We are now SEEKING PANELISTS for Storycrafting Sessions: Publishing, a free one-day virtual conference on May 24th, 2025. We’ll be discussing the following topics:
11AM – 12PM: Finding A Home For Your Fiction: Choosing Between Trad, Small Press, or Self-Publishing
12:30 – 1:30PM: Book Comps: How to Find Them and Frame Them
2 – 3PM: The Self Publishing Debate: Kindle Unlimited vs Publishing Wide
3:30 – 4:30PM: Effective Outsourcing: How To Find/Work with Illustrators, Social Media Managers, and other Industry Experts
5 – 6PM: Dealing with Entrepreneur Overload: Using Tools To Simplify Non-Writing Tasks
Want to chat with our community about one of these topics? Apply for a panelist spot today – or keep reading to find out more about how the event works.
Storycrafting Sessions FAQ
What is a Storycrafting Session?
A Storycrafting Session is a free one-day virtual conference where we dive deep into one part of the writing or publishing process. We’ve covered numerous topics in the past few years, such as drafting and editing.
How do Storycrafting Session panels work?
Storycrafting Session panels are one-hour Zoom conversations. The first half is devoted to questions from the moderator and our Sustaining Members. The second half is devoted to live questions from the audience.
Moderator + community questions are always sent a few days ahead of the panel. We obviously can’t predict live questions, but our moderators make an effort to filter out questions that are distracting from the panel topic or harmful in any way.
All Storycrafting Sessions panels are recorded for eventual publication to our YouTube channel.
What is expected of panelists?
Panelists are expected to attend their panel and answer questions to the best of their ability. There are no other expectations, though we also run a conference Discord and encourage panelists to join the server for extended conversations about their panel topics (and other writing conversations).
Panelists are encouraged to take steps to make themselves comfortable. If you need to wear a mask or sunglasses and/or use an avatar to protect your privacy, we understand.
What steps do we take to protect panelists?
In order to protect our panelists, we remove audience permissions to stream video or audio to the Zoom. We will also remove anyone who is posting harassment, bigotry, or other inappropriate content in the Zoom chat or Discord server.
How do we choose panelists?
There are a few things we consider when choosing panelists:
- Experience levels. We aim to include a mix of publishing newbies and experienced authors in all panels.
- Representation. We aim to include people from a variety of communities and emphasize the inclusion of marginalized people.
- Reputation. While we can’t always guarantee everyone at our events is a fantastic human being, we do some basic vetting for each panelist to avoid platforming people who are known bigots or abusers.
- Community participation. We attempt to have a mix of people who have been active in the Weeknight Writers community and people we’ve never heard of.
We choose 4-5 panelists for each panel, as we find that having a higher number of panelists means we don’t have space for everyone’s perspective.
Are panelists paid?
Storycrafting Sessions are primarily free events (with Supporter tickets for people who want to compensate us for the time spent organizing them). As such, we do not offer payment for panelists who participate in these events.
How can I get involved?
If you want to be a panelist, please apply for a panelist spot at Storycrafting Sessions: Publishing by 11:59:59 on March 25th.
If you’re not interested in a panelist spot but would like to help us moderate the Zoom or Discord chats, please email us at weeknightwriters@gmail.com. Volunteers will be compensated with a membership to the Weeknight Writers Pro Discord.