20Books Vegas 2023: the Day After

was in Las Vegas this past week attending the last-ever 20 Books Vegas. Started in 2017, this conference inspired thousands of writers around the world. This was my third such conference, and the last. The primary show runner, Craig Martelle, went out on a high note and passed the mantel. To be honest, this year lacked the energy of the prior two years.

This is the day after. Or rather, it’s the day after the day after. Yesterday I spent 14 hours in planes, trains and automobiles returning to hearth and home. I’m exhausted. But I am also inspired.

What made 20Books conferences so great was not the talks. It was the fellowship. I probably attended half the sessions, but I made all the dinners and mixers I could. I reunited with some old friends made over the past two years, and met a few new ones; perhaps. I spoke to a few dozen attendees and let them share their enthusiasm. They may not have published many books, many had never published. We had different faiths and ideologies, but we shared the same desire to share the stories in our heads.

My author year seems to coincide with this conference. I try to start my year in October, my birth month, but that month ends up as a gap in my planning. I start in November and finish in September. While I have the covers for the next quartet of the Postal Marines, I’m not feeling the urge to write in it. For the next year, I’ll try to wrap up the Strand series and start another one. I have the same four book goal I had the prior two years. With two Strand books complete, four books would complete three in that series (what seems to be the minimum viable for a series) and a second series.

I don’t feel like pushing the books just yet. It is only the first Postal Marine. I think I’ll try to go wide with this series, include perhaps using Shopify. I am using Ghost.io for now, but still considering my self-developed solution.

– 
Ben Wilson, Author