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. 

FTC Alert
Starting December 1st, the US Federal Trade Commission has new guidelines for disclosures of considerations received by bloggers (including free merchandise) and affiliates, along with new rules regarding testimonials containing results.  IAWEX contributor Marcia Yudkin interviewed business attorney Jean Sifleet on what the new policies do and don’t require you to do—as a blogger, affiliate, marketer, business owner or copywriter.  Get informed: yudkin.com/ftc.htm.

The GateKeepers: All About Agents & Editors
Getting them, working with them, and growing as a career author: Feel perplexed about where to begin with marketing? Are you unsure your query letters are right? Worried you don’t know what goes into a platform? This is your workshop. GateKeepers is 4 weeks with lessons, assignments, edits and comments; a weekly online chat. Starts January 11. WOW classes.

Tama Kieves

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

Fern Reiss

Next week, we feature IAWEX director Fern Reiss with a 9-page special report on How to Publicize Your Children's Book: 18 Terrific Ways to Sell More Children's Books.

Diana Raab is a memoirist, essayist and poet. She teaches memoir, journaling and poetry in the UCLA Writers Program and the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. She also narrates and teaches workshops around the country.

Read more

Book Diana Raab as a speaker for your next meeting or conference.

Email Diana Raab

Be our featured expert

Prostate Cancer Survivor,
Patient Educator, Gerontologist

Rabbi Ed Weinsberg speaks on what patients (and their families) can do to conquer prostate cancer, on the pluses and minuses of robotic surgery, patient-doctor relationships, and more.

Book Ed Weinsberg as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Be our featured speaker

Penina Taylor is the author of Coming Full Circle, the story of her spiritual journey from Judaism through Evangelical Christianity, Messianic Judaism and finally back to the faith of her forefathers.

Read more

Book Penina Taylor as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Be our featured author

Replacement Child - A Memoir
Judy L. Mandel

“A plane crash - the injury of a two-year-old girl - the impossible choice a mother must make - leave a hole in the family that threatens to tear it apart. A story of love and transformation and one woman’s brave path to recovery.”

Read more

Book Judy Mandel as a speaker for your next meeting or conference

E-mail the author

Feature your book here

Craving and Aspiration
Joni Kay Rose

In Buddhism, there are two entirely different words for “desire”. Tanha is the addictive, self-centered, ignorant craving with little concern for the rest of the world. Sankappa could also be translated as “desire,” but it is wise, unselfish desire for the happiness of all beings. Understand this distinction, and you can let go of your cravings and follow your true aspirations. This is the real secret to happiness.

Read more

Book Joni Kay Rose 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 for publishing consulting. Sign up at PublishingGame.com/
consulting.htm.

8 December, 2009

Welcome to our new members in England and the United States.

Persistence in Paradise: Eight Tips for Staying in Love with Your Long-Term Project
by Tama Kieves

It took me two minutes to get a great idea for a creative self-help book and 12 years to write and finish it. Every year I’d proclaim in my journal, “this is the year I will finish my book.” And some years I wondered if I would ever see my self-respect again. Today, I can tell you that writing and finishing my first book THIS TIME I DANCE! Creating the Work you Love: How One Harvard Lawyer Left It All to Have It All! (Tarcher/Penguin) has been the most satisfying experience of my life. Believing in my writing enough to take it all the way---turned the question mark in my heart into an exclamation point.

When I tell my writing students or coaching clients about my experience, they sometimes ask in dismay, “But how did you did you stick with it?” Some confess that they can’t finish a short story or a poem. I understand. But this is what I know now. Your inspiration is worth your determination and dedication. You owe it to yourself and to those diamonds in your mind.

Let’s face it. The act of writing isn’t about sitting in a trench coat drinking black coffee, blue lightning glinting in your veins, ravenously jotting down epiphanies. Sometimes it’s slogging through mud, trying to find your way home in a fog and a storm. You can feel frustrated and powerless and then awfully tempted to just do something else altogether. Every writer loses inspiration. But successful writers stay on the trail and do not abandon their genius.

If you’ve been tempted to jump ship with a project or currently have some writing rotting in a drawer or cyber file, it’s not too late to reclaim your brilliance. Seeing a writing project all the way through is one of the most gratifying experiences you will ever know, and what follows is 8 strategies to help you do just that.

1. Pick your Juiciest Project. When you commit to a long-term project, pick the one that picks you. Don’t try to be practical here or compromise because you think it will be more reasonable. You want to pick something for which you can muster unreasonable strength. Compromise will often decrease your enthusiasm. At first, I tried to make myself write articles. But I really wanted to write a book. It didn’t make logical sense, but it did make my blood rise and flow with desire. I couldn’t sustain motivation for writing and submitting articles. But I did write that book. If you’re not going for what you really want, you won’t go the distance.
    
2. Don’t Bring your Ghosts, Bring your Spirit:  Drop the guilt of all you didn’t do yesterday or last week and meet your work new and head on. Stay in the present and only in the present and it will give you energy and direction. Forgive yourself. Do not assault yourself for not working on the project before or getting distracted. Every time you beat yourself up, you’re depleting your own resources and writing potential. I never, ever found that cracking the whip on myself did anything but make me feel tired and inadequate. When I came back to my writing with gentleness and an open mind, creativity followed right behind.
    
3. Give the Project Energy and it will Give you Energy. At a certain point a project starts calling you, beckoning you, haunting you, taunting you. But first you have to pay the piper. It’s like exercise. The more you do it, the more you want to do it. The more you write, the more you can’t tolerate your life without writing. But at first you have to just plunge in and go through the awkward stage, the sore muscles stage, the learning curve stage. I kept telling myself to “make deposits in the creative bank account” and pretty soon it would bear interest. And it did.
    
4. Let the Project be your Guru: At some point I realized that writing a book over a period of time was like dedicating myself to a spiritual path. I became a devotee of the writing process. There’s a Zen principle that says “how you do anything is how you do everything.” My book became a reflection of my life and of my writing career in general. I knew that if I never finished it, it would finish me; I would lose confidence that I could stay with something I believed in--and stick through the challenging times.  I wouldn’t trust myself to finish something new if I hadn’t finished something old.
    
5. Allow your work to breathe: Allow a project to grow and evolve and change and create. I believe a book writes us about as much as we write it.  We grow as we go along. Do stay focused, but not rigid or obstinate. Annie Dillard once said something to the effect that sometimes in the middle of writing a book, you discover what the book is all about. This happened to me while writing This Time I Dance! I realized midway that I needed to change the direction of the book and basically cut much of what I had already written. I loathed this realization. But creative truth is creative truth. If I would have ignored this discovery, I believe I would have forfeited the aliveness and magic of the book. Then I would have lost interest and momentum. Basically a very long project is a thousand new projects all in one.
    
6. Give Yourself a Guarantee: In the beginning of my writing life, I felt nervous about devoting time and ambition to writing since I wasn’t sure it would “go anywhere.” Every writing book on the planet told me I shouldn’t count on publication. They told me to enjoy the process. But the ham in me, needed to know my writing would have an audience. So when I began writing my book, I made a commitment to myself. I told myself that if I couldn’t find a publisher, I would self-publish the book. I needed to do this up front so that I could ditch the whole worry about publication and just focus on writing. I know one writer who posts everything he writes on his web-site. It’s his way of assuring himself that he is sharing his writing with the world. You may or may not need to do this. But you do need to get the whole publication process out of your mind while you write.
    
7. Stop Rushing. Okay, so we all get to this place where we just want to finish a piece of writing and have it in fine print for all the world to see. But impatience will delay your process. I wrote this saying for myself and hung it above my computer: “You only rush yourself into stagnation.” Writing is an act of quiet and absorbed attention. When I slowed down and got each word or sentence just right, I entered a state of timelessness and it carried me. I remembered why I enjoyed writing and nothing else seemed to matter. Sometimes I would deliberately make myself slow down and focus on just a sentence. And by the way, a book is just a sentence followed by a few more.
    
8. Fall in Love with the Good.  I grew up in a household where we didn’t waste things. We used the last yellow sliver of margarine before opening up a new container. I felt this way about my writing. I didn’t want to waste my good words, my good efforts. I didn’t want to want to abandon them to the lost world of file cabinets or the cold pathways of cyber space. I wanted my words to be in reader’s memories, not computer’s memories. I wanted people to taste my words, enjoy my stories, and enter my world. Sometimes when I felt particularly stuck, I’d read over passages that I’d already written that I liked. They reminded me how good some of the writing was and that I didn’t want to abandon those efforts. This would motivate me to fight through my funk and frustration and salvage the good.
    

Sticking with a long-term writing project has been an amazing process for me. On this journey, every fear and cloud of self-doubt came to cross my path. But I can’t tell you the triumph I feel in seeing a published book and receiving letters and emails from readers. Many times I came close to quitting. Many times it seemed easier to just start over with something new or to ditch the dream of being a writer altogether. But this book would never have existed if I made that choice. Those words would never have touched the lives they have touched.

That’s true of your writing too. Your writing is meant for you and your readers. If you don’t stay true to your project, your readers will never receive the gift that only you can give them. Please stick with it. The result will stick with you for a lifetime.

Tama is a totally inspirational writer, and I highly recommend her online courses and in-person retreats. You can learn more at www.awakeningartistry.com.

Next week: Stay tuned for IAWEX director Fern Reiss’s 9-page special report on How to Publicize Your Children’s Book:  18 Terrific Ways to Sell More Children’s Books.

Report: Optimizing Press Releases
with Sally Falkow

If you missed the recent newsletter’s 26-page special report with Sally Falkow on Optimizing Press Releases you can still read it. Among other things, Sally covered:

• How many people click the paid ads to the right of the search pages, and why organic search ‘above the fold’ is the place to be
• How few internet users bother with the third page of search results
• How you should put your main search terms in both the headline and first 50 words of the release
• How to create direct live hypertext links back to your website
• When to insert JPEG images to ensure that the release is indexed by Google News

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:

PODs BookSurge and CreateSpace merge: snipurl.com/ti943.

Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle close to closing: snipurl.com/thmic.

Borders UK in bankruptcy: snipurl.com/tluwz.

End of an era—Washington Post to close remaining bureaus (Los Angeles, Chicago, New York): snipurl.com/tevra.

Barnes and Noble adopts poison pill to prevent shareholder challenge: snipurl.com/tapuq.

Time Inc. to slash 500 more jobs: snipurl.com/tam7t.

Google: Scan books first, ask questions later: snipurl.com/t9hey.

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

Try the Gilbane Group's 148 page special report on “Digital Platforms and Technologies for Publishers: Implementation Beyond the eBook” at gilbane.com/Research-Reports.html for a look at how larger publishers are dealing with e-books and electronic publishing.

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.)

Syndicated Articles Directory

Each month, the International Association of Writers sends a newsletter featuring our latest syndicated articles to website editors, email newsletter editors, and newspaper editors worldwide.  The list of syndicated articles also runs in several locations on the website, and each week we feature one of the syndicated articles in our newsletter.  Here’s how to make the most of your Syndicated Article listing, which you can update here:

• First, select the category carefully. Website, ezine, and newspaper editors are usually looking for articles in specific areas or for specific audiences, so be sure the category you choose accurately describes the article.
• The catchier the title, the more likely an editor is to examine the full article. Usability studies have shown that the first two or three words of the title determine whether users will click through to see the full article—so choose the first few words of your title carefully.
• Your short biography will be displayed in several places on our website, so be sure it is interesting and describes your expertise accurately.
• You can post as many articles as you like for syndication. The more you post, the greater the chance that an editor will find something they’re looking for.
• Remember that in today’s economy, more editors of websites, ezines, and newspapers may be looking for no-cost syndicated articles—so this market is bigger than ever before.

Also, don’t forget that you can upload your photograph for your profiles in our Member Center. Next week, we’ll look at posting your Featured Author listing. 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/FernReissAssociationofWriters
• Remember—sign up three friends or colleagues, and get a free one-year extension on your membership!

Q: How do I become the featured Author {Expert, Speaker, ...} on your website?

A: To be considered for Featured author, you need to submit a complete author profile and book profiles for any books you'd like us to mention. Remember to upload your photograph and that of your book(s).  It also helps to have other profiles filled out, such as an expert profile, speaker profile, syndicated articles, etc. The same guidelines apply for all of the Featured slots—a fully completed profile with other (complete) profiles submitted.

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.

Summer Intensive Retreat, Olvar Wood Writers Retreat Intensive retreats provide a creative environment of stimulating workshops and discussions designed to help you progress your writing to the next level. Before the retreat, you'll be invited to submit up to 50,000 words of your work-in-progress, which both the tutor and your fellow participants will read and provide feedback on. During your stay, your work and the work of your peers will be the focus of tailored writing workshops, discussions and feedback sessions. 20-26 February 2010, Palmwoods, Queensland, Australia

The Seventh Annual San Francisco Writers Conference: 'Building Bridges to Better Tomorrows' features workshops, panels, "Ask a Pro" (asking questions and pitching books to New York and California editors, "Speed Dating for Agents" (Pitching books one-on-one to New York and California agents [$50 extra]), pitch contests, open mic readings, party, and more. 12 - 14 February 2010, San Francisco, California

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

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

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