I'm Speaking!
My first paid speaking gig is coming up
I was approached to speak on a panel at my first writers conference: Bay to Ocean Writer’s Conference in Wye Mills, MD.
I’m beyond excited! I’ve been meeting with the other panelists to refine our talking points, and the others have decades worth of experience to offer on the subject, which has me feeling all kinds of nervous as to what I can add to the conversation.
What are we talking about?
The topic of the panel is self-publishing. But we aren’t diving into HOW you go about self-publishing, we are offering insight as well as our own experiences as to WHY you would choose self-publishing.
Self-publishing has been entrenched in a stigma for as long as I can remember, revolving around a perceived lack of quality when compared to traditionally published books. And honestly, I get it. Because there is no bar for entry (i.e. ANYONE can self-publish a book, and thanks to AI, unfortunately…many do), there are plenty of self-published books that haven’t received the proper TLC for any number of reasons: couldn’t afford an editor, not aware of what goes into publishing aside from writing the book, or even just negligence. Now, AI has introduced the latest form of naivety: lazy capital. Some people have no passion for the art, they just prompt AI to generate a book and cover, and throw it up on Amazon hoping to make money.
Look, I get it. I do. But proportionally, there are close to as many bad self-published books as there are traditionally published books. Each year we see roughly 1,000,000 new books published by traditional publishing houses. Compare that to over 4,000,000 books published through independent sources. Self-publishing is guaranteed to see more bad books because there are 4x more of them each year.
But, there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of self-published authors who are following some form of a structured path: editing, hiring designers and formatters, beta readers, etc. to ensure their books meet a certain standard.
What I have to say…
I have my notes. I have a firm path in mind for talking points. I am ready to have a discussion. Better, we are leaving a good chunk of time for questions so that the audience can help guide the question.
This isn’t a new topic for me either. Early in my career, before I published my first book, while I was navigating the publishing process, I spoke with Jodi Picoult about the pros and cons of self-publishing.
You can watch it here
Side note: and even more exciting, I will finally have the opportunity to meet Jodi in person at BookCon in NYC this April. I am very excited!
Anyway, I am happy to share my experience, what I’ve learned, and WHY I chose the path I did March 14, 2026 at the Bay to Ocean writer’s conference. If you are around MD, please come check it out!
Awesome