Need help with social media?
You’ve gotten the message that your business needs to master Web 2.0, become active on social media sites like Plaxo and Bebo, start posting on Twitter, syndicate online, produce lenses on Squidoo, author a blog, and keep up with Digg and Newsvine. You know it will improve SEO, and monetize your expertise. But how are you supposed to do all that and still run your business? Check it out:
www.Expertizing.com

Joan Stewart

This week we feature IAW contributor Joan Stewart's six-page special report on 55 Things You Can Offer to Generate Publicity or Capture Email Addresses.

Judy Gruen

Next week we'll feature Judy Gruen's article, 7 Tips to Add Humor to Your Presentations.

Business Writing

Lynda McDaniel's seminars get people fired up about creative business writing. Using proven techniques and personal experiences, she helps attendees quiet fears of writing, catapult their creativity, end procrastination, and increase their confidence.

Lynda McDaniel is an accomplished speaker on creative business writing. Her clients include the City of Seattle, University of Washington, SBA, and YMCA.

Book Lynda McDaniel as a speaker for your next meeting or conference.

Email Lynda McDaniel

Be our featured speaker

Erica Manfred has written for Cosmopolitan, The New York Times, and Women's Day, and is the author of He's History, You're Not: Surviving Divorce After 40.

Read more

Book Erica Manfred as a speaker for your next meeting or conference.

Email Erica Manfred

Be our featured expert

Susan Daffron is the author of books on Web business, self-publishing, adopted pet care, computing and vegan cooking topics. Her recent book Publishize: How to Quickly and Affordably Self-Publish a Book That Promotes Your Expertise was just was named the winner in the Writing and Publishing category of the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Read more

Book Susan Daffron as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Be our featured author

The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing
Dana Lynn Smith

Social media marketing can be very effective, but also confusing and overwhelming at first. The Savvy Book Marketer's Guide to Successful Social Marketing gives you a plan to follow, and answers all of your questions.

Read more

Book Dana Lynn Smith as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Feature your book here

Awed by their Claws... the Grizzlies of Katmai
Melanie Tucker

We needed those instructions BEFORE our flight, though…

Read more

Book Melanie Tucker as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Feature your article here

Business / USA

— Tom Blake

In 1972, Victoria Station, a six-restaurant chain, went public and took the heart of Wall Street with it. At the end of IPO day, it was trading at 92-times earnings. Every restaurant they built turned into gold.  Young millionaires were made. Eight years later, Victoria Station was bankrupt. What went wrong?

Read Tom Blake's query

Feature your query here

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

• Private consults, Europe (July & August)
• Publishing Game Workshop, Jerusalem (July 14 and 21)

Please contact us to book her for your event or conference.

Follow Fern online:

• Twitter.com/fernreiss
• Facebook Writing & Publishing Group
• Facebook AssociationofWriters Page

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 (six hours for the price of five) for publishing consultation. Sign up at PublishingGame.com/
consulting.htm.

7 July, 2009

Welcome to our new members in Spain, Australia, and the United States.

Special Report: 55 Things You Can Offer to Generate Publicity
by Joan Stewart

If you’ve wondered whether there’s a way to get more email signups or generate more publicity by offering customers something, you’ll definitely want to read Joan’s intriguing six-page special report. In addition to a list of excellent suggestions of different mechanisms by which you can generate publicity, Joan also recommends that you create (and link to) a separate ‘landing page’ on your website, so that customers can most easily find your complimentary offerings.  Here are some of her ideas for things you can offer to generate publicity, or encourage email signups at your website: 

• Assessments: The Blog Squad offers a 20-question blog assessment survey to see if you should add blogging to your marketing mix.
• Checklists: Joan offers complimentary checklists for event planners to promote her “How to Plan & Promote Sizzling Special Events” CD and ebook.
• Courses:  A continuing education website for accountants offers a one-hour tax course on ‘Tax Implications of Charitable Contributions.’
• Passes: The Associated Press wire service offers a one-day pass to its online site.

There are dozens more creative ideas in Joan’s report.

Members can read the report right now.

Next week: Stay tuned for IAW Contributor Judy Gruen’s article Seven Tips to Add Humor to Your Presentations.

Audio: Cost-Effective Google Ads with Marcia Yudkin, Marketing for More

If you missed last issue ’s 45 minute audio with marketing expert Marcia Yudkin on Cost Effective Google Adwords, you can still listen to it. Among other things, Marcia covered:

• How not to waste money—rather than paying a lot extra for ad positions one, two, and three, pay significantly less for positions four through six, still viewed by many readers
• How to make sure your landing page—your website page that click-throughs land on—exactly matches the Google ad, with the same offers and expectations
• How to use a variety of searched words, remembering to use verbs as well as nouns
• How to use two-step marketing, encouraging readers to click-through to get something specific, and then up sell them to the larger product
• How to lower the total amount that Google charges you with one simple tactic
• How to eliminate people looking for free information (rather than paid products) by altering your keywords
• How to target your audience to maximize sales and signups

Members can hear the audio right now.

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:

Disturbing new trend in censorship legislation affecting bookstores... www.abffe.com/update6-23-09SB152.html

State capitol reporters down 32% in past six years, American Journalism Review reports: www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4721

Gannett Newspaper Chain close to bankruptcy; Moody's lowers Gannett bond ratings to 'junk'... www.thedeal.com/newsweekly/features/gannet-default-option.php

Can you buy reviews on Amazon? Sort of... jonbischke.com/2009/06/12/why-amazon-vine-is-a-threat-worth-talking-about/

Google offers only $70/book to settle lawsuit re copying millions of books, yet Mom penalized $80,000/song for copying 24 songs: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31432024/ns/business-local_business/

New Google Flipper another poke at already beleaguered newspaper industry... www.adotas.com/2009/06/google-news-pokes-newspapers-in-the-eye-again/

A new publishing model: Just give all the books away for free! www.concordfreepress.com

Members can read more by clicking through to:
PartyLine Media Leads and
Wooden Horse Magazine Update, and
Or get the latest updates by following Fern on Twitter:
twitter.com/fernreiss

Having trouble with writer’s block?  Whether you’re finding it hard to get going on a book project or just a short article, try putting the desired number of final pages into a three-ring binder.  For a book, print out the headers and footers and page numbers for each page of the ‘final’ book, and format the pages to the final desired size as well; for an article, include the contact information at the top of each blank page.  Just the process of organizing the correct number of pages, formatted in the way that you’ll ultimately be submitting them, can sometimes banish writer’s block for good.

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 can read more at Spotlight.

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

Featured Expert Profile

Each month, the International Association of Writers sends a newsletter featuring our latest experts to journalists and editors worldwide. The listings also run in several locations on the website, and each week we feature one of the experts in our newsletter. Here’s how to make the most of your Expert Profile listing:

• First, fill out the basic profile.
• You can list up to five separate areas of expertise, so if you have different topics, offer expertise on different subjects, or have books on different areas of expertise, be sure to list them separately. (This will help you get more attention from the search engines, too.)
• Don’t forget to fill in the section asking for a quote. Sometimes, journalists on deadline will be happy to use a canned quote; even if they want something fresh, a good sample quote will give them a sense of what they can expect from you, and more incentive to get in touch with you. The better your quote, the more likely they will be to contact you.
• 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. (However, your email address won’t be displayed here; journalists trying to get in touch with you will be channeled through our dedicated email contact form, to prevent unsolicited email.)

Also, remember to upload your photograph for your profile pages here.

Next week, we’ll look at optimizing your book profiles. Stay tuned!

The more members we have, the more clout we have with journalists, booksellers, literary agents, librarians, meeting planners, 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”.
• Sign up as an Association of Writers fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/pages/Fern-Reiss-AssociationofWriterscom/57824117060
• Remember—sign up three friends or colleagues, and get a free one-year extension on your membership!

Q: My children’s book is coming out later this year (in the US and Europe).  Is there anything you can do to publicize a children’s book?

A: There are dozens of things you can do to publicize books, and children’s books are no exception.  Initiate a fan club.  Offer cameo appearances in the book (using real children’s names!) via a contest or charitable tie-in.  Rather than the usual bookstore reading, plan a bookstore demonstration or event.  There are more ideas here:
www.PublishingGame.com/art_publicizechildrensbooks.htm

Members can post their Talk Out questions here.

“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

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

2009 Simon Fraser University Summer Publishing Workshops, 3-July to 8-Aug, Vancouver, Canada.  The SFU Summer Publishing Workshops offer opportunities to learn from and work with nearly 100 of Canada’s top editors, writers, marketers, designers, publishers, and new media moguls.

The American Library Association's Annual Conference, July 9 - 15, Chicago, Illinois USA. This is the conference for librarians and library lovers in the United States.

Read the entire Calendar. (Members—post listings at no charge.)

Copyright © 2009 International Association of Writers

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The International Association of Writers, Speakers, and Experts
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