Clinics meet live for a total of six hours during the two hour-long workshops each day. (The workshops are recorded and can be viewed up to 60 days after the conference.) Those accepted for one of the clinics must be registered for the entire conference and pay an additional $65 upon acceptance.
Nonfiction Book Proposals
Cindy Lambert
Executive Editor-at-Large for Revell and Baker Books
Collaborative Writer
Limit 6 participants
Cindy began her career as owner of an award-winning independent Christian bookstore, then expanded into leadership roles in distribution, consumer research, editorial, and publishing at Ingram, Simon & Schuster, and Zondervan, where she served as vice president and associate publisher of trade books. She currently serves Baker Publishing Group as executive editor-at-large for Revell and Baker Books. She is also a collaborative writer, and has co-authored eight books including the bestseller UnPlanned with Abby Johnson (Tyndale and Focus on the Family) and The Voice with Sandi Patty (Zondervan). She and her husband, Dave, have six children and nine grandchildren and enjoy launching their kayaks off their pier in front of their log home in Michigan.
Cindy will lead a group of six authors in critiquing one another’s proposals, then spend the conference improving and fine-tuning them.
Click here for application due July 15.
Prerequisites:
1. Attend Cindy’s early bird workshop, "Crafting a Winning Nonfiction Book Proposal," on Wednesday, August 25.
2. Prepare your book proposal using the guidelines in The Elements of a Nonfiction Book Proposal.
On acceptance you will need to email your book proposal and at least two sample pages of writing to Cindy no later than August 1. Cindy will forward your file to the others in the clinic, and you will also receive (via email) a copy of what the others in the clinic have submitted. Important: Please put everything in ONE file and save as a Word doc or docx or in RTF.
Proposal-writing classes have always left me feeling a bit bewildered. Each instructor had their own, different list of “musts,” “dos,” and “don’ts.” The fog lifted for me after working with Cindy Lambert at CCWC. A delightful and caring mentor, I would have enjoyed her class under any circumstances. But as a teacher Cindy really zeroed in on: WHAT we needed to include in our proposal, WHY that information was important to an Acquisitions Editor, WHERE each section should be shown for optimum effect, HOW to dig deeply to uncover what made our writing stand out in a crowd, and, maybe most importantly, WHO are our readers? It took my understanding of writing and publishing to a whole new level.
Lori Hynson – Phoenixville, PA
Fiction Clinic
Dave Lambert
Owner, Lambert Editorial
Limit 6 participants
Dave is the owner of Lambert Editorial, which has been serving publishers and authors since 2003; the author of 11 books (including The Missionary and, with Tennessee governor Bill Lee, the 2018 memoir from Thomas Nelson, This Road I’m On); and former senior fiction editor at Howard Publishing, a division of Simon & Schuster; and former executive editor for fiction at Zondervan.
Taught by a fiction writer, editor, and teacher with more than 40 years of experience including more than 20 years as an acquiring editor in fiction for HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster, this hands-on clinic will help you with your work in progress as well as your fiction technique in general. Besides the 6 hours of group workshop time, you will meet for a half hour individually with the instructor.
Prerequisite: Must have previous publication of some type, either traditionally or independently. Submit with your application no more than 25 pages of your work-in-progress. Attend Dave’s early bird workshop on Wednesday, August 25.
Click here for application due July 15.
