IAW Newsletter 19 May, 2009

Welcome to our new members in France, Japan, India, The Netherlands, Canada, and the United States.

WELCOME to the International Association of Writers, Speakers, and Experts. Thanks for joining us.

This week we’ve got a special report called “Platform Ideas for Every Author”—and if this doesn’t give you great ideas for platform building that you can go out and implement immediately, I don’t know what will. The 30-page report is courtesy of IAW contributor Terry Whalin. For those of you who haven’t done a book recently (or ever), ‘platform’ has been the big buzz word for a while now, describing all the publicity connections and credibility an author has for the project—and without substantial platform, you don’t get a book contract. So this is a must-read.

This week's issue also has the latest tidbits on the publishing industry, and some ideas on how to optimize your Association of Writers book profile, so that agents and booksellers are more likely to find you.

Best,
/Fern

Newsletter Plus
If you’re interested in more media attention from journalists, more speaking invitations from meeting planners, & more interest from literary agents, consider joining the International Association of Writers, Speakers, and Experts.

In today’s publishing climate, authors need visibility in order to sell their manuscripts. This is even true for novelists, for whom ‘marketing potential’ has now become as, if not more, important than manuscript. Here are some things to keep in mind:

Next week: Stay tuned for IAW Contributor Valerie Young's special report How to Work When, Where, and How You Want.

If you missed last week's special report on Writing Queries That Sell, you can still read it and find out:

Getting People To Your Website: 25 Simple Tips for Top-Notch Search Engine Optimization
by Fern Reiss

If you missed our special report a few issues ago on Getting People to Your Website, you can still read it and find out:

New Members:
If you missed any of the articles, audios, or reports below, you can still read and/or listen to them in our Member Archive.

New this week: The Boston Globe newspaper narrowly averted dissolution, with the employee union agreeing to $20 million concessions… New Amazon Kindle announced, with larger screen designed to appeal to textbook market…

Bloggers know the value of guest posts, but finding quality content isn't easy. And lots of writers struggle with finding bloggers to showcase their posts. BloggerLinkUp is a new, free service that matches bloggers looking for guest posts with contributors offering content. The bloggers get fresh content, the contributors get exposure and links, and everyone wins. Daily emails feature guest post requests and offers. To subscribe or submit your own requests, go to BloggerLinkUp.com.

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 England.

The British book market sold almost 237 million books in 2008. The four largest publishing houses in Britain are Hachette UK, Random House, Penguin, and HarperCollins, followed by Pan Macmillan, Bloomsbury, Pearson, OUP, Wiley, and Egmont. Academic and children's books are on the upswing in England. Indy press Canongate grew 155%, but most independent publishers were down.

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

Each month, the International Association of Writers sends a newsletter featuring your latest books to bookstores, libraries, bloggers, reviewers, literary agents, publishers, and book groups worldwide. The book listings also run in several locations on the website, and each week we feature one of the books in our newsletter. Here’s how to make the most of your Books listing:

Finally, many members haven’t yet uploaded their photographs to the site. If you want to be featured on the website and in the newsletter, we need a photograph of you. You can upload your photograph easily here.

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:

Q: Self-publishing looks difficult unless you go with one of the Lulu/iUniverse companies. Any reason not to do that?

A: Self-publishing is difficult, but if you want your book to end up in bookstores and libraries that’s the route you’ll need to pursue. POD/subsidy companies such as Lulu and iUniverse are great for certain things—short runs of niche market books, such as a church or synagogue cookbook or family genealogy; testing of book elements such as different covers or titles; display/give-away copies of books for corporate meetings and the like. But you can not easily get your POD/subsidy book into bookstores and libraries. So if you want your book to be in bookstores, you must pursue true self-publishing (or traditional publishing.) You can find out more in several free articles at PublishingGame.com.

“A few days after I posted my speaker profile on the International Association of Writers’ website, I began receiving inquiries from meeting planners who wanted to book me for high-paying speaking gigs. The International Association of Writers rocks!”
— Linda Gradstein, correspondent, National Public Radio

“I’m loving the site—thank you!”
— Kristin J. Eckstein, producer, ArtsImagine.com

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