Making the Most of Your First Conference
I was invited to my first work conference when I was an editorial assistant at Teachers College Press. The event was the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual conference, one of the most highly attended conferences of the year. When I was invited, I was thrilled. The idea of attending my first conference seemed like a testament to how far I’ve come in my early career; representing a notable publisher felt like a badge of approval – like I knew what I was doing. Of course, the inevitable sense of dread started to set in as I questioned whether I actually knew what I was doing, or if I was just really good at feigning competence.
Most publishing professionals in acquisitions and editorial departments will attend a conference at some point; those in acquisitions will likely attend more than one conference each year, as this is a crucial method of communicating with and connecting to our audiences and prospective authors. That being said, a normal amount of anxiety around first-time conference attendance is to be expected, especially as we approach the fall conference season.
The most important notion I can share with you is that you are in your current position for a reason: because you’re capable. If that doesn’t ease much of your fear, I’ve found that one of the best ways to ease a fear of the unknown is to be prepared for what is to come. I hope what I offer below helps shake off some of your fear and imposter syndrome.
Research and Readying Yourself
Preparation for a conference starts months before the actual event commences. Most of the time, a conference program will be released months in advance. It charts session types, titles, presenters, locations, and often makes important distinctions among certain speakers and sessions. They might even include sessions handpicked and highlighted as being of “particular importance” by the association’s sitting president, whether it’s because they closely resonate with the event’s theme or reflect important scholarship in the field.
Also at this time – though often before – a conference theme is announced. This theme is reflected throughout the conference’s sessions and highlights an influential topic that stood out across all departments in the past year or one that indicates how publishing might transform.
The program is the starting point, but it is also important to get a sense of which of the authors represented by your publisher will be attending. Are they presenting on a topic similar to their book? Are they presenting on a new topic? If so, is there a benefit to you or a colleague attending their session?
If you’re a junior-level employee without a specific list designation, you’ll have the opportunity to fully immerse yourself in your interests across the program. If you work within a particular list area, try to identify sessions from presenters whose work seems relevant to your subject. If you’re in acquisitions, as I am, this is an excellent opportunity to understand what types of work could yield book projects for you.
Some associations will allow attendees to tentatively mark sessions they plan to attend. If that option is available, take advantage of it. You don’t necessarily have to commit to every session you mark, but creating a tentative list can begin to help you sort your time.
Make a Rough Schedule
Regardless of the circumstances of your attendance, you should certainly make a rough schedule to organize your days. A starting point is to consider whether your publisher has a booth or table at the conference’s exhibit hall. If so, how often should you spend time there? What time will you arrive at the center, and how far away is your accommodation? When will you plan your lunch breaks in accordance with when your colleagues will be around to manage the table?
At your first conference, spending most of your time at your publisher’s booth during exhibit hall hours would be your best bet. This is for many reasons – if your publisher is holding an author event, you’ll want to be present to offer support to your team and the author themselves. Other, more senior attending staff will likely have various meetings scheduled, so your presence at the booth may be necessary.
I would wager that you’ll learn some of the most important takeaways from the conference by being at your publisher’s table for two reasons: first, you’ll have the opportunity to actually connect with readers and see firsthand what interests them about your booklist; second, you’ll be positioned to either observe or directly take part in organic acquisitions conversations with people interested in preparing a project with your press. The latter may even involve conversations with other organizations that could yield a symbiotic relationship. For me, these were what truly defined my understanding of the importance of conference attendance for publishers.
Preparation is key to a fruitful conference experience, but this shouldn’t be confused with trying to predict the happenings of your attendance. In fact, some of the best conversations you’ll have at these events will be entirely unplanned.
Lean on the Experience and Connections of Your Team
Let me remind you of something that can be easy to forget when you’re attending your first conference: your colleagues know that this is your first conference. They do not expect you to walk into the exhibit hall already knowing everyone, understanding unspoken rhythms, or having a perfectly curated schedule.
This is why one of the best things you can do before and during a conference is to lean on the experience of those around you. Ask your colleagues what conferences are actually like. Who do they recommend you meet? Which sessions or receptions are worth prioritizing? Are there authors they think you should introduce yourself to? Can they act as a liaison by introducing you to some prospective authors? Even a few informal conversations before the conference can give you a much better sense of how to approach your time there.
Your colleagues can also be an invaluable resource while the conference is actually happening. Pay attention to how more experienced members of your team interact with authors, editors, conference attendees, and representatives from other presses. What questions do they ask? How do they describe the press and the market? How do they exit a conversation when it’s time to move on? These are difficult to learn from a conference program but become much more intuitive when you watch someone who has attended such events many times before.
There is also something to be said for simply observing. At my first conference, I learned much from watching our Editorial Director navigate the exhibit hall. I began to understand who seemed to know one another, how publishers talked about their lists, what kinds of questions generated longer conversations, and how often a seemingly ordinary interaction could become professionally useful.
Most importantly, treat your colleagues as a resource rather than an audience you need to impress. Early in your career, it can be tempting to feel that you need to perform and demonstrate that you already know what you’re doing, or you might think that asking too many questions will somehow reveal your inexperience. Realistically, asking thoughtful questions is one of the clearest ways to demonstrate that you’re engaged and generate deeper, more meaningful conversations.
Your first conference is an opportunity to begin developing your own professional instincts, but this doesn’t have to be done alone. The people who have attended these conferences before you can offer tips, introductions, context, and reassurance, so seize their generosity. You will have plenty of opportunities to become the experienced colleague for someone else someday!
Seize Your Surroundings
The days will grow long and tiring quickly, making the warmth of a hotel comforter and cable television seem that much more tempting. However, should you have the energy, I’d argue that you may have a more memorable experience by pushing through the yawns and hum of networking buzz to explore your surroundings if work has brought you to a new city.
Conferences are enriching and yield exceptional networking opportunities and project leads. However, you should also claim some time to yourself when those commitments have been satisfied. These work trips may bring you to a part of the world that you may not frequent – use this as an opportunity to experience cultural institutions and cuisine in a new place! Here is your chance to leverage this trip into one that might look like what you’d do here outside of work-related business.
Coming to a new city at a time of year that isn’t necessarily your choosing could also yield some interesting experiences that you might not have gone out of your way to attend otherwise. For instance, I realized, much to my chagrin, that there was a limited-time exhibit dedicated to the Furby toy – quite unavoidable, as its poster featuring a two-story Furby peered into my hotel room whenever the shades weren’t pulled. However, having spent a few days in Boston during a random November, I was also able to browse an art exhibit dedicated to an exceptional local artist. More on theme with my regular interests, I’ve been able to visit various art museums, cultural centers, beaches, and gardens during my work trips, which have made me appreciate them significantly more. This may also be an excellent opportunity to spend time with your attending coworkers, which makes these experiences that much more enjoyable.
Working in a field where colleagues are often spread across different cities, a conference can also be a rare opportunity to spend meaningful time with people you don’t often get to see in person. During a recent conference trip to Denver, I was fortunate to spend quality time with a colleague who lives on the opposite side of the country. The same can be true of your relationships with authors. If you’re able to organize and attend author meetings while you’re at a conference, being in a new city can allow you to connect with existing and prospective authors in person, rather than relying on the virtual meetings that have become so common in publishing.
You may find your schedule building up quickly and your commitments pulling you elsewhere. But if you have any time to yourself between meetings, dinners, exhibit halls, and sessions, I encourage you to take some time back for yourself and explore a new and exciting place within your interests. This can easily provide some much-needed calm and introspection during such a busy work period.
Wading Through Doubt & Imposter Syndrome
In an exhibit hall with your senior colleagues and representatives from other presses stretching from wall to wall, it can be pretty easy to let the weight of your own “inexperience” get to you. At my first conference, my stomach turned as I conceived of situations after situations that would make my colleagues’ faces red with regret. Some of this fear comes from the strange way that conferences compress so much of your professional world into a few days.
One of the things that I wish I had understood better at my first conference is that being inexperienced and being unprepared are not necessarily the same thing. You can prepare thoroughly for a conference and still encounter situations that you have no idea how to navigate. You can read the program, research authors, talk to your colleagues, and make your schedule, and then find yourself standing in front of someone whose work you know very little about, trying to figure out what exactly you’re supposed to say.
If an author brings up a topic that is outside your area of expertise, you can use that as an opportunity to ask them to tell you more about it. If a colleague mentions a scholar or an organization you’ve never heard of, you can make a note to look them up later. You don’t need to pretend that you have a comprehensive understanding of every field represented at the conference, and frankly, no one expects you to.
In fact, I think there can be something valuable about approaching your first few conferences with a little bit of humility. You’re going to notice things precisely because you haven’t learned to take them for granted yet. You might pay closer attention to the way an experienced acquisitions editor talks to a prospective author or notice how a colleague determines whether a conversation is worth pursuing. You might ask a question that someone more experienced wouldn’t think to ask because they already know the answer. Your job isn’t necessarily to walk away from your first conference feeling like an expert, but to know a little more than you did when you arrived.
This is also where your preparation and your colleagues become especially important. You don’t need to know everything, but you should know enough about your own list, your authors, and the areas that you’re hoping to acquire in, so that you can recognize when a conversation might be worth pursuing. And when you find yourself in a conversation that is moving beyond what you know, there is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing a colleague into it.
Over time, the things that initially made me nervous became much more comfortable. I started recognizing people at conferences, became more comfortable approaching authors, and learned how to talk about our list without mentally rehearsing every sentence before I said it. None of that happened because I suddenly became an expert, but because I had more experiences to draw from. The more conversations I had, the easier it became to trust myself and my abilities.
You were invited because you are trusted to be there. That doesn’t mean you’re expected to know everything. It means you’ve been given an invaluable opportunity to learn, to meet people, and to begin curating your own approach to meaningful work as a publishing professional.
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Alyssa Jordan is Assistant Editor of Art Education at Teachers College Press, Columbia University. She completed her BA in English Literature at Fordham University and graduate coursework at Fordham University GSAS. Before coming to Teachers College Press, Alyssa worked on Bloomsbury Academic’s Film & Media studies list. She strives to champion interesting, transformative scholarship in academic publishing.
