Get Known Before the Book Deal

Dear Groovers Fellow Groovers, the June 2009 Issue of Get Known Groove Starts Here

Even though I told the readers of my other newsletter (The Writer Mama) that I'm taking things down a few notches this summer, I'm actually still accomplishing a lot. Summer may be here, but I won't be taking the summer off by any means.

I'll just be working more efficiently than I have in a long time, while taking advantage of some extra R&R opportunities.
 
Here's what I am currently up to:

• Planning the Northwest Author Series for the 2009-2010 season (see my article below: "You Wanna Start Something?").

• Featured in a podcast interview with Deb Schneider for King County Library System (Shh! Don't tell Kati I didn't do it myself).

• Sharing a summer blog tour interview that helps me overcome writers' resistance to platform development (I think Sage will approve. Feel free to contact me if you are interested!)

• Working on a distribution plan for the book trailer for Get Known Before the Book Deal (Gregory! Look at me!).

• Gearing up to apply for a RACC grant this summer (Gigi is going to be very proud of me, I just know it!).

• All over Facebook (as evidenced by my quote in Meryl's article).

• A long-time Kelly James-Enger fan. In fact, she is referenced in both of my books because she sets such a great example for writers (Hi, Kelly!).

This platform stuff gets easier and more fun the longer you do it!
 
Make good things happen, writers!
 
Christina Katz
Publisher & Editor

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Dear Get Known Groovers (May Issue Begins):

My objective for the Get Known Groove is for the e-zine to be as helpful as possible during rapidly changing times in the industry. These are times when every writer needs to learn to how stand in their own spotlight and produce themselves. The age of writers being discovered is over and the age of 100% responsibility for your writing career is upon us.

However, it's not easy to navigate a rapidly changing playing field, especially when it concerns something you care about as much as your writing career, your reputation, and your future. So I carefully chose columnists I thought could help you keep abreast of all you need to know without overwhelming you.

I'm happy to say that I think this issue demonstrates my intention very well. I was all ready to hit Google to answer several questions in my mind that were all addressed by our contributors in this month's issue.

I was pondering questions like:

What's the best microphone to use with my computer? Kati Neville's article this month, "How to Sound Your Best" shows me where to go to find out.

Which teleconference services should I use? Gregory Kompes' article this month, "Profit from Teleconferencing" has just the suggestions I was looking for.

Should I apply for a grant even if it's the last minute? Gigi Rosenberg's article this month, "Featured Money Magnet, Michele Glazer," suggests that I go ahead and apply anyway.

I know that the Get Known Groove is pointing me in the kinds of directions I want to go in. I hope it's doing the same for you. And if it is, I encourage you to take a few seconds to forward the e-zine to your writing friends.

Make good things happen!

Christina Katz
Publisher & Editor

Subscribe to the Get Known Groove here.

Book Promotion Tips from the Pros: Featured Author, Elizabeth Lyon

By Cindy Hudson

Elizabeth Lyon is the author of six writing books on fiction and nonfiction, revision, and marketing: Manuscript Makeover, A Writer's Guide to Fiction, The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit, Nonfiction Book Proposals Anybody Can Write, The Writer's Guide to Nonfiction, and National Directory of Editors & Writers.

Manuscript Makeover was featured in the December issue of The Writer as one of "10 Great Writing Books in 2008," and as "perhaps the most comprehensive book on revising fiction." Lyon lives in Springfield, Oregon.


Q. What can authors do before their publication date to make a book launch more successful?

A. As soon as the finished manuscript is delivered, authors should dive into reading how to promote books. I recommend Get Known Before the Book Deal by Christina Katz, 1001 Ways to Promote Your Book by Jon Kremer, and books by Dan Poynter.

They should create a marketing plan, as strategically detailed as if they were planning a presidential campaign. Their plan should include setting up a modern website, finding related websites where they can plan to ask for reviews and offer to be interviewed and write short articles, build a targeted list of "special venues," organizations, associations, and sales outlets that will sell the book but are not bookstores. They should plan speaking engagements, magazines and e-zines where articles or stories may be sold or offered, newspapers for features about them and their books, radio talk show venues if appropriate, and networks of friends and colleagues to help.

Realistically, any advance money should go to hiring a publicist, especially a publicist who specializes in Internet promotion. If there is no advance, the author should pony up money for promotion and know the royalty begins with the first book sold.


Q. What do you like best about promoting your books?

A. I'm more of an extrovert than an introvert. As a result, speaking engagements, teaching, and travel is stimulating and supplies much-needed people contact that I don't get at home editing or writing.


Q. What is one mistake you made promoting your first book that you'd recommend others avoid?

A. My first book was self-published. The first review to come out the reviewer did not like the book, primarily because of uncensored black-and-white photos of women giving birth. I was horrified by the review, fearful of having 2500 copies of a book forever in my garage, so I wrote a rebuttal and sent it to her - and to her managing editor. Don't do this! Later in my career, I had a bad review in The Writer magazine and I knew the reviewer had read my preface, scanned the book, and/or had some personal reason for panning it. I did not write a flaming letter. I did find a discrete way, years later, to inform the right person about what had happened.


Q. Can you share your top book promotion tip for first-time authors?

A. Find relevant websites to your subject (nonfiction) or your genre (fiction) and write an e-mail note to the newsletter editor introducing yourself and asking if that person would consider reviewing your book or posting an announcement. Of the 60 sites I tracked down for Manuscript Makeover, I received 25 reviews (all positive), which resulted in writers all around the country learning about the book, website or blog interviews, and which resulted in a number of speaking engagements in places that did not already know me.


Q. Is there something that is never too late to do when promoting your book?

A. In my opinion, it is never too late to do anything in your business plan for marketing your books. The only limitation is your time and energy. On my long-term follow-up plan is to track down the personal e-mail addresses of teachers of fiction and nonfiction in community colleges, colleges, and universities and to send a personal e-mail to each, by name, letting them know about my books and pasting in some compliments of them by other professors and teachers. I believe we authors must make personal relationships and help each other.

Last, we need to be the captain at the helm of our books, knowing that no one cares about their success as much as we do. Our partners are booksellers and librarians. My publishers don't market to libraries - a great awakening that was - so another author privilege is to let librarians know of our books. And, we can solicit three-way talks and mini-workshops to take place at libraries with books supplied and sold by booksellers.

One half of the job of being an author is writing, but if you want to have a career, the other half is all business.

Cindy Hudson is putting the finishing touches on her manuscript for Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs (Seal Press 2009). Her website, and its companion blog, feature reading lists, book reviews, author interviews, book giveaways and other book club resources. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Portland, Oregon, where she writes weekly for The Oregonian and edits the monthly e-zine, Writers on the Rise. Visit her online at MotherDaughterBookClub.com and CindyHudson.com.

Intro to Social Networking: Simple Ways to Promote Yourself Online (Part 1 of 2)

By Penny Sansevieri

As I've taught Internet marketing and publicity classes, I've found that marketing oneself online is still very confusing to a lot of people. Let's face it; our company has a department dedicated to this. Why? Because stuff changes all the time on the Internet; if we didn't have a dedicated department researching this and reading all the "geek stuff," we'd never be able to keep up. So I want to give you the bottom line basics because, at the end of the day, we all need to start somewhere and the best place to start is online.

Blogging: If you feel like you can't do anything online or you don't have the time for extensive promotion, the quickest and simplest thing you can do is have a blog. A blog is a great way to keep your site fresh (search engines love sites that are updated often) and a blog is great way to reach your readers. If you don't have a blog or haven't blogged in a while, take heart: start somewhere and plan to blog a minimum of twice weekly. You'll need at least two posts a week to keep it current. The biggest problem though with new bloggers is deciding what to blog about. Well, here are some ideas:
Talk about trends in the industry you're in. (This works even if you write fiction; talk about the publishing industry.)

Review other (similar) books. This is a great way to network with other people in your market.

Blog "in character." Readers love this!

Develop your next story on your blog: you can ask for reader feedback on story direction, characters, etc.

Lend your voice to a "hot" industry issue or controversy.

Comment on other blogs or feature them on your blog.

Interview people on your blog.

Talk about the elephant in the room: If there's a looming issue in your market, why not offer your insight on your blog?

Feedback and blog comments: If you aren't getting people commenting on your blog, don't despair. It takes a while to get folks commenting and offering feedback, but the more you can tap into issues your reader cares about, the more comments you'll see popping up on your blog.

Publishing content: The Internet has really opened the door to publishing and pushing a lot of content online. Whether it's articles, audio, or video, there's a home for all of it on the 'Net. Consider doing article syndication as a good place to start pushing content online.

Here are some basic guidelines for article syndication:

You don't get paid for this syndication. This is always the first question I get when I talk to authors about syndicating their articles, book excerpts, or tip sheets. You post it online for others to use and promote you. What could be better?

Your articles need to be helpful, not self-promotional. The more helpful they are, the more likely they are to be used. Yes you can mention your book but my recommendation is to keep any and all promotion of it to your byline.

Article titles are important. Remember that the title of your article must be descriptive, don't make people guess what you've written about. If you do, you'll find your pieces aren't as popular as you'd like them to be.

Articles should be a minimum of 500 words, max of 2,000. Generally the most popular pieces are around 1,000 words. Don't forget your byline and website address. Also, and very important, get those articles edited before they go out on the 'Net. Once you send them out, you can never get them back.

[continued next month...]

Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a best-selling author and internationally recognized book marketing and media relations expert. Her company is one of the leaders in the publishing industry and has developed some of the innovative Internet book marketing campaigns. She is the author of five books including Red Hot Internet Publicity, which was just sold to Sourcebooks with a planned re-release in Fall 2009. To learn more about Penny's books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.com.

Fund Your Writing Projects: Featured Money Magnet: Sharon Wood Wortman

By Gigi Rosenberg

The magnificent bridges of Portland, Oregon have inspired poet and performer Sharon Wood Wortman in many grant writing successes. She has won funds to publish a guidebook of the bridges that is filled with poetry and is now working on a one-woman show BridgeStories partially funded with a grant from Portland's Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC).

As a kid, she rarely ventured out of her Lents neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. In fact, her mother suffered from agoraphobia and her grandmother from bouts of gephyrophobia, the fear of bridges (from the greek gephyra, which means bridge).

"My family made it to downtown Portland infrequently, about as often as we flew to New Jersey," Wortman wrote in a recent email. "Today I think of myself as a geomissionary. I believe that helping children figure out their place in the bigger world sooner than I did  gives them a leg up."

Wortman has led bridge walks around the Willamette River since 1991, many featuring the poetry of Northwest writers. "I have no explanation for why these magnificent bridges were here almost 100 years and nobody else had written a book about them," she wrote. "As I began to study and praise them, they built me a life that's now supported by poetry, teaching, publishing, performing, and, I have to say it, finally that most surprising grant of all...love."

Wortman's first success with funding her work was a $1000 grant from RACC to create her website. The next award from RACC for $3700 partially funded a 240-page guidebook of Portland bridges including 77 poems by 70 poets entitled Walking Bridges Using Poetry as a Compass.

Her latest award is a $4600 RACC grant for her solo performance BridgeStories to be presented at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in October 2009 where she has a guest artist residency. The grant pays for her artistic fees, promotional materials, and guest artist collaborators, including Susan Banyas.

How does the grant writing process help Wortman? "It makes me elucidate my project," she said. "After you write the grant, you know what you're going to do, how you're going to do it, and who will help."

Do grants make her artistic process less stressful? Hardly. "They free up financial worries but they add stress because you have to deliver," she said.

Wortman's top 5 grant writing tips for writers include:

1. Be tenacious.

2. Don't be afraid to ask for grants.

3. Start small with a small, local grant.

4. Don't listen to anybody who discourages you.

5. If you don't know how to write a grant, take a class or hire a grant writer to help.

The best way to learn how to write a grant is to write one, advises Wortman. She recommends that writers use grants to get out of their comfort zone. "Let applying for a grant push you as an artist."

For more information about Sharon Wood Wortman: http://www.bridgestories.com.

Gigi Rosenberg's essays and how-to articles have appeared in the Seal Press anthology The Maternal is Political, Parenting, Writer's Digest, The Writer and on Oregon Public Radio. She receives rave reviews for the grant writing workshops she leads at NYC's Foundation Center and Chicago's Self Employment in the Arts. She has performed her monologues throughout the Pacific Northwest and now coaches writers how to give stellar public readings and write winning grant applications.

Writerpreneur: Establish Expertise with an E-zine

By Gregory A. Kompes

It's essential to establish yourself as a niche topic expert with your readers. Creating and sending your own zine (also called an e-zine, or electronic newsletter) to your readers expands your credibility as a topic expert and keeps your name (and products or services) in front of your audience.

Zines come in many different forms, from simple text e-mails to formal designs that involve extensive templates. The key is delivering quality content to the readers on your list so that they'll open the e-mailed newsletter.

The frequency of your zine is up to you. The Get Known Groove arrives in your box once each month. My own zine, The Fabulist Flash is a weekly newsletter for writers. One of my Web clients delivers her grant writing zine quarterly. Another option is not having a regular schedule, but delivering new information to your list when it's relevant. This last option can be effective, but don't inundate your readers with a mountain of e-mail or you'll lose them. Also, don't let too much time pass between zines.

Getting Started

1. Decide on your content. Content is, as they say, king. Decide what type of content you'll deliver in your zine. When making this decision, keep your audience and potential readers in mind. A zine with timely, relevant content will be opened.

2. Choose your format. Will you use simple e-mail text or a formal template? You can always change your format, but you'll need a starting place. Depending on your Internet skills and software, a pleasing template can be easily created.

3. Build your mailing list. Zines are delivered electronically via e-mail and/or Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. To get your zine into your reader's e-mail inbox you'll need their e-mail address. Because of spam rules, it's also a good idea to have readers "opt-in" (request to be added) to your list. A sign-up box added to your Web site or blog is the most common and easiest way to collect e-mail addresses for your list.

4. Deliver your zine. Many people who start their first zine choose to deliver it from their own e-mail account. As your list grows, this will become impractical. A better option is utilizing an autoresponder, a topic we'll look at in detail in a future column.

The great advantage of zines is that they're basically free to create and send. I say basically, because they do require your valuable time and effort. But the rewards of building a large zine following can be great. Your writer brand and related products or services will be continually reinforced, which can increase reader loyalty and help grow your audience.

Gregory A. Kompes, The Writerpreneur, is an Internet self-promotion expert. Gregory is the author of the bestselling 50 Fabulous Gay-Friendly Places to Live and the Writer's eBook Series that includes Endorsement Quest, Should You Write an eBook, and Your Online Media Kit. He is co-founder of the Patchwork Path anthology series, Presenters & Programs, the Writer's Pen & Grill, and Laudably Tarnished: A Poetry Workshop. Gregory is editor of The Fabulist Flash, an informative newsletter for writers, and the award winning Eighteen Questions, a Q&A series that collects and shares the experiences of published authors.

Know Thy Self, Know Thy Audience: Defining the Experience Your Book Will Provide

By Sage Cohen

Last month you considered how the book you intend to write compares to similar books that it will be selling against. Now that you have a good sense of what's out there and how your book measures up, we're going to dig a little deeper into why readers should purchase yours! Ask yourself:

1. How do you want your book to be perceived in the marketplace?
2. Please use as many adjectives as you can think of to describe the personality of your book.
3. Write a sentence or two (called a value proposition) that defines what is exceptional about your book and sets it apart from the rest.

For example, following are my answers to these questions for my book, Writing the Life Poetic:

1. I want my book to be regarded as an approachable DIY creative companion that anyone can easily use to start writing poems and enjoying poetry.
2. Writing the Life Poetic is: fun, friendly, inspiring, informative, whimsical, inviting, easy to understand, bite-sized (chapters), poem-generating!
3. Writing the Life Poetic offers a friendly, fun initiation into the joys of reading and writing poetry. Craft, process and content lessons are all designed to invite readers to tune into the poetry of their lives -- then get it down on the page.

Your turn! Remember: this is your chance to expand the very valuable thinking you did last month into the more abstract realm of how your book feels. Have fun defining what kind of experience it will create for readers, and why they will want to seek out such an experience!

Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry, forthcoming from Writer's Digest Books, and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World. Her poetry and essays appear in journals and anthologies including Cup of Comfort for Writers, Oregon Literary Review, Greater Good and VoiceCatcher. Sage holds an MA in creative writing from New York University and teaches the email class Poetry for the People. For more than a decade, she has run the marketing communications firm Sage Communications.

Podcasting 101: Software and Music for Your Podcast

By Kati Neville

It's easy to get lost among the software options to record and edit your podcast. Packages can cost hundreds of dollars. Yet, many podcasters avoid the search and expense altogether by sticking with what's free.

Audacity is the software solution of choice for novice podcasters. This program operates on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Audacity's avid open-source community also provides extensive wiki and forum support. Be sure, however, to download the LAME library so your finished audio projects can be exported in .mp3 format.

GarageBand Apple's audio recording and editing program, comes pre-loaded on Macs. If you own a Mac, check the applications folder. I use GarageBand to record and edit my podcast. It offers solid help files and is easy to use. The program is bundled with royalty-free jingles and interfaces with other iLife applications, such as iTunes, iPhoto, and iMovie. Handy.

Experiment with one of these no-cost recording and editing software programs first. For writers with basic needs and casual audiences, they are more than adequate.

Royalty-Free Jingles and Music

Music adds professionalism and character to podcasts. Most shows use royalty-free jingles for intros, outros and transitions between segments. The track for each element may come from the same song, or all different songs. It may be the same for all shows in the series, or new each time.

Both Audacity and GarageBand allow users to import .mp3 music files. Online royalty-free music libraries catalog their .mp3 audio files and allow you to listen to tracks for free. This can be a lot of fun but it's easy to get carried away. So be sure to read the licensing agreement before purchasing your selections.

I found the music for my podcast online at Music2Hues. For their $20.00 fee, I now have the right to use their song as much as I want, without paying future royalties. I'm sure twangy banjo music turns some listeners off. But the instrument reinforces my goal to present practical tips that the everyday cook can use, without being pretentious.

Let your stylistic preferences, goals, and budget guide your music selections. Just like your logo, music helps cement and reinforce your podcast's character. Choose wisely for the best results.

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.

Get Known Now! The Joy of Teaching!

The Joy of Teaching
By Christina Katz

One of the greatest joys in my life over the past eight years has been teaching writers. For me, teaching and writing are inextricably connected and they are both organic, creative processes that can't be and shouldn't be rushed.

What I have done as a teacher is simple: I've learned for myself and then taught what I've learned to others. Sure, I've offered options and expanded on my own limited ideas. But ultimately, all I've done is try and share my success with others in an orderly, structured way.

I am not special. Anyone can do this. In fact, I teach others how to write about what they know in my writing classes. And now, beginning May 6th, I'll be teaching writers how to share what they've learned as teachers. I love that we are becoming a society of creators and I truly cannot wait to help writers expand their professionalism through teaching.

The combination of the writing and teaching have essentially given me the career that I enjoy today, which is the same career I have been enjoying steadily for the past eight years. Here are a few ways to identify a body of material you might teach on:

Just Got the Hang of It: Often the best teachers don't have the most years of experience in the topic they teach. Maybe this is because after a while anyone can become bored of just about any topic. So don't go that way. Choose something fresh for you instead. And then dive into your experience as a source of teaching material.

Muscle Memory: What do you know how to do so well that's it's become habitual? You might take this topic for granted but don't underestimate how your mastery can be tapped for teaching material.

Be Specific: You want your teaching topic to be specific enough to make the most of your unique expertise without being so specific that your class becomes esoteric to the masses. Think this is an easy balance? Nah. You might find that you find your niche as you teach. So give your topic your best guess and then get started. You'll learn as you go.

Or Generalize: If you already have very specific experience or expertise, you might find that it makes more sense to generalize it to appeal to the audience right in front of you. Consider whether your audience is international (this will lead to a more specific teaching topic) or more localized (this will lead to a more generalized topic) so as to appeal to the people who will show up.

When Stumped, Just Ask: With years of teaching and writing under my belt, I have gotten pretty good at identifying what topics are of interest to my audiences, writers and writer mamas. However, at the outset you will benefit from working with someone who has the experience that can help you make important decisions about what to include and what not to include in your classes. Feel free to check out my upcoming class, Turn Your Specialty Into Course Curriculum.

Teaching offers something that writing will never be able to offer. Teaching offers an alchemical process among a group of people in real time. I love the context of my teaching experience as much as I enjoy developing curriculum.

If you are going to take the time and energy to teach, make it a process that grows your mind as much as it grows your students' minds. And you will always prosper.

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.

Dear Platform Builders (April 2009 Issue begins),

Cindy Hudson's interview with author Elizabeth Lyon ends this issue on this note:

One half of the job of being an author is writing, but if you want to have a career, the other half is all business.

There was a time, over a decade ago, when I did not want to hear about the business side of writing. The reason was simple: I couldn't handle it. I had too much to learn already, or so I felt.

This ended up being true, for me. I already had my work cut out to learn how to write well enough for publication and how to sell my hard-wrought efforts in exchange for money.

It took me no less than five years of concentrated effort to get those skills firing with enough piston-power to be in a position to start thinking about self-promotion and professional development on top of them.

And for the past five years, I've worked hard to develop these other two important skill sets. And every day I wake up and there is still more to learn.

Ten years ago, there was no such thing as social networking. Five years ago, an online presence still seemed optional. Today, writers are trying to learn how to write well, how to sell their words, how to market themselves, and how to grow as professionals in a constantly shifting marketplace.

I just composed a press release about myself, Sage Cohen, and Cindy Hudson publishing four books within three years by working together for mutual success. If I had to choose just a few words to describe how we all succeeded, they would be:

• Focus
• Determination
• Consistency

Strangely, I don't see very many people beating the drum of focus, determination, and consistency these days. There are so many other seemingly sexier topics to get all mixed up in. But I don't care. I'm going to keep beating it...right through the static and the get-rich-quickly scams and the uncertainty.

In the meantime, be mindful. It's chaotic out there. And chaos won't do much for your focus, determination, or consistency.

Trust in people who have an established track record of integrity and quiet authority, who aren't going to cash in their relationship with you to make a quick buck. You'll hear about them in this and all of my publications.

Make good things happen!

Christina Katz
Publisher & Editor