KnowledgeCommunities
Could your organization benefit from more knowledge sharing and distributed leadership? (Hey, are there any that wouldn't?) If your biz needs a little kick in the pants on the cooperative front, check out Naava Frank’s Knowledge
Communities.org Naava will help your team to build a better business or nonprofit by working together. (What a concept—do you suppose she does siblings too? Where do we sign up?)

Need a holiday gift?
Need a holiday gift for a friend or family member? Give them a year-long membership in the International Association of Writers. We'll be happy to send them a gift card. (If you sign them up in December, we'll include them as charter members, giving them all the extra publicity bonuses too.) Just $149 (about €99).

Next week's feature: Meg Weaver, with a 15-page special report on How to Sell to Magazines. Learn how to pitch—and sell—to magazines worldwide, based on Meg's techniques of examining reader demographics.

Pat Olsen is a frequent contributor to the New York Times business section, a professional ghostwriter, and health writer. Her first book, Sober Siblings, was published in July.

Read more

E-mail Pat Olsen

Be our featured freelance writer

“Is it finally time for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal?”
 

Linda Gradstein has been the Israel correspondent for National Public Radio since 1990.

Book Linda Gradstein as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail Linda Gradstein

Be our featured speaker

Meet Christopher Paolini

19-year-old homeschooler Chris Paolini is the best selling author of Eragon (now a 20th Century Fox movie), Eldest, and Brisingr.

Read more

Be our featured author

The Soul of a Leader
Margaret Benefiel

“Today’s global community desperately needs leaders with soul. Margaret Benefiel’s groundbreaking book meets that need beautifully, by teaching principles of soulful leadership, illustrated with stories of real leaders who practice them. Required reading.”

—Desmond Tutu

Read more

Book Margaret Benefiel as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Feature your book here

Meet Katie Jay

Katie Jay is the founder and director of The National Association for Weight-Loss Surgery.

Read more

Book Katie Jay as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the expert

Be our featured expert

If you'd like to hear Fern in person in 2009, she will be speaking at:

• Colorado Independent Publishers, Denver (25-28 March)
• American Society for Journalists and Authors, New York (24-26 April)
• Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Conference, New York (17-19 May)
• IBPA University, New York (26-28 May)
• Book Expo America, New York (28,31 May)
• Private consults, Europe (July & August)
• Publishing Game Workshop, Jerusalem (July 28 and August 4)

Please contact us to book her for your event or conference, or to book a private consultation on writing, publishing, or publicity while she's speaking in your town.

Follow Fern online: Twitter

Need more targeted publicity? Fern's Expertizing Publicity Forum, connects you to prestigious journalists every week for five months. The only publicity forum in 2009 begins in February. See Expertizing.com.

Need experienced advice on your writing, publishing, or publicity dilemma? Consider a consultation with IAW Director Fern Reiss. The charge is $300/ €200 per hour or $1500 / €1000 for six sessions for publishing consultation. See PublishingGame.com.

16 December 2008

Welcome PublishingGame.com and Expertizing.com readers to the new PublishingGame/Expertizing weekly newsletter.

Welcome to our new members in Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, and the United States.

Get Better Media Attention

Everyone could use more publicity. But how do you get journalists to write articles about you? Here are some little-known tricks, straight from our 7-page special report:

Tie in to the news
Tie your business or product into the news. News tie-ins are always a hit with journalists. What's a news tie-in? A few years ago I got 15 minutes on Voice of America radio by tying their piece (on the sudden popularity of home theatre systems) in to the (then) current news (9/11) with the sound bite, “You can thank Osama bin Laden for the sudden popularity of home theatre systems, because post 9/11, Americans are bringing their entertainment into their homes; it's a 9/11 nesting response. And by the way, I'm the author of the book, “Terrorism and Kids: Comforting Your Child…” So think about whether there isn't a way to tie your business into something that was reported in today's newspaper—and see how quickly you can get a journalist on the telephone.

Send out publicity releases regularly
On a consistent basis, send out press releases on whatever you're doing. Depending on your business objectives, you might want to send out releases monthly or weekly, but try to develop a regular pattern that reporters can rely on. Barbara Corcoran, whose company became famous as New York City's biggest residential real estate group, attributes much of her tremendous media success to the regular release of “The Corcoran Report,” where she quantified the average condo and co-op sale in the city. Journalists learned to count on the one-page reports—and ran them regularly. Within months, Barbara was famous within her niche. Is there some similar report or analysis that you could do regularly for your industry? (Stay tuned for next month's IAW report on the best free press release services.)

But do targeted publicity too
Don't just send generic press releases to publications randomly; do targeted publicity as well. When you speak to most publicists, their idea of targeted releases is sending to 500 publications instead of 10,000. When I say targeted publicity, I mean zeroing in on one publication, and one editor or journalist at that publication, to whom to address your story. A few years ago, when I wanted some major international publicity for Expertizing®, I sat down with all the business magazines and decided which one was most appropriate; then I read back-issues until I'd zeroed in on the journalist who was most likely to appreciate my story. I sent him a press release—just one press release, just to him. Two days later he phoned, and a few weeks later he attended my all-day Expertizing.com Workshop in Boston. The result? A full page feature story in Fortune Magazine (money.cnn.com/magazines/fsb/fsb_archive/2004/12/01/8214517/index.htm).

Use Craigslist®
Although Craigslist was invented as a way for people to swap furniture and sell cars, you can also use it effectively as a way to propel your media tidbits to attention, because Craigslist is indexed so highly by the search engines. Simply do a short blurb for your business—product, service, workshop, book, whatever is most relevant—and again, link back to your website. The search engines will find it quickly. You can now do this in almost any area, in almost any country in the world. See www.craigslist.org for more details.

Want to read more?
Our 7-page special report on How to Get Media Attention for Your Business: 18 Techniques to Attract Journalists to Write About You will also reveal:

• What two key techniques make your story irresistible to journalists
• How to position yourself as an expert to the media
• How to coin juicy sound bites
• How to get journalists coming back to you regularly
• The do's and don'ts of dealing with journalists
• What not to waste your money on
• How to leverage your publicity into still more publicity
• And three effective ways to generate publicity online

Members can learn the secrets here. If you're not a member yet—join us now for $149 (approx. €99), and read the rest of this report right now.

Join now so you don't miss anything!

NPR laid off 64 people and eliminated 21 other open positions; PC Magazine and Time Canada have shut down their print editions and are going digital-only; ForbesTraveler.com has laid off all but editor-in-chief Barry Golson as the website's lone writer and editor; Reed Elsevier has withdrawn Publishers Weekly from sale (because of the economy and lack of decent offers); the National Enquirer group is said to be close to bankruptcy; National Geographic has laid off 13 staffers from the editorial side; Seventeen Magazine is going virtual. And Tribune Company, home of both the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune, prepares to file for bankruptcy. (Freelancers, rev your engines :*)

On the book front, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has asked its editors to stop buying any books; acquisitions at Houghton are now on hold for the entire 2009 calendar year, and speculation is running rampant as to what this means for Houghton's future—as well as the future of the entire publishing industry; the president of Houghton just resigned. Simon & Schuster announced 33 layoffs; HarperCollins announced delayed pay increases until after July 2009. Both Scholastic and Thomas Nelson shed 100+ positions this year. Borders bookstore chain has eliminated close to 300 jobs in the US. In the UK, distributor EUK and Woolworths have both declared bankruptcy, and EUK is trying to sell Bertram's. And Powells Bookstore has asked its 500 employees to voluntarily scale back on their hours or take sabbatical because of disappointing sales…

Members can read more about the latest goings-on; See both:
PartyLine Media Leads and
Wooden Horse Magazine Update.

Showing value in the first two words of your email's subject-line is one of the most important factors in open rates, according to an article in this week's Marketing Sherpa. Phrases like “Best time,” “Top 12,” and Simple Email” outperformed phrases like “Alert Analysis” and “Call for.” Hard sells (“Please take,” “Call for,” “You're invited,” and “Nominations to”) were all outperformed by subject lines that offered immediate value. And mentioning 'hot' brands—Facebook, Google, Wikipedia—also made for high open rates.

This week literary agent Rita Rosenkranz tells us what's hot and what's not, and the best way to get that publishing deal…

Members can click here. (Not a member yet? Join us for $149 (approx. €99), and read the rest of this report right now.)

This week, make the most of your IAW speaker profile. Here's how:

• First, fill out the basic profile.
• You can list up to five separate talks, so if you give speeches or workshops on more than one topic, list them separately. (This will help you get more attention from the search engines, too.)
• If you can, list your different talks under as many different categories as possible; that will also maximize your chances of attracting a meeting planner's attention.
• Write an inviting bio that gets right to the heart of what you do. Fern Reiss gives talks on many topics is probably not as inviting to most people as Fern Reiss is a popular corporate speaker on how to get better media attention for your business… Use your introductory biography to convey the essence of what you do—preferably in your writing and/or speaking style, so that meeting planners get a sense of your phrasing.
• Feel free to include endorsements. The more positive feedback from other meeting planners you include, the more professional you sound.
• Remember that in today's economy, lower-priced speakers may be getting the most action; don't underprice yourself, but this probably isn't the best time to increase your speaking fees.
• Consider adding some topical talks to your usual mix. A speech on how your industry is being affected by the recession, for example, will probably be of interest to meeting planners and conference organizers in your niche.
• Remember that this portion of the IAW site is public so only post content that you want the entire world to be able to see. (Email, however, will be sent through our members-only form, so you won't be risking unsolicited (junk) e-mail.)
• Make a note in your calendar to check back and update your speaker profile regularly, so that if information changes (your contact details, your price range, your topics) meeting planners will be able to access the most up-to-date information on you. (We'll also remind you to update your details from time to time.)
• We'll be adding photos to this and the other profile sections next week, so stop by again to update the photo section of your speaker profile.

Next week, we'll look at how you can make the most out of your Database of Experts to the Media listing. Stay tuned!

The more members we have, the more clout we have with meeting planners, journalists, bookstores, etc. Want to help make others aware of the International Association of Writers? Here are some ways you can help:

• Become an Ambassador from your geographic area, or become a web ambassador and mention us on listserves and writing forums online.
• Recommend us for the Writer's Digest Magazine top 100 writer websites by emailing WritersDig@FWPubs.com (and mentioning our url).
• List us as a favorite on Digg.com or Delicious.
• Email a friend or colleague to tell them about us.
• Add this to your Facebook or Twitter Status line: “ If you're looking for publicity as a writer or small business, check out http://www.AssociationofWriters.com ”.
• Remember—sign up three friends or colleagues, and get a free one-year extension on your membership!

(Want to see your syndicated article here? Members can post to our Syndicated Articles Directory; if your topic is writing, publishing, or publicity, you may see your article featured here!)

Publicize Via Social Networks
‘Social networking’ has become the latest buzz phrase—but what is social networking exactly, and why would you want to get involved in it?

• Why are social networks helpful to your business—and how do you use them?
• Which social network should you be on if you're a professional?
• Which one is most read by teens and musicians?
• Which is most frequented by Europeans?
• Which should you use if you're marketing to Brazilians? Koreans? Latin Americans? Japanese?

Read the article here. (This article is accessible to both non-members and members, but only members can post articles. Join now!)

Q: “One of the publishers to whom I sent my manuscript accepted it! But they want £4700 up-front, and then I get the traditional 15%. Is this customary?” —Rob, London

A: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Rob, but literary agents make their money when you do (by taking a percentage of your sales) and publishers make money by successfully publishing and selling your book. Any literary agent or publisher who wants money up-front is usually a scam artist. To be sure, check the Association of Authors' Representatives (US) list at www.AAR-online.org or the Association of Authors' Agents (UK) list at www.agentsassoc.co.uk. Both the AAR and AAA members have pledged not to accept editing or reading fees. And hang in there—eventually you'll find a legitimate publisher! Also, if you're an IAW member, you can post your query letter and manuscript to Queries for Agents.)

Members can post their Talk Out questions here.

“About eleven minutes after I posted my availability as a professional ghostwriter to the International Association of Writers' site, I was contacted by a major conglomerate about the possibility of a writing job! This is the best use of $149—and the fastest job action—a writer could ever hope for!”  —Pat Olsen, ghostwriter

Congratulations to IAW member Susan Daffron whose new book, Publishize, appeared this week. You can check it out on Amazon.

Members send your kudos & we'll print them in a future issue.

This week begins the Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico (www.fil.com.mx)…

Read the entire Calendar. (Members—post listings at no charge.) Hundreds more listings will be added next week.

This week, we've added a special discount from The Wooden Horse, the newsletter that supplies our members with the weekly Magazine Update. IAW members are eligible to save $30 (approx. €20) on a one-year subscription to The Wooden Horse Magazine Database. Read more.

Copyright © 2008 International Association of Writers

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