Membership walkthrough week 3: Live Online Events

Welcome back to the third edition of the Membership Walkthrough!  

Last week, we looked at Masterclasses and how to make the most of them. This week, we’ll be looking at the live and interactive part of your membership – our events programme. These sessions are designed to excite and inspire, to educate and empower. So who better to tell us about them than Events Manager, Anna Burtt!

 
Below, Anna looks in detail at what’s included, where to find upcoming events and how to get started. As with the previous week, the links in this post will only work if you’re a logged-in member of Jericho Writers.  

Let’s get started!  

Live Events: what are they?  – By Anna Burtt

If you are a member of Jericho Writers, you have the opportunity to tune in to our live online events and also to watch them on replay at your leisure. Lucky you!  

Myself and my events team programme over one hundred live events a year, with extra-special events for Getting Published Month in March; Self Publishing Month in April; the Summer Festival of Writing from June through August; and October’s Build Your Book month. The other six months include weekly events focused on themes such as Platform Building, Writing New Genres and Finishing Your Book. And they’re all 100% included in your membership.

You can tune in on any device. You may want to tune in from your phone on a walk or a car journey, or you can set us up your computer or iPad. Unlike Zoom, you can’t see participants’ faces, but you can interact via a live chat box, although it’s worth noting that these aren’t available to see on replay. So you can get as involved as much or as little as you’d like. 

The format of our live events varies from interactive writing workshops, to ‘in conversation’ events, to panels, to ‘ask us anything’s’ and more. My overall aim when planning and programming is to empower authors, to demystify this strange and often non-sensical industry, to help you get closer to ‘success’ – whatever that looks like – and also to bring new ways of thinking about writing and publishing to the table. 

If you’ve read this far, and thank you if you have, then I think it’d be remiss of me not to give you a preview of a few events we have coming up. You’ll hopefully have seen Build Your Book Month on your Member Events page. My aim with this was to really get stuck into the craft of writing with a focus on character dialogue, world building and plotting. Now, here is some EXCLUSIVE information about events in November and December. In November, we’re getting into the nitty gritty parts of writing with events on crafting sentences and tidying up your prose. I’m also so excited to tell you that we have the iconic Lynne Truss joining me for Eats, Shoots and Leaves LIVE. Remember that book? Well, come armed with questions for the queen of grammar. We’re also so excited to have the king of copy; Benjamin Dreyer – author of the iconic Dreyer’s English. There’s going to be so much to learn from those ones! 

We’ve had feedback from you (which is always appreciated and taken on board) asking for more in terms of writing romance, so in December the wonderful Elsie has secured Lia Louis to run a workshop on romance writing. Moreover, Drew has booked T.L. Huchu to run a session on Sci-Fi and Fantasy. There are more to be announced on Flash Fiction, Screenwriting and Horror. We’ll be kicking of our 2022 programme with a month of Generating Ideas in January and in February learning about community and outreach; from podcasting to literary festivals. I cannot wait to get stuck in and try out some new genres and hope this whets your appetite for what’s to come. 

As I’m sure you can all imagine, it’s been very hard to book in person events with the current uncertain climate. I’d like to reassure you all that any in-person events will also be filmed and available for members to watch if they can’t make live events for any reason. It’s been a funny time, but one thing I’ve learned is that accessibility needs to be at the forefront of what we do and to keep events hybrid, so no one misses out. When these are signed and sealed, you’ll be the first to know. 

Myself and my team are always open to ideas, although it’s worth noting that we book guests months in advance as a lot of preparation goes on behind the scenes and we need a good lead-time to tell you about them.  

How and where to register for events 

Our monthly member events are all listed on your Online Event page.  When you click to register, you’ll be brought to the event’s Webinarjam sign-up page. Simply pop your details in and you’ll receive a confirmation email. You’ll also be sent a reminder fifteen minutes before the event starts so you can put the kettle on and get settled in. Due to security, you’re only be able to register for one event at a time, so make sure you register for all the ones you’re interested in seeing live!

Catch up on replay  

We aim to get our replays up within a day or so of the live event. If we have permission, we’ll also include the slides for you to download. Sometimes, we only have permission to keep replays up for a certain amount of time. We’ll always give you a heads up so you can fill your boots before they disappear. You can find replays on your Online Event page too. When they’re ready the link will change from ‘register’ to ‘watch replay’ 

Tips on making the most of Online Events

• Engage. If you see an event with an agent who is looking for a book like yours and you want to send them your work, mention that you saw them do an event. This shows that you’ve done your research and put the time in. 
• Thank speakers. If you’re on social media, pop on to say thank you to the speaker. We share their contact details in the sticky notes at the end of sessions. If you’re watching on replay, just click on their profile where we include links. Publishing people are human too and love to hear that you’ve enjoyed their work.
• Don’t worry if you can’t watch every event. It can be really overwhelming, especially for new members with lots to catch up on. If you’re interested in a certain aspect of publishing then use the search tool on the website to find relevant replays. You can also send me an email via Writers Support and I can point you in the right direction of useful videos. 
• Ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask questions during an event. We can’t always get to all of them but if you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you have a burning question that hasn’t been answered then contact Writers Support and we’ll do our best to help.

Remember that publishing isn’t always a one-answer straightforward industry. Some advice may conflict, some might not be what you want to hear. Don’t feel demoralised. We have a whole section of events on motivation. Pop one on and feel reassured. 

As with anything with your membership, if you need a hand finding anything, or further tips on how to make the most out of it, our brilliant Writer Support team are on hand, by email or phone.   

Thanks, Anna! Next week, we’ll be hearing from our own Rachael Cooper on how to make the most out of AgentMatch. We hope to see you at an upcoming live event soon!