Episode Summary
The most author-packed episode of SPI yet! We’re joined by friends across the publishing spectrum to reflect on our experiences at this year’s Novelists, Inc. Conference, NINC 2023.
Episode Notes
The annual Novelists, Inc. (NINC) conference is a unique experience that brings together multi-published, professional authors who publish traditionally, independently, or both. Conference speakers are handpicked from the upper echelons of the industry, and networking opportunities are unmatched. Join D2D and fellow industry luminaries and conference organizers as we recap what we learned at this year’s event and discuss the value of networking with your peers.Â
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Transcript
Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:01]:
You just tuned in to the hippest way to start and grow your indie author career. Learn the ins, the outs, and all the all arounds of self publishing with the team from d two d and their industry influencing guests. You’re listening to self publishing with Draft2Digital. Well, hello, everybody. Thank you for tuning in to Draft2Digital’s self publishing insiders live. You are not watching The Brady Bunch, But I can understand how you would be confused, but this is a very special episode of SPI. We got a whole bunch of folks with us here, all of whom We’re instrumental to making 2023 the raging success that it was. So, let’s welcome everybody.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:50]:
I I don’t even know how to do introductions here. Do we wanna, like, round robin this or something, or should I just, like, point to people when you talk?
Jim Azevedo [00:00:59]:
Go down the Brady Bunch.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:01:01]:
We’ll go to the Brady Bunch. I got Mel Mel Jolley over here. Mel, say hello to the good folks.
Mel Jolly [00:01:05]:
Hi, everyone. Thank you so much.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:01:08]:
Yeah. She’s The she was she and Todra Kendall, also joining us were, they help plan and orchestrate all the fun stuff. Lot of work, so big cheers for those guys. We got Clayton, I’m not gonna every time I say your last name, I butcher it somehow, Oh, man. I’m sorry. Clayton.
Clayton Noblit [00:01:27]:
Oh, no no worries. Yeah. I I’m Clayton Noblet.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:01:30]:
Noblet. I always Yeah. Yeah. I skew. I’ll make that o the wrong I go long or short. I don’t know which one I use, but you’re with Written Word Media.
Clayton Noblit [00:01:40]:
I am indeed indeed. And, yeah, had a great time at Nink. And, yeah. Big big thanks to to Mel and Todra for making it such a such a great conference.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:01:48]:
We’ve also got Cameron Sutter with, plotter, home of the famous plotter otter. If you are not familiar, welcome, Cameron.
Cameron Sutter [00:01:56]:
Thank you. It’s awesome to be in this group with you guys. It’s really exciting.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:02:00]:
And, of course, James Blatch, who’s somebody no one knows at all in this industry. We’re just throwing him a bone, but welcome to the show, James from self publishing formula itself, James Blatch, everybody.
James Blatch [00:02:12]:
Thank you for having me along and giving me a little boost. Yeah. Well, I’m honestly, you know, I’m thrilled to be here, and, it’s such a great conference. Honestly, I look forward to it so much, and I know how much work goes into it. I mean, think all of us probably start seeing emails in about 5 weeks’ time for the start of next year, and, and we might. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:02:31]:
I’m surprised we’re not already seeing Mel and Todd just sending us emails right this moment in time.
Tawdra Kandle [00:02:37]:
Some of us in this room have already Got emails from
Nick Thacker [00:02:40]:
Hey. You must not be checking your emails, Kevin.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:02:44]:
Yeah. I’ll get to it. Yeah. I’ll get to it. Alright. And, of course, we we can’t go without mentioning being the D2D folk in the room. We got Jim Azevedo, who is our head of, corporate communications at Draft2Digital, and Nick Thacker, Who is the head honcho of author success at Draft2Digital. I feel honored to be in your presence,
Nick Thacker [00:03:04]:
I’m one of the honchos. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:03:06]:
You’re a honcho. You’re, Yeah. You’re you’re in the honcho neighborhood. So okay. Well, that took up a good 20 minutes of our, of our podcast there. But Now I do wanna mention upfront, there’s 2 things we we wanna mention. First of all, we got some folks who are gonna have to ditch out a little early, so pay close attention to them, upfront. Don’t don’t, hesitate to ask them questions right away. And that’s the other thing that I wanna, pop up is Be sure to ask your questions in the comments, about, about anything else you want. We we reserve the right to not respond to you if we, I think you’re off the rails, but, we are happy to chat about just about anything. So ask your questions in the comments. For those of you Listening, later on or watching this, you’re not necessarily watching this live. You could still post some questions on YouTube and elsewhere, and we’ll try to get to you. So, NINC 2023. I don’t even know who to go to 1st, but I will share, like, this was a very special, conference to me. Always is.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:04:07]:
But, you know, we at Draft2Digital, this is the one that’s the the sort of trendsetter for us for the entire year. I don’t know how everyone else feels about that. For the folks who just attend, Nick, what is your take on that? Don’t everyone here answer at once.
Tawdra Kandle [00:04:25]:
I don’t know if anyone here just attends NINC. Right? We’re all.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:04:32]:
Well, I guess that’s true. I just meant yeah. There’s 2 of you who organized the thing. You’re biased, but the the folk among us, Like, Clayton, I don’t know, how you guys think about NINC. What’s your what’s your take? What’s the benefit of it?
Clayton Noblit [00:04:47]:
Yeah. I mean, I think your your point about it being kind of a a trendsetter or a good barometer for where the industry going is is a good one. I think, you know, we we go to a lot of A lot of different conferences. Not not as many as D2D does, but we we go to a few. And we always you know, we’re a book marketing company, and so I do a lot of Teaching authors about book marketing, and different ways they can market their books with written word media. And at NINC, I do a lot more learning than I do at other conferences. Because, you know, so so many of the instructors are so good, and so many of the authors that are there are also doing a lot of, you know, cool innovative stuff when it comes to marketing the books and publishing in general. Yeah. So the the quality of the the content and what you learn at is is really high.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:05:30]:
Mister Blatch, you you are, I think the one who travels furthest to, to visit us in the hot and sweaty world of of Florida. What, Yeah. What what draws you? Why?
James Blatch [00:05:44]:
I don’t think I was the furthest there. There were definitely some Aussies.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:05:47]:
No. Right.
James Blatch [00:05:48]:
AJ Stewart lives in LA, so he cheats behind living. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:05:52]:
Yeah. I’ve seen in this in our Brady Bunch group.
James Blatch [00:05:54]:
In the Brady Bunch. Yeah.
James Blatch [00:05:56]:
Yeah. Turn out flight, whatever it was. I mean, every conference has its own field, isn’t it? And I think NINC probably has the most distinctive feel of all the conferences. And I will say beyond what you learn and the conversations you have and the networking, all of which are stellar at NINC, I actually really look forward to it as a kind of recharging period into, You know, we all live busy lives. I particularly seem to live a busy life, and I crave those that sort of week on the beach, with my friends. And I come back from that a little bit energized from it. There’s a lot to be said for joining the organization and becoming a regular at the conference. It’s having that Little moment where you can just soak up some information, have, some beers, and, and soak up some sun, particularly when you live in grey England.
James Blatch [00:06:45]:
So yeah. But I would go along completely with the the level of learning is is that much higher. Yeah. I think I think you can get it at 20 books. I think Probably not at our conference because we have to picture. We have 1 room. It’s like a theater. Yeah.
James Blatch [00:06:57]:
So I have a slightly different feel again. 20 Books, you’ve gotta be careful and Find those moments. With NINC, almost every session you go into is is correctly pitched, I think, for the people there, and that, that makes a big difference. So I don’t come out of a session at NINC without notes.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:07:12]:
Yeah. Let’s put it that way. Good. That’s true. Cameron, Go ahead.
Cameron Sutter [00:07:17]:
just gonna say, Nick is definitely my favorite conference of the year, the one I look forward to. The best one.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:07:22]:
Yeah. Do you think how how do you see because one of the things I’ve noticed is, like, everyone who attends, all the all of us who are in this service side of, the the publishing industry, A lot of relationships get formed there that end up becoming, like, integral to our business. How how has that, benefited you?
Cameron Sutter [00:07:41]:
Oh, man. It’s it’s been huge, especially so I I started coming a couple years ago, and, I was very new to I was kinda just running Plottr on my own and didn’t know anybody, and so I was just, like, living in a bubble. And as soon as I started coming to these conferences, just like the The ability to well, just meeting people just exploded things and, not only my, connections with people and just knowing people, but also just the value that, I can bring the people and also that that I can get from people. Just it’s been awesome.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:08:11]:
Yeah.
Cameron Sutter [00:08:12]:
The relationship’s so powerful.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:08:14]:
So Mel and Tawdra, Tawdra and Mel, You’re you’re both melded together into 1 being in your mind at this point. Yeah.
Tawdra Kandle [00:08:22]:
You’re not the only one.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:08:23]:
Aside from dealing with curmudgeonly guys who don’t respond to their emails on time. What is the biggest challenge you guys face in organizing the NINC?
Tawdra Kandle [00:08:33]:
Well, I think it’s probably important to note if anybody doesn’t know what we’re talking about. NINC is Novelist Inc, And it is an organization before it’s even a conference of, that you have to, attain a certain level of, You have to qualify financially as an author in order to be a member. So I think that leads into one of our big challenges is how do we present, Find and present content that is going to be new and exciting and challenging for our very smart, very high level, members, and that’s always, you know, that’s always we we have a habit of saying to people over and over again if they haven’t been to the conference, Just so you know, this is like a master’s level. And and a lot of times, they’ll just go, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then they’re there for a day, and they say, I had to rewrite my whole presentation. You were right.
James Blatch [00:09:28]:
Yeah. I tell you, having presented there a few times, it is nerve wracking at NINC. Getting the pitch right is always, I think, a bit tricky with presenting, and There will always be someone in the room who knows everything you’ve you you’re about to say and other people who perhaps think you you’ve got ahead of where they can learn. But, And, NINC, it is nerve racking. I think my I think that from my experience, on the craft side, it needs to be up here. There’s nobody in that room who doesn’t think a lot about craft and has read a lot of self help books. But quite a lot of the technical stuff. I can present technical stuff.
James Blatch [00:10:01]:
You know, we did TikTok, I think, last year, and there were definitely people in the room who were like, woah. How does that work? And I, you know, I think, some of the AI stuff as well this year is.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:10:10]:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s the cheat code. You gotta you don’t prevent don’t present on craft,
James Blatch [00:10:16]:
Terrifying.
Mel Jolly [00:10:18]:
That’s one of the nice things about NINC being a multitrack conference. We usually have at least 3 tracks of workshops going or 3 workshops going at Same time, I think it was James mentioned the the pitch for the workshop really being on point. That’s something that, Tawdra and I and then our our programming team works really hard with the speakers going back and forth. We don’t just, like, Generally, like, here like, take whatever blurb is is initially given or taking whatever workshop pitch is initially given because we wanna make sure that it’s worded right for the audience, that it’s got the right hook, that it’s gonna be at the level and of interest to the audience, and we, Every year, try to hone that more and more and more so that when you’re speaking in the room, you have the right audience already there based on what they read in the app and in the program.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:11:08]:
Yeah. Yeah. And you guys do an amazing job at at that, and I’m I end up missing every single talk that I wanna see because I’m always speaking at the same time. So
Mel Jolly [00:11:19]:
We do that on purpose.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:11:20]:
They do that on purpose, so we don’t need
Mel Jolly [00:11:22]:
Kevin specifically.
James Blatch [00:11:23]:
Mel calls all of us a week before and and checks what we think you wanna go to.
Mel Jolly [00:11:30]:
100%. And then I text Kevin’s side.
Cameron Sutter [00:11:33]:
You told him, Guys. Geez.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:11:34]:
So, Nick, you you’ve presented it, Nick, before. What’s, what’s your feeling like? What’s the pressure like when you’re presenting to these geniuses.
Nick Thacker [00:11:44]:
I think to the to to your credit, Mel and and Tawdra, like, there I didn’t feel any pressure from from the conference. I felt pressure from myself to to put on a good show and, you know, bring it information wise. But I I’ve always gotten the sense that NINC was in some way a celebration. It’s sort of the end of the year for a lot of people, fiscal fiscal year, and it’s almost like the celebration of what we’ve tried this year, and then kind of a taste of what’s to come in a lot of way. I know at Draft2Digital, we try to try to bring here’s what we’re working on now. And and and Maybe you guys would disagree with this, but it seems like NINC is where we announce a lot of that stuff
Kevin Tumlinson [00:12:22]:
sometimes for the 1st time.
Nick Thacker [00:12:24]:
And that’s always a lot of fun because you get in a room with people who Typically already know, if not, who we are, what we do, and and they’re familiar with distribution even if they’ve not maybe not heard who who we are. And so it’s really fun and and easy to be able to say, this is what we’re working on, and this is what I think we’re gonna be able to bring to you guys. You’re gonna love it. And, usually, they’re they’re pretty happy about it. But you you are— all of you are right about the, the level, the quality of presentations just needing to be a little bit higher. And I’m not gonna point any fingers, but but I did go to a presentation where It wasn’t what, people expected, and, people were leaving the room. But, unfortunately, they didn’t leave all at the same time. They left 1 at a time every 10 seconds, and the door was really loud. And so and I I was sitting there going, oh, this is so okay. I guess I’ve been up there. I know what this feels like. And they’re doing a great job, but it just wasn’t what the people thought it was gonna be.
Clayton Noblit [00:13:13]:
Yeah.
Nick Thacker [00:13:13]:
so it’s just a testament to how well you guys are are able to, to craft that. And then, you know, I guess the flip side is that we, as the presenters, have to make sure that we’re we’re bringing and that’s on us.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:13:24]:
There there you go, Mel. That’s something we need to add to the list is w d 40 for the doors now.
James Blatch [00:13:29]:
Yes. Yeah. Well, it’s the
Mel Jolly [00:13:31]:
It’s the lobby noise, I think. But
Nick Thacker [00:13:34]:
No, it was the door. It was it was squeaking, and it would it would kind of hit. It would go, but it wouldn’t just do it once. It would squeak and go,
Mel Jolly [00:13:41]:
when you text Mel, and then Mel texts the hotel like squeaky door.
Nick Thacker [00:13:45]:
No. It was it was it was hilarious, so I just let it slide.
Mel Jolly [00:13:48]:
That hotel is so good. And one of the things we appreciate about the vendors and that we try to support, in the way that we do programming is nothing at NINC is. So there’s no workshop recordings, and, there is a reporter in the room that will then, you know, Take their notes and write an article, which will then be published in the the NINC monthly newsletter for our members who can’t attend. However, it gives you guys and it gives all the vendors freedom to, like, present things that they might not wanna present elsewhere. I know that d two d has offered special trials, like, just to our members, like, when you guys were doing Print, like, when you’re rolling out print or hardback or something.
Tawdra Kandle [00:14:30]:
Yeah.
Mel Jolly [00:14:31]:
And they they love that stuff.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:14:34]:
So Yeah. I kinda wish we had more of that kind of thing that we could offer, but I think there’s plenty of people in this in this call who have things they can toss out there as bonuses later. Jim, you actually were, last year was the first time you’d ever actually been to NINC. So as a newcomer, What’s the thing that stands out most to you?
Jim Azevedo [00:14:55]:
The 2 things that stand out to me. Number 1, I think James kind of alluded to this a little bit, but for me, NINC was the conference where the trends that are emerging are really like, they pop at Nink more so than at any other conference. You walk out of there knowing that, oh, okay. These are the 2 trends or 3 trends or whatever, but one trend that we need to really pay attention to, going forward. And then secondly, the networking opportunities. Every conference offers networking opportunities. But going into NINC, I was thinking, well, this is a a higher level crowd. It’s going to Tough to meet people, and it was the exact opposite.
Jim Azevedo [00:15:30]:
It seemed like it was easier to meet people. And the Novelist Inc crew are just amazing at grabbing people and saying, oh, hey, Jim. Have you met so and so over here from such and such? I love that. That is so good. So thank you guys for doing that. Whether or not you’re you know, you you consciously are doing it or it’s just who you are And you’re trying to do that? That really stood out to me, so thank you for that. And I think that is why NINC as a conference, as an industry event, kinda stands head and shoulders above some other events.
Nick Thacker [00:16:01]:
I will say too, I I think NINC is the only conference where real Oompa Loompas are in attendance. What?
Jim Azevedo [00:16:06]:
Yeah. What?
Kevin Tumlinson [00:16:07]:
It’s true.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:16:08]:
Yeah it’s true.
Cameron Sutter [00:16:09]:
I didn’t see any.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:16:10]:
So that was fun. We did a, you know, every year, there’s a very special event on Saturday evening says the the draft2digital of karaoke night, something we started years ago and now is an official part of, which is, I think, Pretty impressive. But this year’s theme was Halloween, and we had a very special appearance from an an actual live action Oompa Loompa, who sounded an awful lot like Jim Azevedo. I also wanna call out, like, I wanna give special props to Dan Wood. Yeah. I was gonna say, shaved his beard.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:16:47]:
Dude showed up as Ted Lasso, shaved his beard, left the mustache. It was just an amazing costume. If I could have given him the prize for for best costume, I would.
Mel Jolly [00:16:58]:
like to know. He was at dinner, Which is right before karaoke, fully bearded. And then he said,
Mel Jolly [00:17:05]:
I have to leave and get ready for my costume.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:17:07]:
Okay? The the secret. He didn’t actually shave. He just sucked all that back in, so he’s gonna kinda come out Play play dough fun factory style later. So, yeah, we, so, Tawdra, Mel, When you guys are, planning all this, you know, what’s the level of work you you really I mean, where does it start? Because it to me, this is a nightmare. I don’t wanna talk to people. I don’t wanna email people. So how do you how do you do it? What’s your secret?
Tawdra Kandle [00:17:40]:
We start We start the next year’s conference really in the weeks leading into the conference we’re about to do because we’re always saying, okay. This This worked really well, but we could do it better, or this didn’t work, so how are we going to do it better? When we talked to we have a fabulous Team of volunteers who, you know, are just they they just give so much of their time and energy and and are very smart. And if we say, This is what we’re struggling with, and they’ll say, oh, well, what if we did it this way? And, you know, so that’s that’s always very helpful. So we usually start we take maybe A week off after the conference, although we’re already talking about it. I mean, I drove home, a week ago, Tuesday, and I talked to Mel the whole way, and we it was all conference stuff. It was it was, almost a 3 hour trip, and it was all conference That’s sweet.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:18:33]:
I’m sure it was all conference.
Tawdra Kandle [00:18:35]:
It was. It was. No. It was all conference stuff. She was taking notes. I mean, all all I had to do was drive. She took the notes. But
Nick Thacker [00:18:42]:
Dan’s beard is conference related, Kevin, so they talked to him about that.
Tawdra Kandle [00:18:45]:
And that’s still it. There you go.
Cameron Sutter [00:18:47]:
Jumblin and the otter doesn’t count as conference.
Mel Jolly [00:18:51]:
It really helps that both Tawdra and I have a lot of years of experience in conference planning now. Because Tawdra planned a conference how many years ago. What what was the 1st year for that event?
Tawdra Kandle [00:19:06]:
2013?
Mel Jolly [00:19:09]:
- I think it was maybe Dan Woods’ 1st event. And It was Tomlin. Kevin Tomlinson’s 1st event.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:19:15]:
I showed up. 2016.
Tawdra Kandle [00:19:17]:
He showed he showed up he showed up in 2016.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:19:20]:
That’s when I that’s when I made my 1st appearance.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:19:24]:
so everything else was pre k.
Mel Jolly [00:19:26]:
So Tawdra and I joked she raised these boys. So Oh my god.
Mel Jolly [00:19:30]:
The years the years of experience compounding with, Tawdra and I have very different skill sets, Which is part of what makes us such good partners. Tawdra is so amazing with the outreach, and she knows almost everybody in the industry and has this Long history with them, and then I, like, I just naturally organize things. That’s just I was making a spreadsheet this morning for something personal. So, like, I just I love organizing things into spreadsheets. I was actually walking past a conversation between, 2 industry professionals at NINC, and I heard one of them saying to the other, what do you, like, how do you keep up with it all? Like, I just can’t keep it all in my head. And I was like, You need Basecamp.
Mel Jolly [00:20:13]:
Just inserted myself, but we do we have a team of about 15 volunteers, with a variety of responsibilities. We haven’t really broken out. We try to give everybody ownership of their part, and then Tawdra and I do Oversight, making sure all the teams are communicating, and we do use Basecamp for it, which I adore. And I’m in charge of assigning to dos to everybody.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:20:34]:
I should make it clear this episode of SPI is not being brought to you by Basecamp.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:20:43]:
Clayton, how much of your year, is spent thinking about, NINC at this point? You you guys,
Tawdra Kandle [00:20:52]:
The correct answer is 12 months,
Kevin Tumlinson [00:20:53]:
Clayton. Yeah. That’s what he did.
Clayton Noblit [00:20:58]:
the discussion about the, bringing it with your presentation, but that that’s real. Right? Like, we we think about that early in the year, and we also think about, you know, new products as well, and kind of, You know, like, everybody at NINC, I don’t think we met a single person that didn’t know about written word media and and what we do. And so we wanna have something new and exciting each year. And so we definitely think about in terms of launching products and having new exciting stuff to tell authors about. But then, you know, I’m also You know, I I don’t know when you guys reach out to start asking for for workshop pitches. It feels like like maybe February or March. Like, I’m I’m thinking about it in January. It’s on my mind.
Clayton Noblit [00:21:35]:
Like, Hey. I’ve gotta have something ready, that I that I feel it’s gonna be at the level. So definitely takes up, you know, more time than other conferences in terms of, you know, How far ahead I’m planning for it? But I think it actually helps a lot because I’m much more prepared going in. Yeah. And I I plan the year around it a little bit more. So the organization is fantastic. So so thank you both for for keeping me in line with that.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:21:55]:
That does make it a little easier even though a lot of work you put on our shoulders. With your 50 emails. Instead of asking me one time, I gotta answer in, like, 50 emails every twice a year.
Mel Jolly [00:22:08]:
And this is why we deal with Jim now.
Jim Azevedo [00:22:12]:
Right. That’s right.
Mel Jolly [00:22:13]:
Yeah. Let let me let me note this too. Everybody on this call is a multi time NINC Sponsored. And Clayton’s mentioned of, like, everybody knowing, Really recognizing you and Emma because you’ve you’ve come multiple times, but also knowing written word media and knowing plottr and knowing SPF and knowing d2d, You guys sponsor every year, and so we’re able to do, like, a lot of pushes, a lot of email communication to our attendees. We use an excellent conference app, and we’re able to do a lot of push notifications. And we really honed in a couple years ago on how can we make sure attendees are, like, ready in advance.
James Blatch [00:22:53]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mel Jolly [00:22:53]:
So that they and, like, training them that you guys are there because you wanna talk to them and you wanna have those conversations.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:23:00]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Tawdra Kandle [00:23:00]:
Yeah. Yeah. We agree.
James Blatch [00:23:02]:
Yeah. That that shows itself in the happy hour, which I think you introduced last year, and that’s been hugely successful. I mean, that room is buzzing and packed and
Tawdra Kandle [00:23:10]:
What a nice segue, James. I’ll be sending you your check shortly.
Jim Azevedo [00:23:14]:
I was gonna ask you too about that. I was gonna ask you two, like, how do you like, what are some of your recommendations for authors who are to the conference maybe for the 1st time as far as, you know, apart from the obvious of attend as many sessions as you can and networking, but how do you get them to the network effectively. Like, do you have any suggestions for them, especially if they’re first timers?
Tawdra Kandle [00:23:34]:
It it was really interesting. I did I do a, An uncon the day before the conference, which is about 50 to 55 people. And then, for the last 2 years, I’ve done a postcon, Which is much smaller, like between 10 to 15 people. And I shamelessly pick their brains about yeah. How we can make things Better and, you know, and at the Postcon, one of the things they said this year that we’ve already talked about is when you all are sitting in the lobby, the grand colonnade, some of the people said they I don’t know whether they are, like, waiting for somebody or they want me to come up. So they asked if we could provide a sign, like, just a little, I don’t know, like a tent card or something that one side says come up and talk to me, and the other side says in a meeting or about to start a meeting or something like that. Just that would give people, you know, the to that they would know that they could come up and talk to you. We’ve talked about shirts that say, hi, I’m Jim from Draft2Digital. Ask me about…
Jim Azevedo [00:24:35]:
Possibly. I have I have that shirt.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:24:37]:
And yeah.
Tawdra Kandle [00:24:38]:
Well, there you go. So check that off our list, Mel. We don’t have to order Jim a shirt.
Mel Jolly [00:24:43]:
Well and we we do find, The the past couple years, we’ve given 1st time attendees the option to put a ribbon on their badge that says they’re first timers. And I think the NINC crowd does really well, both vendors and, members of going to those people and being like, oh, well, welcome. We’re so glad you’re here. And kind of the vibe.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:25:06]:
I have literally led those folks around by the hand at times. You know? Just introducing new people.
Mel Jolly [00:25:10]:
Yeah. We appreciate that. And I know, Todd, you’re like somebody I think this was you. Right? I’m not making this up. Somebody had been communicating with you beforehand and said this is my first I’m very nervous. And they came up to the registration desk, and they’re like, can I talk to Tawdra? And Tawdra’s like, yes. Come here. And she took them right over to a friend group.
Tawdra Kandle [00:25:29]:
I said, here you go. You’ll be happy here. These people will not stop talking. Just just stay with them. And and by the end, yeah, she had made several she had We we we always saw her with a group of people, and and I noticed that the different, folks who I introduced her to were checking to make sure she had somebody to sit with at lunch And, you know, that she was never and she was fine, and she was she was great. So, yeah, I I do. I get a couple emails usually every year saying, I’m an Introverted introvert, but I’m going to come. And how do I am I gonna hate it?
James Blatch [00:25:59]:
No. Yeah. That’s another reason I think why the happy hour works well, because I think even the introverts, when they’ve got that book in their hand, it’s an excuse to go up. It’s a reason. So I think people feel underconfident Sometimes walking up to you in the lobby and saying, hi. I just wanna say hello. Some people do, but some people don’t.
James Blatch [00:26:15]:
But when they’ve got a reason to come and say to Can you stamp my book? And that’s a conversation. And, honestly, I I go on about it, but I think it’s a really good addition to the conference.
Tawdra Kandle [00:26:24]:
Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:26:24]:
Yeah.
Mel Jolly [00:26:25]:
Tawdra, will you explain your brainchild?
Tawdra Kandle [00:26:28]:
Well, we had had a, what was it called, a vendor room or Yes. In 2019. Well, in 2019, it was actually it was a trade show. It was a trade show. I’m sorry. And it was fine in 2019, and then we did not have it in 2020 2021. I can’t think of why. But in 2020 I guess in 2021, we had a, like, a version of it.
Tawdra Kandle [00:26:52]:
And afterwards, Kevin came out to the registration desk. I I felt that he had been elected by all of this all of the sponsors to come tell me, We don’t like this. We wanna be out with the people. Don’t make us go sit in a room. And so we started brainstorming what would be a way that we could have a place where the the attendees could come meet all the sponsors, but have a reason, have an incentive Yeah. To to go do it. And that’s when we we came up with the the passport.
Tawdra Kandle [00:27:20]:
Do you have 1? I was gonna say
Mel Jolly [00:27:21]:
I have 1 here. Actually.
Tawdra Kandle [00:27:23]:
And so, basically, it’s it’s in the Banyan Breezeway, and all of the Sponsors are allowed to have a table. There we go. And the people come in and have a guest the plottr page. Yes. And there you go.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:27:35]:
Right to plottr.
Tawdra Kandle [00:27:36]:
Right. And then
Cameron Sutter [00:27:36]:
You don’t have a stamp there.
Nick Thacker [00:27:39]:
Yeah. Didn’t go. Looks like you didn’t even go.
Tawdra Kandle [00:27:41]:
And then the the fun thing is that after You complete your passport. You bring it back up, and you get 5 tickets. And there are prizes that are incredible,
James Blatch [00:27:53]:
Yeah
Tawdra Kandle [00:27:53]:
And can put your ticket in for the prizes that you wanna win, and we draw the draw the names, and everybody’s happy.
Mel Jolly [00:27:59]:
And some people So we go to all the sponsors. You can only participate as a vendor if you sponsor the event. And we we purposely set it on Thursday now, so it’s at the beginning. So like James was Saying it’s a really good icebreaker now.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:28:12]:
Yeah.
Mel Jolly [00:28:12]:
Right. People already had, you know, like, a 10 second conversation with you, and they feel more comfortable coming up to you in the lobby. We scheduled all the office hours, all the sponsor office hours, and as many of the workshops as we could for following that event too so you could encourage people to come to those things. Where was I going with this? I don’t remember.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:28:34]:
No one knows.
Tawdra Kandle [00:28:35]:
And you had a one knows. We had the signs on the table each year.
Mel Jolly [00:28:36]:
I know what it was. There. The sponsors donate the prizes, and some of them donate priceless prizes prize. Like plush Plottr otters. Yeah.
Cameron Sutter [00:28:47]:
Can’t put a price on that.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:28:50]:
Brought to you by genuine child labor. Yeah.
James Blatch [00:28:53]:
That’s it. That would happen.
Tawdra Kandle [00:28:56]:
I’m just so jealous of this otter. It’s really sad. It really is.
James Blatch [00:29:00]:
It’s really sad.
Cameron Sutter [00:29:00]:
We’re saying, James, about next year?
James Blatch [00:29:02]:
I said next year, Dan was donating his beard. You can’t.
James Blatch [00:29:05]:
Yes. Yeah.
James Blatch [00:29:06]:
We’re It’s in a little plastic, bag.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:29:09]:
Yeah. We’re gonna knit a little mini dam for people to to bid on.
Tawdra Kandle [00:29:15]:
yeah. One of the other priceless things is they draft to digital. Usually includes the prize, the opportunity to sing the 1st karaoke song with a d2d member.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:29:26]:
D2D person of their choice. Yeah.
Tawdra Kandle [00:29:28]:
Yeah. So?
Kevin Tumlinson [00:29:29]:
And they so far, the the winners have have yet to ever actually want to do the 1st song. They always wait until later.
Mel Jolly [00:29:37]:
Well, this year, we didn’t make it the 1st song. Yeah.
Tawdra Kandle [00:29:39]:
We just said a d2d member of your choice. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:29:41]:
That’s probably better. That’s probably better. I think they they’ll it’s Funny, but who will bid on that? And then they get all shy about it. You know?
Tawdra Kandle [00:29:48]:
They’re like, well, I didn’t really want that. I wanted that.
Mel Jolly [00:29:51]:
Maybe we should make it the 11 PM song.
James Blatch [00:29:54]:
There you go.
Mel Jolly [00:29:55]:
Because at that point, it’s loud enough and fun enough. But the nice thing about this, Meet our sponsors’ happy hours. It’s a really truncated period of time too. So, like, everybody can get in there, get what they want, get their prizes, meet people, and then Off they go.
Jim Azevedo [00:30:12]:
It works great.
Tawdra Kandle [00:30:13]:
It does.
Clayton Noblit [00:30:13]:
Yeah. That’s one of the great things about the the location, right, is if you’re somebody who gets really exhausted talking to people and you need, like, a little alone time. You know, there’s a amazing beach you can go out to. It’s, you know, 3 minute walk and, you know, get away, sit on the banner for a little bit. So That’s a that’s a big benefit of the conference, I think.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:30:31]:
But then but then you have to deal with the ocean, and, nobody really. Does anyone really like the ocean.
Mel Jolly [00:30:37]:
Everyone likes this. Everything in the ocean
James Blatch [00:30:39]:
Yes.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:30:39]:
to kill you. Cameron, you you, You I don’t know. How many conferences do you do you go to each year at this point?
Cameron Sutter [00:30:48]:
There’s a surprising number in Oklahoma. So I do several in Oklahoma, and then, so I do about 5 a year or something like that.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:30:56]:
Is this the the bigger of the, the ones that you go to remotely, or is there one you that’s more massive?
Cameron Sutter [00:31:03]:
No. This is this is probably the biggest one. I mean, 20 books has more people, but it’s not,
Kevin Tumlinson [00:31:08]:
Doesn’t yeah. It’s not as high level.
Cameron Sutter [00:31:10]:
Yes. Exactly. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:31:12]:
Sorry, 20 books. You know? We love it. We love everybody at 20 books, but It’s a different here is a different crowd. Different. Yeah. Yeah. So and I think both are beneficial for authors to attend. But I
Cameron Sutter [00:31:23]:
will say about the things in the ocean, my I saw a manatee, which is the coolest thing ever. I I wanted to see that. I’ve I’ve never seen it.
James Blatch [00:31:31]:
We saw 1 this year as well.
Cameron Sutter [00:31:32]:
Did you?
James Blatch [00:31:33]:
The other side of the road. One 1 of our gut friends were staying in that block of apartments the other side of the road, and there’s a manatee in there.
Tawdra Kandle [00:31:39]:
In the the causeway. Yeah. Yeah. Mel’s husband saw a dolphin.
James Blatch [00:31:44]:
I saw a dolphin.
Tawdra Kandle [00:31:45]:
Happen. Yeah. Came, like, really close to him.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:31:48]:
And he he meant a football player, not the,
Mel Jolly [00:31:52]:
I hope the football player wasn’t thrashing a fish
James Blatch [00:31:55]:
the in the water.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:31:58]:
I don’t know. Have you seen some of the Miami Dolphins? I mean, some of them might be doing that.
Mel Jolly [00:32:00]:
No, I don’t do sports ball.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:32:01]:
Yeah. I don’t know. I I
Jim Azevedo [00:32:03]:
I will say in in Northern California, if you see a big dark shape coming towards you in the ocean, you need to sprint toward the shore.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:32:10]:
Right? Yes. Because that is the Loch Ness monster.
Jim Azevedo [00:32:14]:
Right. Right. That’s what it is.
Jim Azevedo [00:32:16]:
I have a question for Mel and Tawdra. The app. Have you always used the Whova app as part of the event? Because I think it’s great.
Tawdra Kandle [00:32:24]:
Yeah. We started using an app in, 20 20. Yes. But there were only 40 of us that year, so it was a really
Tawdra Kandle [00:32:34]:
It was like either use the app or open your window and yell out The person who’s here because there were so few of us. And then we switched to Whova in, 2021.
Jim Azevedo [00:32:45]:
Okay.
Tawdra Kandle [00:32:46]:
And a lot of that was, there are a couple different reasons. One was that, we felt like the program During the the pandemic time was not great. We didn’t wanna be handing people things. That was one thing. The other thing is it’s A lot of, trees die for that program. Yeah. And and then another is that it’s it’s really not great To be flexible. So if we need to change somebody’s room or we need to change a an office hours or whatever, it takes us about 30 seconds on the app as opposed to, you know, trying to tell everybody, hey, don’t go here, you know?
Mel Jolly [00:33:25]:
And we love the app that we are currently using because, members attendees can message each other.
James Blatch [00:33:31]:
Yeah.
Mel Jolly [00:33:32]:
So that’s one of the things that we tell you guys in advance is like, if you wanna set up 1 to 1 meetings, go ahead and start DM ing people. We open the app about 3 weeks prior to the conference for 2 weeks.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:33:42]:
Yeah.
Tawdra Kandle [00:33:42]:
Yeah. And it does. It’s it’s always cool to see them, like, start to make friends and, you know, if if you’re there early, Somebody will say, hey. I’m gonna go to dinner. This is what I’m wearing. Come find me.
Mel Jolly [00:33:52]:
Yes. Alright.
Jim Azevedo [00:33:53]:
And the icebreaker app itself works really well too for people who are new to, like, Put their information into the icebreaker. Everyone’s like, oh, hi.
James Blatch [00:34:00]:
Yeah. Welcome. Yeah.
Jim Azevedo [00:34:01]:
We’ll see you at the event. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:03]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Tawdra Kandle [00:34:04]:
Yeah. Very cool. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:05]:
It’s kinda become the, the de facto app for conferences, I think. Yeah. Author conferences at least. So
Tawdra Kandle [00:34:11]:
Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:12]:
Yeah. Yeah. I hate it, of course. All those notification things. Like, it just drives me cry. I can’t clear them. There’s a 1,000,000 of them, whatever. It’s like this is like being in the ocean.
Mel Jolly [00:34:26]:
We’re gonna have we’re gonna have our app volunteer set aside some time for a Kevin tutorial before next year.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:31]:
Yeah. Exactly. So what about I mean, it seems like everything went super smoothly this year. No problems at all. You guys didn’t, have to deal with any drama. So, you know, kudos to you guys.
Mel Jolly [00:34:47]:
Yep. No. Thank
Tawdra Kandle [00:34:48]:
you. Yep. Yep. None at all.
Mel Jolly [00:34:51]:
Indeed. If we did Even if we did, you’d never know about it.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:34:54]:
That’s that’s exactly right. I although you know, some of us got told that we were the least of your problems but, whatever.
Tawdra Kandle [00:35:02]:
Here we go.
Mel Jolly [00:35:04]:
We only talk about that way with our friends.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:35:07]:
I understand, and I appreciate that. So we had someone ask in the comments if you’ve already picked a date for 2024 yet. Do we know when
Mel Jolly [00:35:16]:
We do.
Tawdra Kandle [00:35:17]:
Yeah. The dates are The dates are planned ahead because our our contracts are signed so far in advance.
Mel Jolly [00:35:22]:
So go ahead, Mel. So we have September 18th through 22nd 2024 and September 17th through 21, 2025. Wow.
Tawdra Kandle [00:35:33]:
Okay. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:35:35]:
get the sweatiest months of the year.
Tawdra Kandle [00:35:38]:
We choose that. We say, when would Kevin be most uncomfortable to come to Florida?
Kevin Tumlinson [00:35:42]:
I mean, I’m I know I’m a curmudgeon and all, but, I mean, when I get there, I just start sweating from the moment the plane lands until I leave. So It’s a sweaty, hot, nasty movie stumble.
Mel Jolly [00:35:52]:
Do you think we can plan more outside events in a summertime?
Kevin Tumlinson [00:35:55]:
It’s not even
Mel Jolly [00:35:56]:
like No. I Perhaps I know.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:35:57]:
Yeah. Thing. I’m gonna show up in a bubble, one of those, like, bubble suits with some air conditioning going.
Tawdra Kandle [00:36:02]:
Yeah. Yeah.
James Blatch [00:36:02]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:36:03]:
Great idea. So, what I’m trying to think of, like, highlights. Like, there are things that are are always exciting to me, but then I realize, oh, a lot of that is stuff that we orchestrate. Like, the I look forward to the karaoke every year, of course.
Tawdra Kandle [00:36:16]:
Right.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:36:16]:
There is the James, you actually posted on Twitter early days of the conference A little black and white photo of an iconic structure at, at NINC, and that is the the tiki hut. Do you wanna wax poetic about Tiki hut. Yeah.
James Blatch [00:36:32]:
I mean, you know, every it’s an important part. Actually, funny enough, it was an important part of 20 books before they moved. There’s a sort of central bar that people go to. And, again, the people who aren’t as confident and perhaps on their own, don’t know as many people. It’s great for that. But the tiki bar has become a bit of a legendary place. All sorts of conversations and deals and friendships have been struck. And I have I have a group of very close friends, who go well beyond author friends now who I found, you know, over a beer at the tiki bar at night, and we actually call ourselves tiki bar pals in our little WhatsApp group.
James Blatch [00:37:08]:
So, yeah, it is. I think it is a place of legend, and it’s an important part of the conference. That’s another reason why I think NINC works so well at the location, is not huge, so you’re never far away from each other. And and if you wanna, you know, you can go off to the beach and have a nap. You can go back to your room and have a nap or whatever. You know this.
James Blatch [00:37:24]:
then you come back out, and you’re right in the throng a bit again. Yeah. And, yeah, it’s, if you wanted to plan a conference, I would Oh oh, for any industry, I would come and have a look at the way NINC works because that that sense of community, from those various events. But, yeah, the tiki bar is, is It’s legendary. We need to do t shirts, don’t we?
Kevin Tumlinson [00:37:40]:
We do. We need we do need a, like, a tiki club kinda, T shirt. We should we’ll we’ll we’ll work on that. Yeah. It was kinda I got thrown off a little this year because they were doing everything was under renovation and construction. The real the thing that broke my heart Broke my heart was that the Shark Tooth Tavern is now at Pizza Hut.
Tawdra Kandle [00:38:04]:
It is not. this is a temporary situation. It is. Yes. By the time we get back there next year, all things being equal, the Pizza Hut and the ice cream place will be back in the Breckenridge, and the shark tooth will have reclaimed its heritage.
James Blatch [00:38:20]:
We we had to do our SPF drinks, which we normally do on-site there, which is also we Slightly cheekily, but because we have a podcast, we do ask people if if they’re not at the conference, they can still come and have a drink with us, in that that one evening. It’s not a bad way of them getting introduced to Nick, by the way. Yeah. Well but, we had to move it a couple of it wasn’t even Charlie’s Coconuts or whatever it’s called next door. It was the one after that, And it happened to coincide with that monumental storm we had that evening, but, still had, I don’t know, 40 or 50 people at its peak. It was the rims. I think most people did wait for the danger to life to pass. Yeah.
James Blatch [00:38:56]:
But, yeah. Yeah. We missed the shark tooth, Kevin. But do you think it’ll be back next Yeah. I mean, I was I was trying to figure out how fast they were working.
Tawdra Kandle [00:39:04]:
Right. They they they they hope that the Breckenridge will be finished by May.
James Blatch [00:39:08]:
Okay.
Tawdra Kandle [00:39:09]:
And so we hope that that will be the case. We’ll be keeping our eye on it. You know? If I have to if I’m forced to drive down and check on it.
Mel Jolly [00:39:17]:
Oh, boy.
Tawdra Kandle [00:39:18]:
I will do it. You know? I’ll take 1. The sacrifices. You know? The sacrifices.
Jim Azevedo [00:39:23]:
The sacrifices. And I just wanna chime in really quick. I know Clayton’s gotta Gotta bounce out of here. So, Clayton, I wanted to go ahead and set you free. I don’t want you to stay if you’re gonna be late. Yeah.
Clayton Noblit [00:39:31]:
Thanks for joining, great to see Everybody. Thanks for having me.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:39:34]:
see you at the next NINC, Clayton.
Tawdra Kandle [00:39:36]:
Yes. Thanks, Clayton. Yes. And I’m actually going to
Kevin Tumlinson [00:39:40]:
Yes. This is the part where we start losing everybody from the show.
Tawdra Kandle [00:39:44]:
You, but I appreciate it. Thank you for letting us kind of revisit, have a little, like, tell weeks out Absolutely. Revisit and and talk about it, and, we look forward to seeing
Kevin Tumlinson [00:39:54]:
We’ll have to make this a tradition. Make this, like, new two point o here. You know? Yeah.
Jim Azevedo [00:39:58]:
I wonder if our viewers enjoy this kind of thing, like these little fireside chats or little happy hour things, let us know because we can do these more often.
Tawdra Kandle [00:40:06]:
Yeah. Sounds great. Well, have a wonderful day, everybody. See you next year
James Blatch [00:40:10]:
See you, Tawdra!
Kevin Tumlinson [00:40:14]:
Take care. And, yeah. You know, we’ll we’ll get some email from Tawdra pretty soon, I’m sure. So yeah. And we’re here we are, just the 6 of us left, and we we’ve got about 5 minutes left on the show. I’m curious to hear what some of the, the memories. Like, you know, what’s what’s something truly memorable that’s, I have to you at either this NINC or or previous one. Cameron, I I feel like I need to come to you because I haven’t we haven’t gotten to talk to you that much yet.
Cameron Sutter [00:40:40]:
I’ve heard some memories. I I don’t know. I’m try trying to think of, things that have happened there, but I’ve I’ve heard some stories from there.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:40:50]:
You can’t share someone else’s memories, man. Cameron
Mel Jolly [00:40:53]:
Cameron made, you know, mine and Tawdra’s conference by gifting us Plottr Otters.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:40:59]:
Yeah.
Cameron Sutter [00:41:00]:
And the plottr Otter was born at NINC, actually. It, it started the year that we had the, the The vendor room, and it was really freezing in there. And, we we didn’t wanna stick around, but it was Mel, Kevin, Ryan and I and maybe somebody else, we were just brainstorming plottr mascots, and I like the plottr the plottrpus. And, The dark billed platypus. Yeah. I thought it was just
Kevin Tumlinson [00:41:28]:
Yeah.
Cameron Sutter [00:41:28]:
It it’s a funny idea. It just doesn’t have the same ring. And then a A couple hours later, Kevin came back with about the plottr, and that was just it just made sense. It just bit. So that’s where it’s going.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:41:40]:
Look. If you ever build in a a premium service on, plottr and call it plottr plus, then you can have the plottr plus plottrpus.
Mel Jolly [00:41:49]:
Oh, boy.
James Blatch [00:41:50]:
I thought about that.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:41:51]:
Yeah. So alright. That one’s free. The rest are gonna cost you. James, you I mean, Was Mark Mark wasn’t at this one this year.
James Blatch [00:42:01]:
Well, Mark was there preconference. And then, on the Wednesday morning, as we started the conference, he flew to Mexico City to go and watch a band, Planks, he’s too he was too cool this week, but, I think he did miss, being at the conference. It was just a clash of dates. Yeah. I mean, there has been some moments over the years, some of which probably aren’t best aired, here. But,
James Blatch [00:42:24]:
I think the the sessions themselves Oh, the the main focus, and I I meant what I said earlier. I’ve come out with notes. I know I’m quite into AI imagery and stuff stuff like that. We’re doing a course on it at the moment, but I still had learning experiences from, was Nick, was it Nick, who did that course? And so I’ve got you know? So so that’s we should say that’s the main thing, falling down drunk at the end of the evening or watching somebody else do that is is a sideline, but, I did have one memory from last year when I think we had all the in the sea, in the ocean, which we all love, Kevin, we had these stingrays. I mean Yeah.
James Blatch [00:42:59]:
There was, like, a bloom of them. And, Yeah.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:43:01]:
Totally talking me into getting into the water.
James Blatch [00:43:03]:
Yeah. But I did I went for a run-in the morning, and I thought this is Yes. There were people swimming in the sea, and Mark had been swimming in the sea. I know you can swim in the sea. They tell you just to do this little shuffle where you sort push your foot. You you wave your foot in the sea ahead of you, and if there’s a stingray there, it’ll go off, and it’ll all be fine. And I thought, okay. Well, I’ll do that just in case. And, literally, the very first swish of my foot in the shallows, this stingray just appeared and swam off. And I thought, well, I didn’t realize There were that many. Like, literally, it was gonna be most footsteps, and, so I I pulled back. But I don’t think anyone was stung this year, were they? I think last year, someone was.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:43:38]:
Oh, yes. Someone was stung last year. I can’t remember who it was
Kevin Tumlinson [00:43:42]:
But yeah. Wow. Really recommends, getting in the water. Yeah. It’s okay.
Mel Jolly [00:43:49]:
Someone’s asking in the comments what the website is, and I don’t know why I can’t I don’t know why I can’t type it in. So it’s ninc.com, ninc.com.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:43:58]:
So Thank you. There we are. Thank you. Jim, was that you?
Jim Azevedo [00:44:01]:
That was me.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:44:02]:
Alright. You didn’t leave it up very long. Put it up put that
James Blatch [00:44:05]:
back there. Oh.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:44:06]:
That’s nink.com, n I n c dot com. And, I think Lexi might be willing to drop that in the comments for us if if she’s
James Blatch [00:44:16]:
paying We’re banned from putting links in,
Kevin Tumlinson [00:44:18]:
Yeah. I don’t I don’t understand why, but, yeah. Go ahead and drop that in. And, if you are watching this after the fact, it’s ninc.com or listening to the podcast, n i n c.com. And you do have to be I mean, you don’t have to be a do you have to be a member to even attend the conference, or is it
Mel Jolly [00:44:35]:
You either have to be a member or you have to qualify to attend as an industry guest.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:44:41]:
Okay.
Mel Jolly [00:44:41]:
So, like, Before I started planning, NINC, I attended several times as an industry guest because I was an author assistant taking on new clients. You guys all our industry your sponsors. But if somebody wants to attend as an industry guest but not sponsor, we have somewhere on the website where you can apply, And there’s just some basic criteria that that says you need to offer services that are of value to the community. You need to be a member, Not a member, but you need to have a positive reputation in the community, and you have to be willing to take on new clients Because we wanna make sure that the member attendees are meeting people who are willing to work with them.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:45:22]:
Yeah. We should also add that a lot of, big name folks show up at this, especially industry people or industries. Apple sometimes has a presence there. You’ll you’ll see Amazon there. So you this is an opportunity for you to to kinda introduce yourself, meet some of these people, and gain as an author. So, Nick, I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk to you much, man. I’m sorry about that.
Nick Thacker [00:45:48]:
The That’s okay.
Mel Jolly [00:45:48]:
I have a question for Nick.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:45:51]:
Okay. Good.
Mel Jolly [00:45:52]:
Why why does Randall Wood say that his, like, memory from Nick is Nick’s hair?
Nick Thacker [00:45:59]:
Are we sure we wanna do this right now?
Kevin Tumlinson [00:46:01]:
Okay. We only have now.
Mel Jolly [00:46:02]:
You got 30 seconds to appropriate.
Nick Thacker [00:46:05]:
And all these things. 1 minute version. We were we were at a nice, establishment called, McNasty’s, in the evening. 1:30 AM, I think, is, you know, reasonable time to be there. And somebody came up to me and asked if they could take a picture of my hair. Now this man might have been drinking a little bit, but, I was a little confused, nevertheless, and, said no, but he wanted to make sure he tapped me and wanted to make sure that it wasn’t weird. He said it’s not it’s not weird. It’s for my barber.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:46:39]:
I beg to differ!
Cameron Sutter [00:46:40]:
I want to look just like you.
James Blatch [00:46:42]:
Actually, saying it’s not weird makes it not weird.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:46:44]:
That’s what made it be weird.
James Blatch [00:46:46]:
Yes. Yeah.
Nick Thacker [00:46:47]:
So, so that’s why. So the my hair has been the talk of NINC.
James Blatch [00:46:51]:
It’s good hair, Nick. You have good
James Blatch [00:46:53]:
hair. Good hair. Yeah.
Nick Thacker [00:46:54]:
This is, like, this is a good there’s no hair right here. It’s all
Kevin Tumlinson [00:46:56]:
That Formerly was on, Dan Wood’s chin. So Yeah. Just so everyone knows where that went. Well, we are gonna have to wrap this up as fun as this was. I really enjoyed this. I hope we get to do this again. I will say, NINC is a very always a very special time for me. Some of my best memories in this business have come from attending.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:47:18]:
Mel, let Tawdra know that, you know, all of us really appreciate the very hard work you guys do. And all the people who are on this call, you’re all I consider you all very close friends and, always honored to spend time, with all of you except Nick. Always very honored. So, that said, we’re gonna go ahead and wrap up everybody. Thank you all for for being on the show, for helping us out here. For everyone else out there, make sure that you like, share, comment, subscribe. These are required of us by international YouTube law, to tell you to do these things. And make sure that you bookmark d2dlive.com so that you know when special little events like this We do one of these shows every week. It’s usually, just me and someone else or some you know, a couple of people, but tune in for those because these are very instructive to the author community, in my opinion. And, before we leave, I’m gonna run a little spot, everybody. So you guys hang out. Don’t don’t drop out on us right away. But we got a little spot we run at the end. And otherwise, thanks to everyone for tuning in, and we’ll see you all next time.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:48:01]:
Ebooks are great, but there’s just something about having your words in print, something you can hold in your hands, put on a shelf signed for a reader. That’s why we created D2D Print, a print on demand service that was built for you. We have free beautiful templates to give your book a pro look, and we can even convert your ebook cover into a full wraparound cover for print. So many options for you and your books. And you can get started right now at draft2digital.com.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:48:40]:
That’s it for this week’s self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital. Be sure to subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts, and share the show with your will be author friends, and start, build, and grow your own self publishing career right now atdraft2digital.com.