The [Semi]Un-biased review of The Superstars Writing Seminar (and a quick tale of catharsis)

There’s so much to say and so little time to say it…Wait no, there’s plenty of time.

After circling the website for years and saving up my uber dollars (not a joke, I absolutely drove uber for 4 months to raise the money), I finally made it to the 2022 Superstars Writing Seminar.

The purpose of the conference is to bring in writer’s both new and seasoned and dive into everything on the business of publishing whether that be sending query letters to agents or crafting the perfect launch for your indie book. 

I came in there all bright eyed and bushy tailed ready to meet people. To be real, the first moment I knew I was out of my depth’s was in the audiobook Q and A where a gentleman mentioned he was publishing his 13th book in his 2nd series and had some questions. Meanwhile I’m sitting there like “I don’t even have one published wHeRe AM I??”

I’ll run down the days and what was good about it. Hope it helps if you’re on the fence about going. As an aside, if you’re like me and need music to read this review, please listen to this song as you read, because I believe it encapsulates the feeling I’m trying to achieve:

CRAFT DAY – DAY 0

This was the day that I, Nic Lishko, arced as a character with a 13 year set-up and payoff.

Above is Oski. You know I go nuts anytime I see a dog the same breed as Oliver.

The morning started off well enough. It was good to see so many faces, a bookstore full to bursting and a puppy dog as shown above. Kevin J Anderson started off the morning, welcoming everyone to craft day and to the seminar in general. I followed him to a nearby room where he and his wife Rebecca Moesta taught a class on Worldbuilding that definitely opened my eyes to some ideas I hadn’t considered before.

This would be the beginning of a trend I would notice throughout the conference. To an extent, 70% of the advice seemed like common sense, but until someone said it out loud, it never clicked. It was like within my brain are many millions of treasure boxes of knowledge and each one becomes unlatched once a truth key opens it. End of metaphor, moving on.

After having to rush home to take care of Oliver and Otto, our first true foster dog, I rushed back to the conference just in time to see the person that got me to sign up in the first place.

Jim Butcher.

Jim inspired the masses with his talk about crafting protags and antags. Now, Jim’s an important figure in my own writing journey, which I’ll touch on now.

I used to love reading. I devoured Goosebumps, Animorphs and many other series as a child and kept a solid pace until high school, when every reading was assigned and forced. With the exception of Germinal, I fell completely out of love with reading until well after college.

One day, my brother gave me a book and said this will get you back into reading. It did. The book is shown below:

This book really did change everything. It got me back into the imaginations I had left behind. That was 13 years ago and on Craft Day, I got to tell Jim thanks for all he does.

I mean, for that alone the conference was worth the price of admission. The talk itself was also super helpful! Jim frequently mentioned his writing professor and her book The Fantasy Fiction Formula (I had him autograph the intro he wrote) so now I was ready to hit the writing world.

…Then the morning came.

Day 1 – The First True Day

I had posted to the group that I had a feeling coming to this conference would be like drinking from the firehose and I was wrong. 

It was like drinking from Old Faithful.

Still, the day was full of folks and I was ready for more talks. Jim spoke again, giving us his origin story and once again, inspiring the hell out of all of us to keep working. From there I moved to an audiobook panel, an indie panel, rushed back home again to take care of dogs, and then rushed right back just in time for another panel.

After that, my mind was cooked and I spent the next block wandering, talking to other folks in the hallways, and trying not to drink alllll the tea.

From there Nick Thacker gave a presentation on advertising, and I concluded the day with James Hunter talking about Writing to Market. This was another talk that would truly blow my mind in a crazy and real way. The idea of an indie author finding a hot genre, writing as fast as they can (and I mean wicked fast, like a book a month fast) and getting the thing out there and making a full time living truly was something I hadn’t heard of or thought of before.

I went home that night completely exhausted from everything I heard and confused as to what I was to do next.

You see, I’m bright eyed and busy tailed. I’ve done the screenwriting thing for over a decade and so I know what’s what and I get things! I’m a screenwriter, damnit! Not a super-de-duper-successful one, but I’m original and special [like everyone else]! I had a dang series I was working on, and I was deep into it, now I gotta switch gears and sell my soul and write to market?

I sat there for a while, just thinking about everything I heard. I had intentions to network, but I just couldn’t after everything I’ve heard.

Long existential crisis short, I opened the front door to my wife watching a Hallmark movie and literally, everything James said instantly made sense.

Day 2 – Coming out of the shell

I started the day wandering again. The night after my mind explosion, we took Otto to his [hopeful] forever home and so I could finally just be at the conference for lunch…Or so I thought.

Craig Martelle gave an awesome presentation on branding and echoed a sentiment we had heard from just about everybody the day before and something I think I’ll put on a shirt:

I finally found my bravery and asked a question in the following audiobook panel, learned a ton from Dave Chesson on the science behind a killer author page and understanding keywords, had a cool career counseling session with Kevin J Anderson, rushed home to walk the dog, then rushed back again and ended the night with an amazing talk from James A Owen and a great VIP dinner. It was so cool to talk to so many different people and share drinks with folks I’ve come to admire over the past 24 hours.

If I was useful at all during the conference, it was with the unexpected snowfall that occurred that night. I went up and down that hill a bunch of times taking folks to and from the restaurant to the hotel and listening in on all the fun conversations.

Finally, we reached–

Day 3 – Ready to hit the ground sleeping, then running.

My favorite part of the last day was disappearing during the last talk and talking to a real life working author about what it’s like to publish a book a month. It gave me a clear path forward, in that I need to write down my clear path forward after digesting everything that I had been taught the last few days. I’m actively working on that now and I should have something set in stone in the next few days.

Kevin opened the day talking about what to do when your career is slip-slidin all over the place, Jody Lynn Nye offered lots of great advice (she hosted my table at the VIP dinner, forgot to mention. AMAZING), James and Jeanette gave an awesome story about how they started their publishing house, I had lunch with a ton of fine folks at Bells Brothers Brewing, and Dakota Krout blew all of our collective minds AGAIN with a presentation on multiple $$ streams. 

It certainly was an emotional end to the day, and damn was it hard to leave. If I have to summarize my ramblings and rantings into a Too Long; Didn’t Read Review, it’s this thought:

I just reserved my seat for next year.

And you can too!

If you want to go and take $100 off the top, click here!

10/10, probably my favorite writing conference I’ve ever been to and I’ve been to LOADS.

“But Nic, what are you going to do with all of that awesome information now?”

Shut up, brain.

The fact is, I’m changing some things.

I have a better plan when it comes to releasing my first series and a strong path forward in investigating other series I’d like to write. It’s going to take time and I already feel so late to the publishing game, but I often tell folks it’s never too late so I need to prove that to myself.

In addition, I’m going to be writing a lot more short stories to start re-working that muscle, as I have let it atrophy for too long. 

I hope this was helpful. That’s all I really set out to do with this site is share my own experiences and feed my writing habit. I’ve got a ton of blog posts in various stages of production, but I’m not going to commit to a schedule just yet.

Until next time! Here’s a picture of Oliver and Otto Von, who I hope has found a happy home.