Call for Papers Submission by an Agency: How the Done-for-You Service Works

If you want an agency to handle your call for papers, it runs the whole submission process from choosing conferences to following up, while you supply the expertise and approve the results. A call for papers is the public invitation with which a professional conference collects talk proposals, and every proposal consists of an abstract, a short description of the planned talk. This article describes the process from your side, from the material you hand over once, through the work in the background and your approval, to the message that tells you a conference has said yes.

Why submitting is more than filling in a form

At first glance a submission looks manageable: title, abstract, bio, send. Behind it sits an operation made of many small tasks. The right conferences have to be found, and there is no central list for that. Every conference has its own window in which its call for papers is open, and anyone who misses it often waits for next year's edition. How the whole procedure works, from the invitation to the stage, is explained in the guide to the call for papers.

On top of that, every conference asks for different fields: title, abstract, bio, photo, track, format, level, benefit for the audience, desired length. A programme committee of organisers and outside experts compares each proposal with all the others in the same track and asks what it gives its audience. The version with which you explain your subject to a client therefore has to be recut for every conference, to fit its focus and its audience.

Anyone who runs this alone next to client projects pushes it back from week to week. An agency takes the operation off your hands, and the rest of this article shows how that looks from where you sit.

What you hand over once

It starts with a conversation about your field and about what you want to show on a stage. From that material the agency develops the talk and several abstracts in variants that suit different conference themes. You supply the substance: experience from projects, positions, examples you may tell, and the clients you want to reach from a stage.

Then comes the block that every submission demands: a speaker bio and a photo. Added to that is the information on which language you speak in, how far you travel and in which periods you are free. You assemble this once, and the agency maintains it for every later submission.

With your approval of the talk and the abstracts, your share at the start ends. After that the operation begins, and it runs without you.

What does an agency do when it submits your call for papers?

An agency takes on five ongoing tasks when it submits for you, and together they make up the real effort. The first is choosing conferences: the agency looks for the events where your clients sit. It checks theme and audience, watches the submission window and sorts by fit. The second is adapting the texts, because each abstract is cut to the track and the form of the conference without moving your core subject.

The third task is the submission itself, meaning the completion of forms and mandatory fields on the relevant platforms. Many conferences collect proposals through submission platforms, where a profile is created once and then serves many conferences. Others accept proposals only through a form on their own website, and some fill their programme through personal letters to the programme managers. The fourth task is monitoring deadlines: a calendar records which call closes when, and the agency submits in good time, well before the day of the deadline.

The fifth task is following up. Weeks often pass between submission and decision, and some organisers send rejections late or not at all. The agency keeps an overview of every submission and asks for news wherever the route allows it, above all at conferences without an open call. What happens in that interval is explained in Following up after a call for papers.

Stage Starter takes this work off your hands: we find the right calls, write the submission and submit it in your name, follow up and support you all the way to the stage. You supply your expertise and approve.

Is it allowed for an agency to submit in your name?

A submission by an agency under your name and with your approval is common and accepted at conferences, because the programme committee assesses the proposal and chooses the person who gives it on stage. In larger companies, communications departments often prepare the submissions of their experts, and an agency plays the same role for independents and smaller firms. What matters is that the details are accurate and that you give the talk yourself.

Your permission for the agency to act in your name is settled by the contract with it. Submissions go out under your name and with your bio, so you know and approve what is sent in your name. Some conferences ask for consent to their terms of participation, for instance on recording the talk or publishing the slides, and you give that consent yourself, explicitly.

For the submission platforms the agency creates a speaker profile with bio and photo, assigns your topics to it and agrees the details with you. The profile belongs to you as a person and stays the same across all conferences, so a committee sees the same bio and the same photo with every submission.

Where you approve

An operation that runs in your name needs a clear point at which you decide, and at Stage Starter that point is at the start: you approve the talk and the abstracts once, before the first submission goes out. What stands there will be read at every conference under your name, and for that reason the control over the wording lies with you. The texts arise from the conversation with you and from your material, and none goes out without your approval.

In the same step you name what is out of the question for you, such as particular destinations or conferences where competitors are on the programme. After that the agency works within this frame, and it adapts the texts itself to the form fields and character limits of each conference, so that not every form reaches you individually. It keeps a record of all submissions and replies. The approval costs you a few hours at the beginning, and after that it stays with occasional questions.

What is the acceptance rate when an agency submits?

In our own submissions for clients, up to 19 per cent of conferences say yes, while 5 per cent at most is typical in the market at this volume of submissions. The programme committee picks a few proposals from many, so fit and volume of submissions together decide the outcome. Of 2,189 submitted abstracts, 1,374 have been decided, of which 94 were accepted and 1,280 rejected. That gives roughly 7 per cent acceptance per abstract.

At the level of conferences the sum looks more favourable, because several abstracts are often submitted to one conference. Of 433 conferences with a decision, 83 said yes, which is roughly 19 per cent. With n submissions at a rate p, the chance of at least one acceptance is 1 − (1 − p)^n. Anyone who submits to twenty conferences has a chance of roughly 64 per cent of at least one acceptance at the typical 5 per cent, and at 19 per cent per conference that chance rises to over 98 per cent.

Arithmetically, then, almost fifteen decided abstracts stand behind one acceptance, and from preparation to follow-up each of them ties up work, many working days over a year. How that sum develops over a year is shown in Submit yourself or hire a speaker agency.

How you hear about acceptances

Organisers decide at different times, often weeks after the submission deadline. The agency collects all replies in one overview, and you hear of every acceptance as soon as it arrives. With the acceptance the agency settles the date and the format of the appearance together with you. That includes how long the slot is and how travel and preparation will work.

Rejections say more about the competition in that window than about your expertise. The programme committee chooses from a fixed number of places, and good proposals are left over as well. How to place a rejection is described in Rejected as a speaker. For the agency a rejection is information: it feeds into the next selection and into the adaptation of the abstracts.

On the stage you stand yourself, and you also hold the conversations after the talk from which client relationships grow.

How much does it cost to have a call for papers submitted?

At Stage Starter, collaboration starts from €990 net per month, and that covers the whole submission operation from the first conversation about your field to the arrangements with the organiser after an acceptance. Anyone who goes the pay-to-speak route instead, paying for their own session as part of a sponsorship, quickly pays €10,000 or more for a single speaking slot. A written roadmap in advance comes out of the Speaker Audit, which costs from €2,000 net and is credited against a subsequent collaboration.

No agency can guarantee an acceptance, because the programme committee decides. The agency delivers the work itself: selection and texts arise from your material, deadlines and follow-up run reliably, and the number of submissions is large enough for the rates in this article to apply.

From submission to stage

Between submission and stage there are often several months, and for that reason the number of your appearances next year is decided by the submission windows that are open this year. Whether your topic fits the conferences where your clients sit, we settle in a first conversation.