Throw off your chains! Too long have your role-playing games been held in the bonds of substandard gamemasters, bound in needlessly complicated rule sets, and enslaved by players who will avoid doing anything unless it counts toward leveling up! It is time to take a stand!

Learn from the masters the ancient secrets of how to:

• Become a certified XDM and impress dates (Do-it-yourself secret initiation rites included.)
   
• Design epic adventures that tell stories.
   
• Perform magical feats to amaze your players, and even make them disappear!
   
• Employ actual combustion (yes, "fire," and yes, it's dangerous) to enhance your games!
   
• Hijack any game as a player, and deal with any player revolution as an XDM!
   

God does not play dice with the universe. We do.

• A Practical Guide to Dragons


• Red Dragon Codex


• Bronze Dragon Codex


• Black Dragon Codex


• Brass Dragon Codex


• Green Dragon Codex (newly published this summer!)


• 2 Practical Guide calendars and an assortment of bookmarks.


• Plus each member of the winning team will receive one copy of A Practical Guide to Dragons and the Green Dragon Codex!

In one sentence: IAFA is a scholarly organization dedicated to the study of the fantastic in the arts. Let's break down those terms:

"Scholarly" refers to academic papers, most grad school level or above, although every once in a while there's some good undergrad papers.

"Fantastic" refers to anything outside the realm of reality. This includes high fantasy, urban fantasy, horror, science fiction, science fantasy, and basically anything that doesn't fall under realistic.

"Arts" refers to literature, film, graphic novels, picture books, fanfic, visual art.

Now for some some FAQs:

What do you do?
Currently I am head of the Children's and Young Adult division. This means I receive and evaluate scholarly papers and determine which belong in the conference (and some other boring behind the scenes stuff). Deadline for papers is October 31; official CFP will be posted here later. I am NOT in charge of deciding which writers get compensation for attending and how much; I'm just looking for names to pass along at this point.

I don't write papers, I write fiction. What can I contribute?
There are also author readings at the conference (usually one block of readings per session; there's about 4-6 sessions per day). I'd love to get some new children's and YA writer blood into those readings. In addition to readings, you can also do signings and book sales. A great chance to interact with people who have an academic interest in your genre (who knows, you may even get to meet someone who wrote a paper about your work; there's a lot on recent books!).

What do I get for attending?
Compensation varies and is, I must warn you, competitive. Later this summer the person in charge of arranging visiting writers will be emailing out conference info and what you need to send to get compensation. If you're interested, give me your name and contact info so I can pass it on to her.

Who else will be there?
This year the Guest of Honors are Lawrence Yep and Nalo Hopkinson. For an idea of other writers who've attended in the past, this past year's program is available at www.iafa.org (to find names quickly, just to a search on "Reading")

Why should I come?

• Hear papers on current issues in children's literature such as "Twilight" or ancient issues relating to fairy tales, or anything in-between.


• Talk with some amazing writers and scholars in a very friendly environment (I call this a "conference with training wheels" when encouraging grad students to attend).


• It's in Orlando in March, so if you live in a cold climate it's a chance to warm up and maybe swing by Disneyworld.


• It's a networking opportunity; I met </a></strong></a>slwhitman there and she ended up being the editor for my first book.


• Because this is one of the most amazing, fun conferences in existence.

I think you could pretty much group everyone's comments on what someone who self-publishes has to do under the umbrella of "you're the publisher." That means you take on ALL the roles that a publisher does, without the clout a mainstream publisher has. That means you're no longer just the writer -- all the pre-production and production issues are yours (editing, copyediting, proofreading, design, interior and cover artwork, administrative tasks like ISBNs (beware a vanity publisher who says they'll get your ISBN -- often they're getting it in THEIR name, not yours, which causes problems in reprints if you get that far), copyright registration, getting quotes from printers and other vendors, etc.), and then the marketing, PR, sales, and distribution are a major hurdle that you're handling yourself as well. As many have already noted, you're not going to get your book in most bookstores unless you have several books, and the quality of the book in presentation and editing are always going to be an issue.

That's not to say that there aren't some great self-published books out there -- look at Schlock Mercenary and several other webcomic artists' books. But they definitely fall in a niche -- a niche for which they already had a built-in audience from the webcomic of tens of thousands of fans. If you don't already have an audience in place, it's definitely something you'll have to consider, because building an audience for most books, at least fiction, tends to be easier through a mainstream publisher.

Again, that doesn't mean it's not possible, but it is definitely daunting. It's daunting for me as I start my small press, because I'm taking on a lot of these roles myself, roles that when I worked with a larger publisher were delegated to other employees. I will have to use all these kinds of skills -- skills tha t I've gained through working in a publisher -- and be very active on the selling end (going to shows, etc.) until we get at least five books out because no distributor will even look at a small press who isn't a self-publisher until you have at least five titles out.

The stigma against self-publishing in the publishing world is simply that with all that up against the average self-publisher -- and nowadays the average self-publisher *tends* to be the kind of person who insists they know publishing better than the experts, despite never having worked on either side of publishing as a writer or editor/other publishing staff -- few people have the expertise to manage all those roles and come out with a well-written, well-edited, well-designed book that also sells well. Heck, it's hard enough to do it when you've got a team of experts on your side.

Now, when I said "the average self-publisher" that often rules out anyone who's doing their research, like networking through lists like this and so on. Already you've got more knowledge than the literally millions of self-publishers out there -- most people who go to self-publishing honestly think that's how a book gets published. I had an old roommate, who knew I was an editor, ask me how much it costs to get a book published by Random House -- she honestly thought you had to pay to be published, and without more information, would probably have ended up going with a scam.

The reason why the number of books published every year is so large is because of all those self-published books. Few can stand out from a crowd in the sea of all those books. But the ones that do know how to capitalize on the skills everyone's talking about here. And it can be a very good option for all the reasons Rick and several others have mentioned here. I know an author who just wanted a copy of the book to hand to her daughter at a certain age, so she decided to self-publish her picture book. For that goal, it succeeded. She hasn't succeeded in selling out her print run, but the emotional reason was more important to her at that time, and she has other books she's writing for the traditional publishing route. Certainly family and local histories have a limited, niche audience, and self-publishing can be a great boon for those kinds of stories. Self-help nonfiction, as someone mentioned here, can do very well in self-publishing because of all the opportunities to use your platform at conferences and such to sell the book, especially if you're already an expert in your field. I've heard the same about real estate and finance kinds of books -- again, those are authors with built-in audiences, so the books will probably sell themselves.

But the thing to remember as you consider self-publishing is whether you truly want to take on the roles of the entire staff of experts -- or if you don't want to do it yourself, if you want to enlist the help of independent experts (there are a lot of freelance editors out there who would be glad to help, but as Rick said, good help doesn't come cheap -- I myself charge $50 an hour for a developmental edit of a full manuscript) or if you have family members with these skills. It's definitely possible, but it's a whole lot easier to have a team of experts who are paying *you* to work on your book.

Keep in mind that the Eragons of the world are literally one in a million. There are a million books out there, wanting the limited attention span of the audience you're trying to reach. It's definitely wise to consider whether you can and want to take on all the roles necessary to really capture that attention. If you do, go for it. If you don't, keep going for a regular publisher, working on getting your polished book into the right hands at the right time -- and they'll have that team of experts ready to go at the right time.

Sorry if this appears pessimistic. I may have been the editor at last year's WIFYR that someone said told them that "all" self-published books are bad. If it was me, I believe I was misquoted. As I said above, *many*--not all, but MANY--self-published books tend to be of a low quality simply because the author doing the publisher is a *writer*--not any of the other roles that you have to fill to publish a book. There's nothing wrong with that. But it's always best to consider these things and consider how they'll affect the end product of your book.

• The basics of writing SF/F for children and young adults (and how to convince editors and agents that you're good at it)
  
  
  
  • Hitting the right voice
  
  
  • Point of view: first person, third person, or omniscient?
  
  
  • Building sympathy for your characters
  
  
  • Crafting a story your audience won't be able to put down
  
  
  • Current trends in SFF for children and young adults
  
  
  
  


• Hook your reader: How to hook an editor and, later, a young reader within your first three chapters


• Worldbuilding in MG and YA SF/F


• Writing a killer plot: the structure of your story (lots to explore there -- making promises, raising the stakes, internal and external arcs, etc.)


• Knowing your market (audience and the business of writing)
  
  
  
  • Being a partner in the publicity of your book
  
  
  • School visits
  
  
  • Social networking
  
  
  
  


• Line editing yourself: How to get down to the nitty-gritty and make your sentences sparkle


• Characterization

When I updated the addons for my main site, I seem to have forgotten to reinstall the LJ addon that allows my posts to automatically update over here. Sorry! I'll fix that now.

ETA: Meanwhile, if you're wondering what I've been up to, I've been talking about the depiction of people of color in YA and middle grade fantasy, posted pictures of the Provo Children's Book Festival, posted some thoughts about e-books and the changing landscape of publishing, reviewed Carol Lynch Williams's The Chosen One, and posted info about thenew seminar I'm teaching next month on worldbuilding in YA and MG SFF. Oh, and found a video teaching you how to get your cat to yodel. Go check it out.