How to Do Your Research Before a Conference

One of my favorite events of the year is coming up this week—the Midwest Writer's Workshop! I've written about the things I love about this conference before, but I thought I'd talk about something different this year: what you should research beforehand.

Research, you might be saying? Why do I need to do research? The reason I'm going is to learn things, after all. But here's the truth: you will get so much more out of attending a writing conference or workshop if you take the time to get yourself properly oriented beforehand.

Here are some of the main areas that should be your focus:

1. Your Novel

This might sound strange, but one of the first things you should do is take a good, hard look at your own writing. Figure out what category (YA, MG, Children's, Adult, NA?) it fits into as well as what genre (sci-fi, memoir, romance, contemporary, etc.). 

I've been to nearly a dozen conferences now, and I've seen so many people wasting their time and the publishing professionals' time because they have no idea what they're writing. Usually this can be figured out with an hour's worth of Google searching.

If you're planning to go for the traditional publishing route and query your novel to agents soon, it's also a good idea to take the time to research query letters and take a stab at writing one of your own before the conference. Not only will you have something to give to anyone who asks the dreaded, "So what are you writing?" question, but you'll also have a starting point if you're attending any sessions or workshops on query writing.

2. The Publishing Professionals Attending

This is a big one. Take the time to find out everything you can about the agents, editors, and other publishing professionals who will be at the conference. This will enable you to pick the right ones to pitch to if that opportunity is offered—don't waste their time and yours by pitching your adult memoir to an agent who only does YA!

I always start with the person's official website, if they have one. Then you can move on to their Publisher's Marketplace page, social media accounts, and interviews around the web. Try searching for things like "agent name interview" to find these.

3. Conference Etiquette

Finally, make sure you know what kinds of things are and aren't acceptable at writer's conferences so you don't make the wrong impression. I did a whole separate post about this a few years ago that covers the basics.

If you do your research beforehand, I guarantee that your conference experience will go more smoothly. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have some agent interviews to read....

Age Categories and Word Count Guidelines for Fiction

Whether you're working on your first novel or have written many, you probably have some idea of the age group you're targeting: adults, babies, or any age in between. But writers are often confused about where precisely their work falls in these categories. They also wonder what length is appropriate for that age range.

Here's a handy cheat sheet of common fiction categories (word count information comes mostly from this helpful Literary Rambles blog post):

Note: In the publishing world, length is determined by word count rather than pages, since the page count will change depending on how your manuscript is formatted.

• Board Books: Books with thick cardboard pages, intended for babies and young toddlers. Generally under 100 words.
  

• Picture Books: Books written for children from ages 3-8. Illustrations are very important to the story (and are often on every page). Generally 400-900 words in length.
  

• Early Readers: Books designed for children who are beginning to read on their own, or from about ages 6-8. There are only a few sentences on each page, and they usually feature color illustrations. Generally 200 to 3,500 words in length.
  

• Chapter Books: Books for independent readers who are a little older, about 7-10. Sentences are a little more complex in these books, and they may have no illustrations at all. Generally 4,000-10,000 words in length.
  

• Middle Grade: Books for readers from ages 8-12. The word count starts to vary a little more widely here. Generally 25,000-45,000 words in length, but sci-fi or fantasy books that might require more world building might go up to 70,000 words or even higher.
  

• Young Adult: Books written to appeal to readers over age 12. (Notice there's no upper age given for YA--that's because this genre appeals to a lot of adults, too!) The word count for YA books is generally in the 45,000-70,000 word range, but speculative fiction books may go as high as 100,000 words.
  

• Adult: Books written for the adult market can be all over the map. This Writer's Digest blog post suggests that 80,000-90,000 words is a safe range, but also mentions that books as low as 70,000 or as high as 110,000 will probably be all right. As with Middle Grade and Young Adult books, sci-fi and fantasy novels tend to run a little longer, so acceptable word count for these genres is probably more in the 90,000-125,000 range.
  

There are a few categories I didn't touch on above (for example, Hi-Lo books, which are designed to be high interest books for older readers with a lower reading level), but this list covers the age categories you'll probably hear most often.

Check out the linked blog posts above for more information!