What Happens in Orlando — Gets Printed in This Blog!

I hadn’t been to Orlando since I moved to Florida in September 2019, until two weeks ago when I attended the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) Publishing University. Yes, I have already written a post about it, but that was the virtual portion. This time I got to put on real clothes and drive (in the traffic) to Sea World where the hotel was. 

It was a little challenging for an introvert like me to be among 300 or 400 people whom I had never met in person. I knew the people who run the organization from Zoom, but I had never met them. I ran into one person from the Florida Writers Association who had interviewed me for their podcast about a year ago. And I finally got to meet several members of the Florida Authors and Publishers Association, where I am a new board member. It was nice to meet these people in person; I have been zooming with them for a while. 

The hotel was beautiful, although I spent very little time in the room that one night I stayed. It was one of those hotels where the rooms surround the downstairs where the ballrooms and restaurants are.  The ones with the glass elevators and the little balconies outside the rooms. It is a few levels above the usual places I stay!

The swag bag was beautiful and one that I will be using —  full of the usual swag, including a really cute pair of sunglasses I am wearing when I drive. I think I like them better than my Ray-Bans!

The first session was for first-time attendees. I felt weird not knowing anyone, but that is where I found the woman whose podcast I had done. So I joined her for lunch and the keynote address, which was the next thing on the agenda. The boxed lunches were really good and too much for even me to eat, but I did okay: a huge sandwich, macaroni salad, chips, an apple, and an enormous chocolate chip cookie.

The keynote was given by an entertaining speaker who has done well in a short period of time with children’s books with a social message.

Then I had to make my first choice: negotiation, project management, Amazon, or titles?? You guessed it. I can’t get enough Amazon information. Very glad I chose that one because it got me going on the new A+ content for Amazon. You can see mine if you look at the paperback versions of my orange workbook, my yellow grammar book, or my comma book on Amazon. Scroll down and you will see From the Publisher.  That is the A+ content, which I worked very hard at this week.

The day one wrap-up was next — with coffee and pastries. That evening was the book awards ceremony, which I had not signed up for, since I had not entered any books. I signed up very last minute, right before my new friends from my publishing group invited me to go with them to a sports bar in the hotel. I was stuck going to the awards with mostly strangers. The food was good, but not for the money it cost!

So I didn’t get too much time to spend in my nice hotel room. And it was up early the next morning for breakfast and table top networking at 7:30 a.m. You could sit down and start a topic, or you could join a table that had a topic you were interested in. Since most of the people at the conference were small publishers who publish other people’s books (many of them also write), and I am an author/publisher who publishes only my own books, I wanted to talk to other author/publishers and should have started a table with that topic. But I didn’t know if anyone would join me, so I thought I would try it at lunch where there was supposed to be more table top networking of the same type. But that never quite happened.

I sat with some people talking about marketing and then moved to a table talking about distribution, two other good topics. 

After breakfast (continental, but lots of good choices) there was a general session about benefits provided by IBPA — and there are many. Discounts on lots of publishing-related services. I might add here that the main room was surrounded by the sponsors who each had a table. There must have been at least 25 of them. There was also a bookstore with some of the members’ books, located outside in the hallway.

Decision time again: book design, hybrid publishing, consumer data, or reviews.  It was between design and consumer data. I chose book design and was a little disappointed in the speaker. None of those topics really grabbed me.

Lunch was a repeat of the day before. There was a choice of three different sandwiches, so I picked a different one. No complaints. And the macaroni salad was different — and much better — this day.

Two more sessions to select after lunch before the closing session. For the first one, the choices were marketing to schools, inclusivity, and relationships. I chose marketing to schools, since that is an area of interest to me. My books do sell to schools,  high schools and mostly colleges. The session was aimed at K-12 but was still interesting. 

For the second session, I could choose between translating children’s books, thinking like Amazon, audiobooks, or small presses. Yup,  I chose thinking like Amazon, which was probably the best session I went to.

Since checkout time was 11 a.m.,  I had already checked out that morning, and my things were in my car. The final session before heading home was the wrap-up and raffle. There were lots of great raffle gifts — but I didn’t win anything. 

Everything was kept very much on schedule  the whole weekend, and I was glad since leaving at 6 p.m. meant I probably wouldn’t have to drive home in the dark. I didn’t, and once I got out of the Disney area, there wasn’t that much traffic. But once the traffic cleared, the skies didn’t, and the pouring rain followed me all the way home. 

Glad I went? Yup! Going again next year? It’s in San Diego, so I don’t know…