by Laura Granger
The Kobo Writing Life team was excited to be back at Novelists Inc (NINC) conference for the first time since 2019!
In September, Rachel and I traveled to sunny St. Pete’s Beach to catch up with industry guests and Kobo Writing Life authors. It was great to see people in person again.
Novelists Inc is considered one of the top conferences in the indie publishing world. The organization is home to 1000+ novelists who come together to share their knowledge and expertise. The organization is open to authors of at least two works of at least 30,000 words. Authors need to have earned $2000+ over 12 months with a traditional publisher or $5000+ over 12 months as an indie author.
The conference brings together authors from all over the world to Florida, to the beautiful Tradewinds Island Resort. Over four days, authors have the opportunity to attend presentations on craft, marketing and business tips. They also offer “NINC After Dark” roundtables, a quick way to learn more about different topics from the indie world.
The conference is also a great place to learn more about different retailers like Kobo, through presentations and “industry suites”, an opportunity to meet the team and ask questions about the different retail platforms.
Some of the hot topics at NINC were AI audiobooks – (psst, we accept these at Kobo!) and how authors can use subscriptions like Patreon to reach new readers.
In Kobo’s presentation, Rachel and I talked about reaching new readers with Kobo Plus – Kobo’s subscription platform. We also ran a Kobo roundtable and attended NINC’s Meet Your Sponsors Happy Hour – we loved re-connecting with Kobo Writing Life authors in person and seeing some new faces as well.
We attended a live taping of the Self Publishing Formula show with Mark Dawson and James Blatch. It was exciting to be there live and hear their insights from the conference.
We also enjoyed sitting in on author presentations on craft. One of my favourites was from Jasinda Wilder and Jack Wilder, who talked about writing as a team and how they tackle writing in different genres under one pen name.
It was so great back at NINC in person and getting to catch up with authors while enjoying the Florida sunshine! Will we see you there next year? What are your conference plans for 2023?
