Women in Publishing

10/02/2026

09/22/2026

The first thing most of us check before booking a conference is who’s speaking. It’s almost never the thing that changes your year.

Alexa says the Stages & Pages lineup is hands down incredible, and then she spends the rest of her answer talking about everyone else in the room: the sponsors, the workshop leaders, the other attendees, the woman you end up sitting next to.

Her example is one she couldn’t have planned. She was standing at a table at the career day fair at her kids’ elementary school when Roshanda Pratt’s daughter came up and told her that her mom was an Amazon bestselling author and the two of them should know each other. Her daughter made the introduction. It turned into one of the most important relationships in her business and her life.

So don’t stress about which workshop covers what. Come for the room.

San Antonio, October 15 and 16, plus the 17th if you take the VIP pass. We’re capped at 120 tickets. Comment STAGES or go to stagesandpagesevent.com

09/14/2026

I don’t read the agenda before I buy a conference ticket. I check the dates against my calendar and whether I’m mid-launch, and if it clears, I buy.

Every useful thing I’ve taken home from a conference came out of a conversation, at dinner or at lunch or in the lobby with three other women two hours after the last session ended. So what I look at is who’s going to be in the room, and whether the people running it have earned their reputation.

Stages & Pages is capped at 120 for that reason. October 15-17 on the San Antonio River Walk, co-hosted by Women in Publishing and April Adams Pertuis’s April Adams Pertuis | Story Coach.

Small enough that you end up across the dinner table from the woman whose session you came for.

Go look at your October. If those three days are clear, comment STAGES and I’ll send you the details.

09/12/2026

Todd Hill was 34 when he called his mother from the World Trade Center Marriott. He said there had been an explosion and that he was going to try to get out. That was the last time his family heard his voice.

His sister Holly Little is in this community. Her book, 9/11: Reflections of the Past 25 Years, publishes today, on the 25th anniversary.

Ann Van Hine lost her husband the same morning. Bruce was an FDNY firefighter, he responded, and he never came home. Ann was left with two young daughters and a life that looked nothing like the one she had planned, and years later she wrote it down. Pieces Falling came out in 2021.

Two of our members carried the same day for twenty-five years and turned it into something a stranger can hold.

Here is the ask. Buy one of these books, or both. Read it, and leave a review when you finish, because reviews are what keep a book findable in year two and year twenty, long after the anniversary posts stop.

Twenty-five years is long enough for a day to become history. Holly and Ann are making sure it stays a name.

Titles and links in the comments.

09/10/2026

Two of the women in our community took their grief of losing a loved one in 9/11 and turned it into purpose. 2 Books, 2 very different stories. Pieces Falling: Navigating 9/11 with Faith, Family, and the FDNY by Ann Van Hine Ann Van Hine and 9/11 - Reflections of the Past 25 Years by Hollie Little Holly Little

09/10/2026

Part 1 of a multi part interview. Alexa interviews…. Alexa!!! About our upcoming conference in San Antonio in October.

09/04/2026

Every book coach, publisher, and publishing company opens with the same question. What are your goals? What kind of sales do you want on launch day?

I have been asking authors that for more than ten years. After interviewing thousands of them, I will say it plainly: wrong question.

The one that actually predicts what happens is what are you willing to DO. Willing to learn new tools. Willing to get on podcasts, speak to a school library on a Tuesday morning, write the articles, pitch the guest posts, do the visibility work that makes it possible for anyone to find your book at all. If you are not willing, you can hang up the idea of selling a lot of copies, because your publisher cannot make your book successful. Trust me, I have tried. I have been dragging authors across that finish line for years and my back hurts.

Yes, you need a good book with a cover people want to pick up. That part is a no-brainer. The rest of it, especially indie or with a small or hybrid press, belongs to you.

So if you are ready to figure out how to get out there and share your message, come to San Antonio in October. Stages & Pages is built for the doing part, and you will not be doing it alone.

San Antonio, TX
October 15-17

Comment STAGES and we will send you more info.