We have a LOT of terrific sessions planned for CAC17, and we are still adding more. One of those amazing sessions will be:

Author Career Plan Boot Camp –There is so much more to being an author than just writing a book. In Career Plan Boot Camp, Jacquie & Wendy share their experience as authors who have “been there,” and provide ten “must have” tips to help emerging writers learn how to create a professional writer’s platform and grow their writing careers. Wendy Delaney & Jacquie Rogers.

Jacquie and Wendy are both authors of multiple book series’ (between the two of them, they have over 2 dozen books!), with twenty years of experience in the business of being authors. They’re also veteran Chanticleer Award winners and know how to use awards, ribbons, book stickers, reviews, and all kinds of things you never even considered before, as TOOLS to enhance their success as authors.

We asked them to tell us a little bit more about their upcoming session at CAC17 and they took some time to give fill us in.

Chanticleer: Hi guys, what inspired you to create the session Author Career Plan Boot Camp?

Wendy & Jacquie: A good share of us started this writing gig with a great story in mind, but had no idea what being an author actually meant.

Chanticleer: What is the reality? Lay it on us.

Wendy & Jacquie: The average book sells fewer than 200 copies. [This] intrepid writer has spent $1,000 on editing, cover fees, and pre-publication promotion to sell 200 copies (remember, that’s average—many books don’t sell that many), and of those probably 25 went to family and friends. How does this pencil out? At the entry level pricing of $2.99, gross receipts would be $598. Of that, Amazon pays out 70% so the book would net $419.60, leaving a net loss of $581.40. None of us want to be that writer—but without a solid platform, we are.

Chanticleer: A lot of people assume that a book with average sales is just an average story, they believe that a really good story will sell itself. What do you think about that?

Wendy & Jacquie: Writing a good story isn’t enough. Essential, but not enough. Polishing the manuscript isn’t enough. Hiring the best editor and cover artist are not enough. All those things are vitally important, of course, but unless a writer has built a solid platform, potential readers will likely never see this fantastic book.

Chanticleer: What is your advice for authors who want to have better than average book sales?

Wendy & Jacquie: Focus on success. You can achieve your dream!  With some hard thinking to build an organized and targeted author platform, your book won’t be flailing in those sub-200 numbers. Come to [our session at] the Chanticleer Authors Conference and learn how from two authors who’ve spent nearly twenty years perfecting their writing and building their platforms, Wendy Delaney and Jacquie Rogers.

Award-winning writer Jacquie Rogers is author of eleven novels, including five books in the Hearts of Owyhee series, two books in the Honey Beaulieu – Man Hunter series, and others. She’s published over a dozen short stories and novellas in three genres.  Under the house name Ford Fargo, she writes for the Western Fictioneers Wolf Creek series.  She co-wrote Nail It! The Secret to Building a Fiction Writer’s Platform, and Growing Your Audience: Workbook for Published, Unpublished, and Under-published Writers.

Wendy Delaney writes fun-filled cozy mysteries and is the award-winning author of the Working Stiffs Mystery series. Like her human lie detector sleuth, Wendy loves to bake, so when she’s not killing off story people she can be found on her treadmill, working off the calories from her latest culinary adventure. Wendy makes her home in the Seattle area with the love of her life and is a proud grandma.