The third annual Southwest Washington Writers Conference was held this last weekend in Centralia, a nearby town to where I live in western Washington state. I’ve been involved in the planning and operation of this conference all three years, and believe this conference was the best one yet.

One of the conference organizers had cookies made. Within the frosting of each treat was the edible image and class title of each presenter. This is my cookie. See, it has my name on it.

This year I taught a class with bestselling local author, Carolyn McCray, on indie book distribution or, should indie authors use only Amazon or use other distributors. I favored using many distributors, such as Nook, Google Play, Kobo and Smashwords, while Carolyn likes staying exclusive with Amazon.

In the picture Carolyn says she looks insane. Because of the kind of books she writes, I thought it might be a marketing technique. I also attended a class on Social Media Strategies with marketing professional Veronika Noize and another class on on indie publishing with author Maggie Lynch.

I’m glad we’re done for this year, but I had a great time.