ congratulations, you’ve published a book! Tell us how you got the idea, what you did with it (plan or simply write), whether you collaborated with others to get it perfected/published and how you market it ~Â five slots remaining
- T&T #41 ~ Tuesday 15th September @ 6pm: topic tba – do you have a suggestion? ~ five slots remaining
- T&T #42 ~ Thursday 17th September @ 6pm: topic tba – do you have a suggestion? ~ five slots remaining
- and so on…
Other authors tbc: Bryan Mason ~ Caroline England ~ Jane Davis.
The T&T events that have taken place so far are…
T&T #1 ~ Thursday 12th March: writing life ~ Morgen with Andrea D Woolhead and Alastair McIver chatting about writing inspired, as based on, real life and their relationship with the publishing industry.
T&T #2 ~ Thursday 19th March: the price of eBooks with Morgen and AA Abbott
T&T #3 ~ Tuesday 24th March: how to self-publish with Morgen, Andrea D Woolhead and Eric Goebelbecker
T&T #4 ~ Thursday 26th March: Morgen talking about the best/worst aspects of being in publishing
T&T #5 ~ Tuesday 31st March: your writing process (when/how?) ~ Eric Goebelbecker ~ MS Clements
T&T #6 ~ Thursday 2nd April: advice for wannabe writers with ~ Andrea D Woolhead ~ John Moore ~ Shaun Allan ~ Tim Franks
T&T #7 ~ Tuesday 7th April: Morgen talked more about ideas
T&T #8 ~ Thursday 9th April: Morgen talked about how Self-Pub Fest came about (It was going to be about collaborating but ironically no authors were booked in!)
T&T #9 ~ Tuesday 14th April: to stick with Amazon’s KDP Select exclusive or go wide? with ~ Dan Burford ~ Eric Goebelbecker ~ Morgen with an ‘E’ (host)
T&T #10 ~ Tuesday 21st April: how real life affects our writing (for better or worse) with Alastair McIver ~ Andrea D Woolhead ~ Eric Goebelbecker ~ SJ Banham and Morgen with an ‘E’ hosting.
T&T #11 ~ Thursday 23rd April: writing under a pen name: BB Elsin ~ John Moore and Morgen with an ‘E’ hosting.
T&T #12 ~ Thursday 30th April: audiobooks (you’ve read and getting your books as audiobooks) ~Â Damiano Polcaro ~ Phil Oddy, hosted by Self-Pub Fest founder Morgen Bailey.
T&T #13 ~ Tuesday 5th May: juggling work with writing ~ time management (you still have a day job or are a writer as well as a publishing-related expert) Jane Killick ~ Jill Todd ~ SJ Banham ~ hosted by Self-Pub Fest founder Morgen Bailey
T&T#14 ~ Thursday 7th May: Self-Pub Fest founder Morgen talked about: children and animals in literature (yours or others’!)
T&T #15 ~ Tuesday 19th May: the therapy of writing ~ BB Elsin ~ HJ Reed ~ SJ Banham ~ hosted by Self-Pub Fest founder Morgen Bailey.
T&T #16 ~ Thursday 21st May: newsletters and Substack ~ Eric Goebelbecker, John Moore, Lee Benson ~ hosted by Self-Pub Fest founder Morgen Bailey.
T&T #17 ~ Tuesday 26th May: poetry ~ BB Elsin ~ hosted by Self-Pub Fest founder Morgen Bailey.
T&T #18 ~ Thursday 28th May: scriptwriting ~ David Wake with Morgen hosting.
T&T #19 ~ Tuesday 2nd June: publishing routes: get an agent, publisher, self-publish or a mix? ~ David Wake with Morgen hosting.
T&T #20 ~ Tuesday 9th June: writing non-fiction ~ Andrea D Woolhead ~ Malcolm Alexander with Morgen hosting.
These are free events but we’re raising money for local book-related charities and we’d be really grateful if you would donate whatever you afford via the Charities & Donate page. Thank you so much.