Whether you’re an oft-published writer or a newbie, you know that traditional publishing is slow to change and that one-to-one connections are the best way to get your work out there. Yet finding an agent, editor, or publisher can be a daunting process and rejection letters rarely provide feedback as to why your story or novel just isn’t working. 

Just ask Chip Cheek, a writer who struggled to find a home for his short fiction.  Cheek remembers one story in particular, “a story I’d had trouble revising, one that had been rejected by at least a dozen literary journals.” 

Luckily, Cheek secured a face-to-face meeting with an editor whose publication he admired and showed her the story.  “[T]he editor I met with said, ‘All right, we’re going to fix this thing right here and now.’ And she made a few surgically precise edits and twenty minutes later accepted the story on the spot.” 

Leslie Talbot, author of Singular Existence, had a similarly transformative experience when she sat down with an agent and discussed her then book proposal. Talbot says: “I walked out knowing I had found my agent. Five months later, I had a book contract. This event changed my life in every possible – and every positive – sense of the word. “

When you sit down and make a personal connection with an editor, agent, or publisher, amazing things can happen, whether the end goal is publication, feedback, or representation. And while this sounds like a rare experience, both of these meetings (and many others like them) happened at the Manuscript Mart, part of the The Muse and the Marketplace conference. 

For Cheek, the Manuscript Mart is nothing short of magical: “It’s where editors and agents give you the time of day.” 

The Muse and the Marketplace is one of the few conferences that offers a practical, concrete and candid assessment of your work while giving you the opportunity to make personal connections with the publishing industry. For more information and to sign up, check out our website.