Get Known Before the Book Deal

Podcasting 101: Ending Well

By Kati Neville

 

I was disappointed when one of my favorite podcasts abruptly ended last winter. I checked the feed and website for updates each week. I hoped the delay was weather-related or due to illness. Now it's been six months and I wish I knew why it ended.
 
Have you thought about how and when to end your podcast? With all of the focus on starting your show, it might seem odd to consider ending it too. But establishing a few guiding principles will keep a check on both emotion and inertia when it's time to focus on new professional projects and goals.
 
Archival Plans
 
Perpetual online access to podcasts means listeners will find your show even after you've moved on. Some podcasters continue to pay for hosting so that episodes are available even after production stops. Traffic from search engines brings in enough new listeners to make it worthwhile. This option is optimal, if you can afford it.
 
But if the monthly cost of hosting is more than you want to spend, consider consolidating your .mp3s on one webpage. Or, identify your listener favorites and burn them onto a "Best of" CD, that's offered for sale. Better yet, weave them into your next book proposal. Maybe your book with an accompanying CD will dazzle the sales team!
 
Sponsors
 
Do not seek sponsors if you have any reservations about making a long-term commitment to your show. Your timelines and future plans may conflict with sponsor expectations and contracts. Better to keep it simple and have fun.
 
Platform Bridges
 
Don't abandon your listeners. Instead, plan to inform them about the changes in your career that impact your podcast. Thank listeners for their support. And invite them to help you succeed in your new endeavors.
 
Listeners will migrate to your new website, blog, or podcast at different rates. Some will stop listening altogether. Others will switch quickly. So be sure your new online presence is ready for visitors before you announce any changes. Also, expect to operate your old and new sites concurrently for a few months so late adopters aren't left behind.

 

 

Kati Neville is coauthor of the best selling cookbook, Fix, Freeze, Feast. She is a contributing editor for The Saver's Kitchen podcast and regularly blogs on The Forklift. Kati teaches cooking classes in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. When not online or teaching, Kati enjoys writing and tasting new recipes in her kitchen.

Christina's Signed Book Promotion

SUMMER SIGNED BOOK PROMOTION & PRIZES!!!

Do you have signed copies of both of my books? If not, please consider this "prize inside" signed book promotion offer.

I am selling ten signed copies of each book at the cover price plus shipping.

My husband, Jason, has taken these copies and slipped prizes into six of the twenty  books.

When I receive an order, I will pull a book out of the pile (I don't know which books have the prizes in them), custom inscribe it, and pop it in the mail.

Six random winners will get two of each of the following prizes at no extra cost:

• A one-hour writing career phone consultation
• A half-hour writing career phone consultation
• A free, signed copy of my other book When your book arrives, check page 150 to see if you are a winner!

More details are here (for Writer Mama) and here (for Get Known).
Offer expires July 31st or once all twenty books are sold, whichever comes first.

Thanks for spreading the word to your friends who might not yet have a signed copy of their very own!

Friday, August 7, 2009 #platformchat with Chris Brogan & Wendy Burt-Thomas

I'm very pleased to announce that on Friday, August 7th our #platformchat guests will be author and social media expert, Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), and nonfiction author, freelance journalist & editor, Wendy Burt-Thomas (@wendyburt).

Time is: 11:00 - noon PT, noon - 1:00 MT, 1:00 - 2:00 CT, & 2:00 - 3:00 ET.

The topic is: Service without Self-sacrifice.

If you missed our recent chats, you are welcome to peruse recent transcripts: 

July 24th #platformchat

July 14th #platformchat

June 26th #platformchat

The platform-building conversation often continues even after the chat is over...which, okay, is kind of the whole point.

Anyone with a Twitter account can participate. I recommend using Tweetchat.com and plugging in our hashtag, #platformchat, to follow and participate in the chat. Once you have a Twitter account, you can use your Twitter ID and password to get a Tweetchat account very quickly.

I hope you will bring your questions on this topic and join the discussion!

Please note: #platformchat is on an every-other-week rhythm now. Thanks!

Here's a little more about our guests:

Chris Brogan is a ten year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at [chrisbrogan.com], a blog in the top 10 of the Advertising Age Power150, and in the top 100 on Technorati. Chris is also the cofounder of the PodCamp new media conference series, exploring the use of new media community tools to extend and build value. He recently became president of New Marketing Labs, a social media agency. He runs the Inbound Marketing Summit events with CrossTech Media. Chris frequently speaks at and attends marketing and social media events, sharing his passion for all things social media. Chris won the Mass High Tech All Stars award for thought leaders for 2008. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, US News & World Report, The Montreal Gazette, Newsweek, and some other places.

Wendy Burt-Thomas is a full-time freelance writer, editor and copywriter with more than 1,000 published pieces. Her work has appeared in such varied publications as MSNBC.com, NYTimes.com, Family Circle and American Fitness. She is the author of three books: Oh, Solo Mia! The Hip Chick's Guide to Fun for One (McGraw-Hill, 2001); Work It, Girl! 101 Tips for the Hip Working Chick (McGraw-Hill, 2003); and The Writer's Digest Guide to Query Letters (Writer's Digest, 2008). Visit her at http://www.GuideToQueryLetters.com or her blog, http://askWendy.wordpress.com.

#platformchat moderators are:

Christina Katz is the author of Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths to Build an Author Platform and Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (both for Writer’s Digest Books). A platform development coach and consultant, she teaches writing career development, hosts the Northwest Author Series, and is the publisher of several e-zines including Writers on the Rise. Christina blogs at The Writer Mama Riffs and Get Known Before the Book Deal, and speaks at MFA programs, literary events, and conferences around the country. Follow Christina on Twitter at @thewritermama.

Meryl K. Evans is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook, co-author of Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites and contributor to many others. The long-time blogger and gamer has written and edited for a bunch of places online and off. A native Texan, she lives a heartbeat north of Dallas in Plano, Texas with her husband and three kiddos. Though born in silence, she tries to show that deaf people are just like everyone else. Follow Meryl on Twitter at @merylkevans.

Get Known Now! Article Writing Isn't Dead

 

By Christina Katz

With new magazines and newspapers shutting down each day, you might wonder, what's the point of learning article writing? With all of the layoffs in the industry, you might think soon there won't be any publications left to write for. And if you read enough blogs, you might even wonder, is old-fashioned journalism dead?
 
But here's the thing: writers still need to learn article-writing basics in order to write nonfiction well enough to get their words published. As long as people have the ability to communicate with each other through the written form, journalism skills will be in demand. And those who have them will get published and paid more often than those who don't. So don't worry so much about whether your words will be published in print or online. You'll still need skills no matter where your words are published.
 
And as far as blogging to become a better writer goes, I'm not convinced. In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if the opposite is true. But I digress. I've been writing articles for over ten years and I've learned a thing or two on the topic that I'd like to share with anyone thinking about article writing as a platform-building strategy.
 
First of all, writers who know how to write for a target market know how to write for a specific audience. As an author, this is a skill you are going to need to cultivate and will use often. Furthermore, the ability to match your message to your audience comes in handy if you speak or consult with a variety of audiences.
 
Secondly, who says you are a good writer? Your blog readers? That's probably not going to be credible enough for most agents and publishers. When you write for publication, you go through the editing process and by the time you are done, your writing is likely a whole lot sharper and cleaner than it would have been without an editor. This kind of in-the-trenches experience will come in handy when you go through similar paces with your book drafts.
 
Third, if you regularly work with editors, this proves that you can actually cooperate with another human being to get a job done. It also means you have basic business skills and you likely treat your writing as a business. You have no idea how important this is to publishers who have seen far too many perfectly good book ideas bite the dust somewhere along the deadline process because a writer cracked under the pressure.
 
Are you beginning to see why taking shorter-form journalism assignments, hitting the deadlines, and seeing your words in print is great practice for the marathon of book writing?
 
Good. Because it takes writing skills to write a good book that readers want to not only read but also recommend to others to read. The idea that anyone can write a book is true, in the most general sense. But not everyone can write a good book, a readable book, the kind of book that meets readers' needs and compels them to tell others about the book.
 
So when someone tries to tell you that article writing is dead. Don't fall for it. Not even for one second. And then work on your article-writing skills. I've outlined a crash-course to help you learn quickly in chapter 23 of Get Known Before the Book Deal or check out my step-by-step approach in Writer Mama.
 
Happy article writing!

 

   
Christina Katz is the author of Get Known Before the Book Deal, Use Your Personal Strengths to Build an Author Platform and Writer Mama, How to Raise a Writing Career Alongside Your Kids (both for Writer's Digest Books). A platform development coach and consultant, she teaches

writing career development, hosts the Northwest Author Series, and is the publisher of several e-zines including Writers on the Rise. Christina blogs at The Writer Mama Riffs and Get Known Before the Book Deal, and speaks at MFA programs, literary events, and conferences around the country.

#platformchat transcript from Friday, July 24th with Allison Winn Scotch & Bill O'Hanlon

Special thanks to Meryl K. Evans for supplying the edited transcript of Friday's #platformchat.

This transcript is in reverse chronological order, so please start at the bottom and read to the top.

We're posting the chat in PDF instead of cutting and pasting the entire hour-long chat into a blog post.

Hope to see everyone at the next #platformchat on Friday, August 7th at 11 a.m. PT.

I'll announce our guests soon.

We are on an every-other week schedule now. So, look for new chats every two weeks.

Happy platform-building!

Download Platformchat7-24_transcript

JOIN ME IN NYC THIS SEPTEMBER!

The Writer's Digest Conference: The Business of Getting Published

Use my discount code for $50 off!

Code: KatS8

The Writer's Digest Conference:  The Business of Getting Published is designed to guide any author through the new dynamics of today's publishing world.  This three-day event takes place Friday, September 18, through Sunday, September 20, 2009, at the New York Marriott Marquis, on Times Square in New York.

With emphasis on platform, networking and social media, The Writer's Digest Conference is an innovative and ground-breaking conference, featuring the industry's top forward-thinking speakers, leading sessions on topics relevant to the current and future state of the publishing world.
Chris Brogan, social media genius, is the keynote speaker. 

Other speakers include Kassia Krozser, editor/publisher of BookSquare.com;  David Mathison, whose online sales success is the new business model;  Mike Shatzkin, the industry's top publishing consultant, Seth Harwood and Scott Sigler, whose own podcasts and videocasts have made them superstars in the business;  and many more, plus the editors of Writer's Digest!

Complete program information, including speaker bios, special events related to the conference and registration, is now available here.

Know Thy Self, Know Thy Audience: Write an Irresistible Book Blurb

By Sage Cohen

 

You now know what your book accomplishes and for whom. You know how it compares to similar books and why readers should choose yours. You know how you want folks to feel about your book and the best way to inspire this feeling.
 
It's time to condense all of this knowledge into a single, high-impact paragraph or two -- called a blurb -- that tells the story of your book's value quickly and persuasively.
 
The blurb can be used in a variety of ways to move your project forward: as the foundation of your query letter, the concept statement in your book proposal, the crib sheet from which you pitch the book live at a conference, and ultimately the marketing content (or blurb) on the book's back cover or jacket flap.
 
The blurb's job is convince to agents and publishers that your book will sell -- and convince readers that this is a book they must have.
 
Here's the blurb I created for Writing the Life Poetic:
 
"No one needs an advanced degree in creative writing to reap the rewards of poetry. Writing the Life Poetic puts poetry back into the hands of the people -- not because they are aspiring to become the poet laureate of the United States -- but because poetry is one of the great pleasures in life.
 
Writing the Life Poetic is packed full of captivating new ways to generate ideas and have fun with the writing process. 80 short, friendly chapters address a mix of content, process, and craft ideas designed to help you tune into the poetry of your life -- and get it down on the page."
 
Your turn! Write a blurb that names the problem your book solves, describes the readers who would most enjoy it, and articulates quickly what it will accomplish for those readers -- and how.
 
Be patient with yourself. Whittling down everything you know about this project into a paragraph or two can take some time. Expect multiple revisions.
 
Then test out the blurb on a few people who are unfamiliar with your book and ask them to tell you what they've learned from it. This will help you see where you're hitting the mark and what could be refined.  

 

Sage Cohen is the author of (Writers Digest Books, 2009) and the poetry collection Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write PoetryLike the Heart, the World. An award-winning poet, she writes three monthly columns about the craft and business of writing and serves as Poetry Editor for VoiceCatcher 4. Her poetry and essays appear in journals and anthologies including Cup of Comfort for Writers, The Oregonian, Oregon Literary Review, Greater Good and VoiceCatcher. Sage holds an MA in creative writing from New York University, co-hosts a monthly reading series at Barnes & Noble and teaches the online class Poetry for the People. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and awarded a Soapstone residency. To learn more, visit www.writingthelifepoetic.com.

EARLY FALL CLASSES BEGIN ON AUGUST 12TH!

Writing and Publishing The Short Stuff
Especially For Moms (But Not Only for Moms!)
With Christina Katz
Class Begins August 12th
Prerequisites: None
Finally, a writing workshop that fits into the busy lives of moms! You will learn how to create short, easy-to-write articles-a skill that will make it easier to move up to longer, more time-consuming articles when you're ready. Try your pen at tips, fillers, short interviews, list articles, how-tos, and short personal essays-all within six weeks. Now includes markets!
Cost: $250.00.
More/Register at www.christinakatz.com

Platform Building 101: Discover your Specialty
With Christina Katz
Class Begins on August 12th
Prerequisites: None
Identifying your writing specialty is one of the trickiest and most necessary steps in launching a writing career today. This class will help you find your best audiences, cultivate your expertise, manage your ideas, develop marketing skills, claim your path, serve editors and become portfolio-minded. You'll learn how to become the professional you've always wanted to be and, most importantly, how to take your writing career more seriously.
Cost: $250.00.
More/Register at www.christinakatz.com

Writing for the Web
With Jennifer Applin
Class Begins on August 12th
Prerequisites: None
These days virtually every business and industry needs to have an online presence. With a growing trend in Internet marketing, e-commerce and online publications, the need for creating well-written web content is more important than ever. If you are looking to make a name for yourself, and a living, writing for the web, then this course can help you. Students will learn how to develop a writing style that is suitable for the web; provide a variety of services (online articles, website content, blogging, editing, etc.); establish a fair rate and avoid scams; find paying assignments and secure steady accounts.
Cost: $250.00.
More/Register at www.christinakatz.com

Invest In Your Writing Career Today
& Reap Greater Rewards Tomorrow.

Hiya Groovers!

Some of you may know that I've been taking it a bit easy this summer, which is really about gearing up to work smarter instead of harder this fall.
 
Any business is going to need an overhaul once in awhile and a writing career is no different. Just like a car needs to go into the shop for regular oil changes and the occasional repair, we all need to put on our mechanic hat once in awhile and check under the hood.
 
Things change. Your writing career expands until it is not the same writing career you had five years ago. That has definitely been the case for me and it's been a stretch to keep up.
 
What I've found most helpful in regrouping is assessing areas where I need more support, asking for more help, and assimilating more assistance into my routine.
 
Gradually, it's working. Clarity is replacing the frustration of not being able to keep up with myself. Gratitude is emerging where I was often feeling impatient. I have created enough space to vision a brighter future, not only for myself, but for the important others in my career too.
 
By the time you read this I'll be on vacation. I'll have a better vacation knowing where I'm going and how I'm going to get there.
 
How about you? Are you taking time this summer to assess and address areas that need attention in your writing career?
 
Make good things happen,
  
Christina Katz
Publisher & Editor

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ANNOUNCEMENTS THIS WEEK:

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT #PLATFORMCHAT?
If you are on Twitter, I hope you will join us for the next #platformchat. It's an expert Q&A on platform development, followed by an opportunity to ask the experts questions. Learn more about our next chat and stay tuned to the Get Known Before the Book Deal blog to stay up to date or read past chat transcripts.


THE WRITER MAMA SCHOLARSHIP IS THIS WEEK!
If you are a writer mama and you'd like to take my Writing & Publishing the Short Stuff Class but you can't afford it, check out the application guidelines for The Writer Mama Scholarship. Applications are due this week!