Are Online Writers’ Conferences the Way of the Future?
By Marcy Kennedy (@MarcyKennedy)
I know I said I’d talk to you today about when you should tell rather than show, but I had to interrupt our regular schedule for a special announcement instead.
Yesterday Kristen Lamb announced the first ever WANACon, a completely online writers’ conference. While I don’t think online conferences will ever replace offline conferences any more than I think ebooks will ever completely replace paper books, I do think we’ll see more and more online conferences in the coming years.
The reason is simple—we can attend from the comfort of our own homes.
No Need for Travel
If you’re a parent or you work a full-time job, you can’t always leave for three days to a week to attend a conference.
And a lot of us can’t afford the airfare, hotel, and other related travel expenses that come with an out-of-town conference.
Lower Conference Registration Costs
I’ve paid from $400 to more than $1000 just to register for regular conferences. Because online conferences don’t require their instructors to travel to the site of the conference, they don’t need to charge as much to attendees. WANACon is $125 to attend both days, and $75 if you only want to attend one day.
Flexibility for Attendees
For most conferences, you have to be at a session to benefit from the teaching. If you miss it, you’ll have to pay extra to buy the recording. With online conferences, a limited-time recording of the sessions is often included as part of the conference fee. This means you can “attend” even if you have to be at work when the session you desperately want is running or if you get called away by the needs of your kids.
If you’re a jeans and pony tail kind of girl (…or guy) like me, you’ll appreciate not having to pull out your dress clothes and try to figure out a magical way to keep them from getting so wrinkled in your suitcase that you look like a hobo. (If anyone happens to know the trick to wrinkle-free travel, please tell me in the comments.)
Aren’t There Drawbacks to An Online Conference?
Certainly. One of the biggest benefits of conferences (aside from the teaching) is the chance to pitch to agents and network with other writers and industry professionals.
Networking will always be tricky, but with today’s technology, online conferences can handle “in-person” agent pitches as well as an offline conference. (And, in fact, WANACon is doing just that. You can sign up for one-on-one agent pitch sessions.)
For more on WANACon, and on the creative ways they’ve found to allow attendees to network (including a pajama party on Sunday morning), make sure you read Kristen’s post “And Now for Something Completely Different! Redefining the Writing Conference.”
You can see the complete schedule for WANACon 2013 here. On Friday morning (Day 1), I’ll be teaching Twitter: Ten Essentials Every Writer Needs to Know.
Click here to register for both days.
Click here to register for Day 1.
Click here to register for Day 2.
How do you feel about the idea of an online writers’ conference? Will they ever fully replace offline conferences? And are you planning to attend WANACon?
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Feb 06, 2013 @ 12:23:23
That is an interesting idea. And I think for some people it will be great. Just like some people really like taking online classes. Online just doesn’t work for me. For some reason, I need the face to face to really engage in a workshop or class. Yes, I have taken a few online classes, but I can honestly say that I was not engaged in them. I really took them because they were easy credit. Just don’t tell the univeristy that. 🙂 I am interested to hear how people like it, though. The thought of learning in pajamas is always fun. Hmm, maybe someone should plan a pajama-Con where attendees and presenters all go in pajamas…
Feb 06, 2013 @ 14:14:46
I think Big Blue Button (the technology WANA International uses) does a great job of bridging the gap because students can even talk amongst themselves or ask questions out loud, but it doesn’t allow you to see the faces of other students (and the professor may or may not have their camera enabled – I’ll admit I don’t enable mine because my internet struggles with video feeds). I can see how actual face time might be important depending on each of our individual learning styles.
When my husband was finishing his degree, he took every online class he could…except when it came to math. Because that was a subject he struggled with, he wanted to take his math classes on campus.
Feb 06, 2013 @ 15:28:59
I wish I was able to go to this, but I saw on your FB page that you said there may be another one later in the year? I’d definitely be up for that. Gotta save up some money (this is a pretty short time-frame from announcement to conference).
Feb 06, 2013 @ 18:30:01
I’m all signed up and am looking forward to it!
Feb 06, 2013 @ 18:58:15
This is a really innovative event everyone has pulled together. It will be interesting to see how it all works out.
I am considering this, although only one agent looks to be a good fit for me. If When the say “grant recordings to paid attendees” are they saying for the day/week/month? Or will we get a copy of the event to refer back to at any time in the future? That’s what would be really helpful.
Feb 06, 2013 @ 19:32:26
I’ll find out how long the recordings will be available and get back to you.
Feb 08, 2013 @ 15:56:56
This is incredible! I just hope I can get more details… like, how does it work? I get that it’s all online and stuff, but what kind of hardware/software do we need to make it work?
Also, I read this on the registration page: “we will be granting paid attendees access to recordings of all the seminars for the day(s) for which they have registered, and paid.” I was wondering if this is a permanent file that we can download and keep, or is it online and something we can watch (for a limited time?). Because I’d love to be there for both days of material, but I’m not sure I can swing both days off of work. However, if I can watch it all later, then I would still register for both, do what I can live, and review the rest later.
Sorry to bombard with all these questions!
Feb 08, 2013 @ 16:09:57
No problem at all. I have a query in right now to find out, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible with the answers 🙂
Feb 08, 2013 @ 16:31:21
Thank you! I really appreciate it.
Feb 09, 2013 @ 01:58:23
The first time I’ve ever heard of an online conference is when someone told me about Indie ReCon, which I did sign up for a month or so ago. Fortunately it’s free, so if it’s good, it’s like a gift, and if I don’t get much out of it, I haven’t lost anything.
As for how well online conferences will go over, I guess it depends on how they’re conducted. If it’s all a chat room forum, then there won’t be as much information shared as there would be if it were on something like the video thing on Google+. Of course chats can be saved, eliminating the need for participants to take notes.
Pros and cons for both ways, I suppose. But I have to say that if Indie ReCon wasn’t free, I wouldn’t have paid to check it out. I would have saved that money to put toward an in-person conference.