NEW!
Members—Promote Your Book & Business
If you have a new book coming out, or a writing accolade or business initiative you’d like to share, we’d like to know!  Members can submit their book and business news here. 

Sally Falkow

This week, we feature IAWEX contributor Sally Falkow with a 26-page special report, Optimizing Press Releases.

Tama Kieves

Next week, we’ll feature IAWEX contributor Tama Kieves with an article on Persistence in Paradise: Eight Tips for Staying in Love With Your Long-Term Writing Project.

Scholar, Expert in Jewish Literature, Spirituality, and Food

Miriyam Glazer is a popular speaker, eclectic scholar, and award-winning teacher who has served as a visiting lecturer throughout the United States, northern Europe, and Israel, is Professor of Literature and Chair of the Communication Arts department at the American Jewish University, where she has taught for 20 years. Rabbi Glazer's newest books are Psalms of the Jewish Liturgy and The Essential Book of Jewish Festival Cooking.

Book Miriyam Glazer as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Be our featured speaker

Howard Eisenberg is a relationships expert and author of the new book It's Never Too Late to Date: Shirley and Howard's Rx's For Dating and Mating After 50. This is Howard's seventh book.

Read more

Book Howard Eisenberg as a speaker for your next meeting or conference.

Email Howard Eisenberg

Be our featured expert

Jacqueline Jorgensen is the author of Beyond Mud and Vines and Yearning to be American which depict the dramatic details of her escape from the hills of Puerto Rico in 1947.

Read more

Book Jacqueline Jorgensen as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

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Be our featured author

Company C: An American's Life as a Citizen-Soldier in Israel
Haim Watzman

“A memoir of my two decades of service in a reserve infantry unit of the Israel Defenses, focusing on the moral and ethical conflicts of serving when you don't agree with your country's policies.”

Read more

Book Haim Watzman as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Feature your book here

How Green is Your Home-Based Business?
Elizabeth Cottrell

This article is for all home-based businesses, not just those whose product or service is related to the environment, conservation, or the green movement. “Green awareness” is important regardless of what you’re selling. Not only is it ethically responsible, but if handled tastefully and sincerely, a green mindset can actually be a marketing asset.

Read more

Book Elizabeth Cottrell as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

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Feature your article here

Writing / USA

— Andrea Campbell

Nowadays, big publishers simply don't read unsolicited material. They depend on agents to muck through the “slush pile” in search of the gems. If you want to get a book published, knowing and using the correct format for a book proposal is paramount.

Read Andrea Campbell's query

Feature your query here

If you need some personal input on your writing, publishing, or publicity dilemma, consider a consultation with IAWEX Director Fern Reiss. Fern consults to clients all over the world via telephone or Skype; the charge is $300/ €200 per hour or $1800 / €1200 per month on retainer. Sign up at PublishingGame.com/
consulting.htm.

22 September, 2009

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

Optimizing Press Releases
by Sally Falkow

In this special report, Sally explains how to optimize press releases so they're more likely to be picked up by both internet and traditional media. Her tips for optimizing press releases include these:

• Put your main search terms in both the headline and first 50 words of the release
• Create direct live hypertext links back to your website
• Insert JPEG images to ensure that the release is indexed by GoogleNews

She also explains how publicity has changed from an (unmeasurable) system where the company crafts a message and sends it out hoping for pickup, to a (measurable) networked marketplace where the end customers initiate the conversation. Some of her points:

• 50 million Americans get their news online each day
• News engines regard press releases the same way as any other news source—avoiding the traditional media gatekeepers
• Fewer than 35% of searchers click the paid ads to the right side of search pages; organic search ‘above the fold’ is the place to be
• Fewer than 10% of internet users bother with the third page of search results

Members can read more on optimizing press releases online, including several revealing case studies, in the full 26-page special report.

Next week: Stay tuned for IAWEX contributor Tama Kieves’ article on Persistence in Paradise: Eight Tips for Staying in Love With Your Long-Term Writing Project.

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

If you missed our recent six-page special report with Joan Stewart on 55 Things You Can Offer to Generate Publicity you can still read it. Among other things, Joan covered:

• The advantage of individual landing pages—and how to craft them
• How and why to include assessments
• What types of checklists draw attention
• How you can generate interest with online courses
• How Associated Press offers passes to encourage interest—and how you can, too

There are dozens more creative ideas in Joan’s report. Members can read the report right now.

New Members:
If you missed any of our special reports or audios, follow the links below to see them. Our Member Archive contains these, as well as our other articles, audios, reports, interviews, special members-only downloads, and other features, available for you to read and/or listen to anytime.

New this week:

Publishers Weekly, the major trade review journal based in the U.S., is still up for sale—along with Library Journal and School Library Journal. A previous attempt at selling the magazines was unsuccessful …

Get the latest updates on the writing and publishing world by following Fern on Twitter: twitter.com/fernreiss

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

See the fascinating study of how to get people to re-Tweet (re-post) your Twitter posts, vastly multiplying their visibility, in this hot-off-the-press article: www.fastcompany.com/blog/dan-macsai/popwise/report-nine-scientifically-proven-ways-get-re-tweeted-twitter.

Canada is the home of literally hundreds of organizations for writers, ranging from The League of Canadian Poets to the Speculative Fiction Society of Canada, from the Christian Word Guild to the Canadian Romance Authors' Network.

Members can read more at Spotlight.

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

Agent Query

Each month, the International Association of Writers sends a newsletter featuring our latest agent queries to literary agents and publishers worldwide. The list of agent queries also runs in several locations on the website, and each week we feature one of the queries in our newsletter. Here’s how to make the most of your 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 IAWEX site is public so only post content that you want the entire world to be able to see.
• Don't forget to upload your photograph to your agent query (and all your other queries.)

Next week we'll look at maximizing your Syndicated Articles Directory listing.

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/FernReissAssociationofWriters
• Remember—sign up three friends or colleagues, and get a free one-year extension on your membership!

Q: What's going on with the Google Books settlement?

A: What looked like a major and effortless coup for Google has now bogged down in the courts through the combined efforts and outcry from groups including the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), European publishers, and now the Justice Department. It might mean back-to-the-drawing-board for Google. Stay tuned.

Members can post their Talk Out questions here.

Judy Gruen took 3^rd Place in the online column writing division of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists (NSNC) annual writing contest. The online division was new for 2009, reflecting changes in the media, and Judy won for her humor columns on Aish.com’s “Jewlarious” section. Read more of Judy’s work at www.JudyGruen.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

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

New York Writers Workshop Non-Fiction Pitch Conference helps participants refine pitches for their proposals or manuscripts, then meet with and pitch to three different editors from major New York publishing houses (Bantam Dell, Berkley Publishing Group, Dutton, Random House, Rodale, St. Martin's Press, and others). 9-11 October, New York City.

The 18th Jack London Writers Conference is run by The California Writers Club, which was founded in 1909 by Jack London and friends. The conference will take place in Foster City, which is near San Francisco, California. 10-11 October, Foster City, California, USA (near San Francisco).

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

Copyright © 2009 The International Association of Writers, Speakers, and Experts

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The International Association of Writers, Speakers, and Experts
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