Author Nation understood the assignment

The inaugural Author Nation conference brought changes to the indie author event scene, offering both improvements and challenges compared to 20 Books Vegas.

Hi,

A few weeks ago I went to the inaugural Author Nation and whoa, I was blown away by what the whole team did after taking over from 20 Books Vegas. For years, 20 Books was the elephant in the room of any conference conversation, so when Craig and Michael handed over the reins of the event to Joe Solari and the Author Nation team, I was skeptical, yet hopeful, that they would significantly improve the show, or even keep it the same quality.

I was a bit burned out on 20 Books, and honestly, I probably wouldn’t have gone back if they didn’t pass the baton. I have a lot of issues with the old show that I won’t relitigate here, but since my good friend

Chelle Honiker

was running programming, I had to go back and support, especially since as far as I know I’m still on the advisory board for her publication, Indie Author Magazine.

I heard lots of people rooting for Author Nation’s downfall, which I thought was a bit shortsighted, above being cruel. Why would anyone want the biggest convention in our industry to fail? After so many years and slights, I do understand wanting 20 Books Vegas to fail, but why a new show trying to fix all those issues and repair the trust that the old show rightfully lost?

Like many people, I was skeptical that any of our issues would be addressed, but I was one of the first people in line to buy my ticket. Maybe it’s just because we run a show, but I am endless empathetic to people striving to do the right thing, and who have a good vision, even if they don’t completely hit the mark.

Full disclosure: They did end up comping both my ticket and room once my presentation was accepted, but I think my opinion would be the same either way. Namely, that they 100% understood the assignment.

Does that mean perfect? No, far from it. I personally don’t understand why they do the reader-focused RAVE event on Friday since it’s always poorly attended. They also need to get a lot better scheduling programming into the right rooms, and make sure they don’t conflict with each other, but those are fixable problems. Plus, if a bunch of authors want to hang out and push their books for a day, there are way worse ways to spend a Friday.

Additionally, I have never gotten more information from a show and still not had the information I needed. Apparently, at the last minute, talks got cut down to 45 minutes and I literally had no idea until I was standing at the lecturn about to give my first presentation. Of course, 95% of attendees weren’t speaking at the show, so this was a bit of a champagne problem, and it turned out fine in the end. I just didn’t have time for questions at the end.

The new meeting area with couches and tables was an incredible addition, and I really liked how the vendor day was in a bigger, more spread out space. They also provided way more refreshments than the previous show, which was great, but please for the love of the gods, have more water coolers around the conference next year. I have never had no much trouble finding water at a show before, and Vegas is way too dry to scrounge for water.

The meeting space doesn't look impressive, but compared to last year it's night and day.

Previously, aside from the vendor day on Monday, the vendors have been in the main expo center, where they had to compete with panels and speakers the whole time. Now, the vendors have their own area. The vendor price for a full-week table was way higher than at 20 Books, but you also got like 10x the value.

I can’t say whether it was worth it to have a vendor table all week, but it was considerably better from an attendee perspective, and I met with every vendor there over the week mainly because I didn’t have to interupt the talks, making it a much more inviting experience.

I'm a bad student at conferences because I never go to sessions, so I can't speak to them, except for my own. I gave two presentations. The first one about viral builders got a great reception, but in the moment I thought it was the worst prezzo I had ever given in my career. People were so nice about it, though, that maybe it’s just my perception.

My second presentation was about how to find sustainable production and marketing to make the kind of money you want from books you love, and it killed. This talk was originally written by

Monica Leonelle

, but I was able to add my newest methodology to beef it out.

This was before my first prezzo, which people seemed to enjoy more than I thought while I was giving it.

A couple years ago I watched Becca Syme fill the same exact room and wondered if I would ever get to that level, and I’m so proud that I packed the room to capacity and volunteers had to turn people away. It’s amazing what a couple of years can do.

It felt like about half the attendance of last year’s 20 Books Vegas finale, but there were still a ton of people there, especially after vendor day on Monday. That’s just my gut feeling, too. I have no idea how many actually came to the show. Once you get above a couple hundred, it becomes impossible to tell for most people, including me.

I can say that the caliber of vendors and meetings I had was top notch. Last year, I felt like people knew who I was but were still keeping me at arm’s distance. This year was a night and day difference. People not only knew who I was, but treated me like an old friend. Plus, my reputation has never preceded me before (at least not in a good way) so meeting some of my favorite creators and having them know me already was a trip.

They packed the show with tons of amazing humans working at the top of their game. I can't even begin to list all the great people I hung out with, but it was a who’s who of the indie industry.

Plus, we went to see Cirque’s Mad Apple show (which I don’t recommend unless you like watching people spit banana pieces into each other mouth and crawl naked over the audience) and walked through the new Arte Museum in Cosmopolitan (which I absolutely and unequivocally recommend regardless of your opinion on naked crawling and banana spitting).

Plus, the food was killer. I’m pretty bougie, and so kind of thing is really important to me.

A poor represtation of my trip to Vegas, but some of the incredible memories.

There is such beautiful chaos magic at shows and, like I said above, the team behind Author Nation understood the assignment. For decades, shows have been too focused on providing information and not enough on building connection. In the future, the shows that faciliate the most powerful connection, not the most information, will win and, outside of our Writer MBA conference, this is the highest caliber connection I’ve had at any show in recent memory. NINC is the only other show that even comes close.

Don’t get me wrong, they had way too many presentations, and everyone seemed overloaded by the end of every day because it was just a fire hose in your face, but they also provided the necessary alchemy and space in those in-between moments that allowed connection to flourish. Even just thinking about that kind of stuff puts them miles ahead of most organizers.

I feel guilty not going to the talks, but I’ve always felt like a second-class citizen at shows because my goal was meetings and connection. The team at Author Nation understood that people who come to the show for connection deserve some attention as well.

Instead of being cast away to the smoke-filled lobby bar, being able to slide into a comfy couch in the exhibit hall was such a nice touch that I can’t fully express in words. It’s honestly the first time at an author event that I felt like somebody cared about my experience.

I must have had 30-40 meetings over the week and 90%+ of them were with a really interesting vendor or creator that blew me away. I do this for a living and had no idea so many amazing people were doing so much interesting stuff in the indie author space. Somehow, Author Nation collected them into one place, which blew me away. Hopefully, we’ll be able to bring a lot of them to our Writer MBA conference in March.

Author Nation is not a cheap show to do, and pricing is going up next year, but if they are going to keep this kind of quality, then it should definitely be on your radar. It’s a lot, especially because Vegas is already so extra even without the show on top of it, but they have proven their ability to curate the right group of people and bring them together to have a mind-blowing experience, even if they leave much of crafting that experience up to you.

What do you think?

• Did you go to Author Nation? What did you think?

• Have you been to 20 Books Vegas before?

• What’s on your conference list for 2025?

Let us know in the comments.

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