Takeaways from TBR Writing and Publishing Conference

This weekend, I was fortunate to attend the first annual TBR Writers Conference at Lesley University in Cambridge. Billed as “over 75 award-winning authors, editors, and publishing pros ready to inspire and connect”, the conference was a full day of speakers, advice, and networking – all culminating in an after-party at La Fabrica Nightclub in Cambridge.

I’m hesitant to spend too much time on this blog, as I am currently knee-deep in finishing touches on Medusa ahead of its release in just four weeks. However, I’d be remiss if I didn’t share some of my major takeaways from the time spent listening to experts in the field, in hopes that some fellow writers are able to learn a little something from my experience.

I was a part of five sessions over the course of the day:

1. Researching Agents
2. Crafting Characters
3. Marketing and Getting Books Discovered
4. Revision Strategy of Reverse Outlining
5. The State of the Publishing Industry

Feel free to skip down to any that feel helpful to you!

Session 1: Researching Agents and Finding the Right Fit – Amy Bishop-Wycisk & Ariele Freidman

Big Takeaway = Querying is not transactional. It’s a relationship-forming process inside a small, human, overworked industry.

My first session of the day was spent in a session about how to find the right agent for you. It was delivered by two prolific literary agents, Amy Bishop-Wycisk and Ariele Freidman. In the session, they discussed the querying process from the agent’s point-of-view. So much of the session was about the industry, and how agents are human beings who are inundated with manuscripts which sometimes leaves the whole process feeling awful for both sides. I’m not sure if I learned anything ground-breaking in this session, but I did get some interesting insight into how these agents view the querying process. 

In the query letter, they both expressed they want bios that feel “human”, even commenting that Amy signed a client whose bio was nothing but “‘I live in Seattle with my husband and very good dog.” At the same time, they want comps that capture not just plot, but also writing style and vibe, blending multiple mediums. You can pitch your book as one that has “the vibes of Wild Wild Country” and “the writing of East of Eden”. But really, what these agents want is specificity. What about your story makes it only the story that only you could have written? 

Session 2: Character Sketches – Joan Wickersham

Big Takeaway = Character is revealed by careful selection and relationships with other characters. Specific (and seemingly unrelated) details can reveal more about a character than you think.

Joan Wickersham is the author of The News from Spain and The Suicide Index, a National Book Award Finalist. In her session, we focused on character sketches – short pieces of writing aimed to establish who a character is and what they are like. In her session, we read and analyzed, which felt very much like a breath of fresh air compared to the lecture style of most sessions. We read two Selections from Marion Winik’s The Glen Rock Book of the Dead and an excerpt from Mother of Sorrows by Richard McCann. 

In our session, we broke these down and looked closely at HOW these authors reveal character. So much of it was through their relationships with other characters, not so much who they are, but how they are seen by the narrator or other people in the story. I love how this presented some sort of mystery in both of these texts, where the character was discussed by another and the reader was left to wonder if they were fully accurate and true. 

Oh, and I just loved how both characters used hyphenated compound adjectives to describe their characters, like the first woman’s “soup-sending-back husband”. That tells us more about him than any other description ever would.

Session 3: Marketing and Discovery – Ariele Fredman, Alex Sunshine, Perpetua Cannistraro, Lisa Borders

Big Takeaway: People buy books because people they respect won’t stop talking about them.

Arguably the most insightful session of the day, my third session tackled the marketing side of being an author. Most people don’t have publicists or the ability to be on Oprah’s list, so how the hell do people get their books discovered in the modern age? My big takeaway from this session was this – people buy and read books because people talk about them. Marketing in the modern age is HUMAN. Word-of-mouth goes a long way.

They recommended that authors talk to ALL of their family members, colleagues, and connections about their book. If you aren’t comfortable doing that, then you are leaving sales on the table. Talk about your book passionately and unequivocally. Don’t view it as “I have to put advertisements on Amazon”, but view it instead as “I need to go tell Janice from the local bookstore about my book.” There are BookTokers, SubStack, Newsletters, and a million different ways to make your book known and shared with the masses. It can become overwhelming, but if you can choose the things you enjoy the most and think you’re the best at, that is the way to go. Spend time on that and focus your energy on that

Session 4: Revision Strategy of Reverse Outlining – Michelle Hoover and Authors

Big Takeaway: You can’t revise what you can’t see.

This session, led by Michelle Hoover of the 7 AM Novelist Podcast, was about reverse outlining – a revision tool in which the author revises their novel by outlining it AFTER its written. With Michelle were three very well-respected authors, including Milo Todd, author of The Lilac People, and each of them shared their techniques and tips for reverse outlining.

Here’s a great example from the first scene of my novel Medusa:

Chapter 1, Scene 1:
What happens: Peter takes Edith and Josey to Al Mac’s Diner, where Edith draws their family, the ocean appears outside the window, and Peter navigates suspicion, grief, and exhaustion while caring for the girls.
Purpose of Scene: Orient reader in time and place. Establish Peter as caretaker. Introduce grief, surveillance tension, and family loss. Contrast Edith’s innocence with Peter’s trauma.
Time Passed in Story: 30 minutes
Pages: 7

By doing this for a whole novel, the writer can take a big step back and look at their novel as a whole. My takeaway from this first passage is that 7 pages feels like a lot of reading for 30 minutes, even though the novel is doing heavy lifting in introducing Peter and the girls. By creating a reverse outline, the writer can be sure that every scene is following Kurt Vonnegut’s writing advice: “Every sentence should reveal something about a character or move the plot forward”.

Session 5: The State of Publishing – Maggie Cooper, Katie Grimm, Alex Sunshine, Roma P.

Big Takeaway: Publishing is an ever-changing business built on taste and timing, but craft is the foot in the door.

I ended by day with the current state of the publishing market, and I have to say, this was a little bit of a depressing way to end such a positive day. The honest truth is this… publishing is a business. Its all about making money. The amount of writers is growing, readers are shrinking, and agents are accepting less and receiving more. Agents who choose which books to represent are looking to make money and as one agent put it “The people who are buying books right now are female identifying readers with no kids who have money to spend and have kindles.” Realistic fiction is hard right now. Historical fiction is hard right now. People don’t want to read about the real world because they want an escape from real world. Speculative fiction is on fire because its the real world, but with a twist.

At the end, the core advice of the session was surprisingly old-fashioned. Write the best book you can and write more than one. You never know which will stick. Don’t drain yourself chasing trends because the publishing landscape changes fast and manuscripts take a long time. I left this session with one of my favorite quotes in mind, which comes from Dwayne in the movie Little Miss Sunshine:

Do what you love, and fuck the rest.

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As I left the conference, I thought a lot about my next book and where it stands in the literary marketplace. Medusa is probably not going to be picked up by an agent. It’s probably not going to sell a million copies. It’s probably not going to be picked up by Penguine Random House or another top 5 publisher.

BUT – I’m going to take this advice on character sketches, reverse outlining, and marketing to craft the best book I possibly can and I know in my heart that this book kicks so much ass. That’s okay with me.

Medusa; Or Men Entombed in Winter releases in ONE MONTH. February 24th, 2026. Be ready.

Love you guys.

– KF