Indies at UPublishU?

This year at BEA (Book Expo America), a number of sponsors are working together to bring a special all-Sunday set of workshops and seminars. They\’ve named the experience \”UPublishU\”, and it\’s ALL about self publishing. For $99, it looks to me like it could be a fun and interesting experience.
Here\’s a link to the planned sessions for the day: http://www.bookexpoamerica.com/Concurrent-Events/DIY-Authors-Conference/#page=page-2

Highlights include a keynote address with Mark Coker (founder of Smashwords) as one of the speakers; a session on maximizing Kindle sales from the Amazon Director of Author and Publisher relations, Jon Fine; several sessions on social media and marketing for writers; and quite a bit more. Sessions run from 9am til 5pm.

It sounds like it might be worth attending for the networking potential alone. 😉 There\’s bound to be quite a few indie writers checking this thing out. The seminars themselves look fairly interesting, though. When I first saw the announcement, I sort of poo-pooed it. What did Publishers\’ Weekly (one of the sponsors) know about indie publishing, anyway? And was it in their best interest to provide a good set of seminars, or to do a lot of discouraging of self publishing? The latter, I thought – but looking at the list of discussions, this looks worthwhile.

So in a reversal of opinion, I\’m seriously considering going. For the networking – to meet folks. To listen to Mark Coker speak. And to hit as many of the more interesting sounding seminars as possible. If there\’s one thing I know, it\’s that I don\’t yet know *everything* about *anything* – which means there\’s always at least one new byte of information or new trick I can learn from other folks. Probably always will be. I probably won\’t stick around for the rest of the conference (although the tracks of the IDPF Digital Book seminar look awesome too) because I\’m frankly just flat out busy right now.

So what about you? Thinking of going? Which sessions appeal most? I\’d love to meet some of you folks there, if we can!