KitLit Writers Conference you can attend in your jammies

Thanks to Karsten who I met Twittering, I discovered a writer's conference especially for kidlit writers. The only price of admission is having your MC be under 18 years of age.

WriteOnCon is a project that was started by seven writers who wanted to 'pay it forward' for other writers. Just like a 'real' conference, there will be keynote speakers, agent panels and lectures but they will presented in the form of blogs, vlogs, moderated chats, webinars, podcasts and livestreaming.

What's really awesome about this conference is their growing list of  industrial strength professionals who will be the presenters. There are also critique forums which will allow writers to receive feedback and exposure for their work, and the entire program has been designed to be both informative and entertaining.

From what I've seen of their vlogs, this looks to be a very fun and interesting event. Did I mention this is a 3-day conference?
And if you haven't seen Karsten dance, you don't know what you missing.

When: Tuesday – Thursday, August 10 – 12, 2010
Where: http://www.writeoncon.com/
Cost: Free!
Who: it’s for EVERYONE!

What the bleep is a writer's platform?

Greetings friends, both old and new. I'm kicking this blog into gear again and the first thing I want to address is this thing called a writer's platform. You can't go anywhere without reading about it. Type it into Google and you have over 4 million pieces of advice on this matter. But first, I have to get this off my chest. The name 'platform' just bugs the heck out of me. Who came up with this generic, dull term for authors online 'presence'?

'Platform' evokes all the visual imagery of a piece of plywood. Come on, we're writers. We can come up with something better than this! Bandstand, auction block, podium, launching pad. A thesaurus is a wonderful thing.

The other thing that's bugging me is that everyone seems to be regurgitating pretty much the same advice, although I confess I haven't read all four million postings. Get a blog, Twitter, and Facebook. Ok. Got it.

But hey, I'm not making these complaining noises for nothing. I did listen and obey. My Guardian Cats are on Facebook, I have a couple of blogs and just recently started tweeting and guess what? What sounded like a lot of work is pretty fun. Too much, if you know what I mean. If I'm blogging, FBing, twittering, then I'm not really working on my book. But I'm connecting with people and that's got to be a good thing for a hermit. Right?

I'd just like to add a couple of things to the platform, and that is GoodReads and Google Friend Connect, which allows you to turn your website or blog into a social hall, which is why I'm back here at my Blogger blog rather than WordPress.

What are you doing to build a platform? Do you have a Facebook page strictly for your writing or a particular book? Do you Twitter? What part of the platform do you enjoy the most?