IAW Newsletter 20 January, 2009

This Week’s Sponsors

4SistersSoaps
Washed your hands recently? Of course you have (we hope!). But you probably used boring, “normal” soap. Liven up your soap dish and your life by using 4 Sisters handmade soaps (& gift baskets), made by four adorable sisters, ages 2-12. Funky Soaps 4 Funky Folks—Handmade With Laughter & Love by www.4SistersSoaps.com.

Need more publicity?
Need more targeted and intensive publicity than the International Association of Writers is providing? Our Expertizing Publicity Forum, connecting you to prestigious journalists every week for five months with personalized feedback guaranteed, may be for you. $2400 covers five months of pitches to publications including The New York Times, Inc Magazine, Harvard Business Review, and many more. Pitch the same book or business every week, or pitch something completely different. You can even share a pitching space with a friend or colleague. Limited to 12 participants; $2400 / €1600; the only publicity forum in 2009 begins in February: www.Expertizing.com/
forum.htm.

From Our Contributors

Joan Stewart

This week we feature IAW Contributor Joan Stewart with a 263-page special report, 89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases. If you ever write press releases, you can’t miss this report.

Sally Falkow

Next week we'll feature IAW Contributor Sally Falkow with her report on Social Media Marketing.

Featured Speaker

Kristen Eckstein

How to Get Published in 5 Easy Steps: And Keep 100% of the Profits

Kristen Eckstein is the Executive Producer of Imagine! Studios.

Book Kristen Eckstein as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

Email Kristen Eckstein

Be our featured speaker

Featured Expert

Louis Postel is an expert in Reputation Management in Cyber Space.

Book Louis Postel as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail Louis Postel

Be our featured expert

Featured Author

Christopher Paolini

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

Be our featured author

Featured Book

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.”

—Archbishop Desmond Tutu

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

E-mail the author

Feature your book here

Attend a Talk

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

SpeakerNet News teleseminar on book marketing (2 February)
Keynote, 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)
Independent Book Publishers’ 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)
Expertizing Workshop, London (19 August)

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 Advice?

If you need some personal input on your writing, publishing, or publicity dilemma, consider a consultation with IAW Director Fern Reiss. Fern consults to clients all over the world via telephone; the charge is $300/ €200 per hour or $1500 / €1000 for six sessions for publishing consultation and $1500 / €1000 per hour (non-profits: $1200 / €800) for Expertizing consulting. Sign up at PublishingGame.com or www.Expertizing.com.

20 January, 2009

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

Welcome to our new members in South Africa, Belgium, London, and the United States.

The International Association of Writers Newsletter

Welcome to the International Association of Writers, Speakers, and Experts. Whether you’re here for the first time, or are a regular reader, thanks for joining us.

This week we’ve got Joan Stewart's packed 263-page report on press releases; the latest on the increase in reading but decrease in bookstore sales; some quotes from new IAW members who've already booked engagements through their listings in the IAW, and much more.

Happy reading.

/Fern

Members
Have you listened to the five-audio Publishing Game Workshop and Expertizing Overview Audio now available in the archive? (Join us now and get these bonus benefits.)

Help Us Out
Please spread the word about the International Association of Writers by posting about us to your favorite writing or small business listserve or forum. The more members we get, the greater our visibility. Thanks so much for your support!

This Week's Feature

89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases — Joan Stewart

This week, IAW contributor Joan Stewart of Publicity Hound shares her powerhouse 263-page report on how to write powerful direct-to-consumer press releases.

What’s a direct-to-consumer press release? These days, getting media coverage is not necessarily the prime motivation; effective search engine optimization for a company’s website may be even more important. Joan’s extensive report covers how to write a consumer press release aimed at search engine optimization (though most of these techniques will also position a press release for media attention.)

Joan makes the point that even though traditional media consider only news-based press releases, for search engine optimization goals, you can write a press release on almost anything. She recommends writing releases for all of the following situations: Awards (and why the recipient received the award); employee recognition, new vendor contracts (and the benefits of the new contract), new groups forming (including the purpose and call to action), announcements of meetings (focusing on the problem that will motivate people to attend, and the problem that the meeting will solve for them); and help-wanted press releases (focusing on goals and desired outcomes).

Joan also recommends:

Including lists of contacts (with complete contact details) journalists can be in touch with to pursue a story, making them much more likely to follow up
Doing a top-ten list of something related to your niche, and then customizing your releases for each of the different top ten targets (cities, universities, etc.)
Offering free advice designed to solve a problem—and then optimizing the press release so that consumers find it when searching online
Writing a press release exploring the local angle to a national news story

The special report also reveals:

Why you should use keywords in your headline—and how to decide which keywords to use
How and when to use statistics in your release
The three questions your press release must answer
How often you should ideally refer people back to your website—and where in the release you should do so
The importance of a landing page—and how you should write one
How and when to use photos and graphics with your press releases

Members can read the entire 263-page report right now. (You can also read/hear all our back articles, audios, and reports in our member archive.)

Not a member yet? Join now for $149 (approx. €99), and read this report right away.

Looking for the next step in what to do with these press releases and pitches once you’ve formulated them? Check out Fern Reiss’s Expertizing Publicity Forum where each week for five months 12 individuals and businesses will have the opportunity to pitch journalists from the New York Times to Reader’s Digest personally—with individualized feedback by the journalist (and the possibility of coverage) guaranteed. The last forum in 2009 starts in February; see Expertizing.com/forum.htm for more information on how to jump start your business even in this down economy.

Next week: Stay tuned for our feature by IAW Contributor Sally Falkow on Social Media Marketing.

Audio: What a Publisher Looks For In a New Book Idea, with Terry Whalin

Did you miss last week’s 1-hour audio with IAW contributor Terry Whalin? It’s not too late to find out what publishers are looking for in new book ideas. Particularly in rough economic times, how can you be sure that your query and manuscript will rise to the top? What are publishers really looking for?

Terry Whalin shares:

Why pointing out that your book will lead to offshoot magazine article sales might lead to the manuscript's rejection
Why you may have to overcome publisher biases, such as 'your audience doesn't buy books'—and how to do so
How your book's production costs may determine whether a publisher is interested in your manuscript
Whether credentials and potential audience matter—and how much
What words should you never say when trying to sell your manuscript
How to make your proposal stand out in a crowd
Exactly what you should not say about radio and television in your proposal
What technique is much more effective than mass marketing and should be the cornerstone of your book proposal
How to get top-notch endorsements (& when in the publishing process you should try to get them)

Members can listen to Terry’s audio here (as well as any other past audio, feature, or article in the archive.) Not a member? Join now for $149 (approx. €99) per year and catch up on past weeks’ gems!

Special Reports

Special Report: How to Sell to Magazines

If you missed our 15-page special report from Meg Weaver on How to Sell to Magazines, there’s still time to learn how to make that perfect pitch.

Learn:

The one thing you must know about the magazine’s readers before you can pitch successfully
Why you should never pitch an article for this group—ever
The two methods of measuring audience income—and which is the one you need to focus on, and why it’s important
The optimal reader age range to target to improve your chances of successful magazine pitching—to almost any magazine
How to craft generic press releases to save time—and then how to easily add the ‘magic something’ to make your pitch stand out from the crowd.

Members can read the entire report here.

Not a member yet? Join now for $149 [approx. €99], and read the report immediately.

Special Report: Get More Media Attention

If you missed our 7-page special report on How to Get Media Attention for Your Business: 18 Techniques to Attract Journalists to Write About You, it’s not too late. Learn:

What two key techniques make your story irresistible to journalists
How to position yourself as an expert to the media
How to coin juicy soundbites
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 read the report right now. (You can also read/hear all our back articles, audios, and reports in our member archive.)

If you're not a member yet, join us for $149 [approx. €99] and read this report right now.

Media Leads & Magazine Update

Great news, for a change: According to the National Endowment for the Arts, the quarter-century decline in fiction reading has reversed, particularly amongst the 18+ age cohort:
www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/books/12reading.html.

U.S. bookstore sales dropped a depressing 13% in November… Barnes and Noble NY axed 100 employees… Boston Globe cut 50 employees, 12% of its staff… The Minneapolis Star Tribune is in chapter 11… US magazine distributor Anderson News, which handles about 25% of the magazine retail traffic in North America, is imposing a $0.07 charge for each copy of a magazine delivered to stores; the new fee will add $200 million to their (currently unprofitable) enterprise… HarperCollins Canada, Penguin Canada, and Random House Canada will not be exhibiting at this year’s Book Expo Canada; Simon & Schuster Canada is still planning “modest” participation…

However, the number of books sold in the last quarter of 2008 (compared to 2007) in Canada rose 6%...

Members can read more by clicking through to:
PartyLine Media Leads and
Wooden Horse Magazine Update.

Tip of the Week

Cision PR offers free whitepapers on everything from blogging to social media at:
us.cision.com/resources/white_papers.asp

The latest buzz in search engine optimization: Universal rankings are dead, and search engines are moving towards ‘subjective search,’ ie. each person will receive search results based on his or her past searches and web surfing history. That will mean that linking is less important, but engagement (videos, blogs, etc) is more important…

Agent in the Hot Seat

Agent in the Hot Seat this month is Rita Rosenkranz, here to tell us what's hot and what's new, and the best way to get that publishing deal…

Members can click here for more.

Writing and Publishing Spotlight on...
OZ (Australia)

Whether you’re a business traveler or an armchair traveler, here’s what’s going on in the writing and publishing world for writers in Australia.

Members can read more at Spotlight.

(Interested in sharing what’s going on in your part of the world? Become an IAW ambassador.)

Max Your Membership

Each month, the International Association of Writers sends a newsletter featuring our latest agent queries to reputable literary agents and publishers worldwide. The list of queries also runs in several locations on the website, and each week we feature one of the queries in the IAW newsletter. To make the most of your IAW agent query listing:

Fill out the form completely. You can list as many agent queries as you like, so if you have separate projects, list them separately. (This will help with attention from search engines, too.)
Select the category that best describes the topic of your query. Some literary agents and publishers look at all our listings, but others scour the listings for queries in a particular category or genre.
Write an enticing title for your project. Literary agents skim our listings, so craft a title that hooks them in quickly.
After writing the full description, take some time with the summary. Only the summary will be displayed in the thumbnail description on the query page; based on how saleable agents think the summary is will determine whether they go on to read your full description. Write the summary as if that's the only thing anyone will read.
Each query letter should include an intriguing hook; a short description of the audience for the book; a description of the book itself; and your credentials for writing this book.
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.
Don’t forget to upload your photo in our Member Center. Your photograph will appear with your agent queries.

Next week we'll look at posting and maximizing your Book and Author profiles.

Spread the Word

The more members we have, the more clout we have with journalists, booksellers, literary agents, librarians, 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.
List us as a favorite on Digg.com or Delicious.com.
Email a friend or colleague to tell them about us.
Add this to your Facebook or Twitter Status line: “Looking for publicity as a writer or small business? Check out AssociationofWriters.com”.
Remember—sign up three friends or colleagues, and get a free one-year extension on your membership!