A two-day sale on FinCon13 tickets.

thI’ve written before about the Financial Blogger Conference, a four-day event that brings together beginner and veteran personal finance writers. This year’s event takes place in downtown St. Louis from Oct. 17 to 20.

And if you buy today or tomorrow, you can take advantage of a splendid sale price.

Here’s what the discounted $99 registration fee gets you:

  • All keynote speeches (more on those below), the breakout sessions by experts (like me, maybe) and access to the interactive expo hall.
  • Access to happy hours, parties, and other evening networking events (like a charity poker tourney, local tour, coffee shop meetup, and more). Note: Happy hours and sponsored parties have enough nibbly bits that you won’t have to buy dinner unless you want to.
  • Networking lunch on Saturday plus daily breakfast, coffee and snacks. Again: If you’re doing this on a budget, you won’t have to spend much out of pocket for meals.
  • Discounted hotel rate of $119 per night. (Frugal tip: Cut your costs in half by sharing with another writer. Don’t know any? Look for a roommate on the FinCon Facebook page. At the first FinCon I shared a room with someone I’d never met in person and it worked out just fine.)
  • The chance to take part in a mentoring event called Bloggers Helping Bloggers.
  • Conference magazine subscription and tote bag for all of the expo swag.

You can also add on the FinCon13 T-shirt and the “virtual pass” to HD videos and mp3s of the sessions for $9.99 apiece. In addition, there’s a “Blogger Boot Camp” on Oct. 16 and 17; admission to this is $99 and space is limited to 50 participants.

If you’re a public relations or industry professional, you can attend FinCon13 for $199 if you buy in the next two days. May I remind both industry pros and beginning bloggers: It’s a business expense!

Why you should go

Keynote speakers this year are:

  • Jean Chatzky: PF author, money expert for NBC’s Today Show and host of “Money Matters With Jean Chatzky” on RLTV
  • Derek Halpern, creator of “Social Triggers.”
  • Pat Flynn, of the Smart Passive Income brand, dubbed by Forbes magazine as one of the most successful and the most transparent online entrepreneurs.

Those breakout sessions are designed to “provide a ‘real world’ connection for the people who enjoy new media (i.e. blogging, social media) and finance (personal finance, money, investing, etc.)” and “peer education in current consumer financial trends, as well as trends and tactics in new media (e.g. blogging, monetization, social media, etc.).”

But in addition to learning writing strategies, SEO tips, advertising and other bloggy topics, you’ll be meeting other writers. The networking opps are incredible: You’ll meet people at the tops of their games, and also folks who are interested in cross-promoting and guest posting, which helps send traffic to your site.

You may also meet people looking to hire writers. I ran into several last year myself. When I told one of them that I was too busy to take on more work, he asked me for names of others who could help him. I sent people his way that very afternoon.

Note: You don’t have to have a site up and running in order to attend. FinCon13 would be a good chance to pick up information and to pick the brains of successful bloggers. You might come away thinking, “Yep, I can do this.” Or you might think, “Right now I don’t have the time I need to commit to this project – but I can use what I’ve learned to create a game plan.”

Or maybe you live within driving distance and would pay $99 just to hear Jean Chatzky et al. speak and hang out with a bunch of hyper writers. Whatever.

Incidentally, I’m not getting a finder’s fee for sending registrants to the conference. I just had such a great, energizing time at the past two that I’ve become a brand evangelist for Phil Taylor, who organizes the thing.

P.S. If you decide to attend, please come find me and say hello.

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9 thoughts on “A two-day sale on FinCon13 tickets.”

    • I hope to see you there some day…If I didn’t already have a roommate I’d invite you to share the hotel room.

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    • Opening night is a great time to meet other writers and get the lay of the land. Things start bright and early Friday.
      I’d also caution against flying in Friday morning due to the possibility for snafus. At another conference I was scheduled to fly in and be there by lunchtime, plenty of time to make it to the 5 p.m. dinner and get-to-know-everybody session — except that my flight was canceled and they couldn’t get me on another one right away. I arrived when the event was just breaking up. Sigh.

      Reply

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