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Last updated on
8 September, 2007

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Be Your Own Literary Agent
with Dorothy and Sandy Zjawin

REGISTRATION:

COST, LENGTH, PREREQUISITES:

No prerequisites.

Standard course: $150 / 6 weeks. Click here to register

Extended schedule: $188 / 12 weeks. Click here to register
Extended course gives you two weeks to do each lesson but contains NO additional material.

For questions about this COURSE, e-mail Dorothy Zjawin at

Learn the steps needed to sell and promote your book (and yourself) to publishers with little or no cost to you! Beginning with the basics of promoting yourself, this course shows you how to write media releases, develop your own media kit, and explore other ways to get the word out!

COURSE OBJECTIVES: To learn and implement cheap, but effective ways to let publishers and everyone else know about your book.

Week 1: Basics of Promoting Yourself What self-promotion is and why you should learn it, getting started with a survey, "All About Me," you have what it takes.

HOMEWORK: Write a paragraph describing your expertise and communications skills.

Week 2: Writing and Using Query Letters to Get the Word Out About Your Book What a query letter is; what it does. Analyzing a sample book query letter. Query letter writing basics: including a great hook, describing your book's unique angle and your qualifications. Possible responses to your query letter.

HOMEWORK: Write a short paragraph for a query letter that begins with a hook (statement, question, statistic).

Week 3: Writing and Submitting Your Book's Proposal What a proposal is, what it includes, and why you need it. How you can use a proposal to promote yourself as well as your book.

HOMEWORK: Brainstorm a short list of spinoff items for your book, such as related articles, calendars, paperweights. Remember to include specific applicable information, such as descriptions, purposes, titles.

Week 4: Writing and Submitting Media Releases Promoting Yourself and Your Book Taking advantage of your natural connections, exploring your hometown sources, and submitting your materials to associations, colleges, and other places. How to write media releases; a sample release.

HOMEWORK: Develop a list of local resources that includes newspapers, libraries, schools and colleges that you attended.

Week 5: Developing and Using a Media Kit Why you need a media kit, how to develop necessary items as your bio, tip sheets, Q&A sheets, tips for obtaining and including good photos.

HOMEWORK: Begin to assemble your media kit. Using the paragraph from week one's homework, write your bio and a description of your book.

Week 6: Other Ways to Promote Yourself and Your Book Learning how to create more waves: . your own media mailing list . launch your own Web site . Promote your book to online bookstores and writers' magazines and ezines. . Contact wire services and newspaper columnists. . Develop spinoffs and other products from your book . Consider a publicity stunt (optional)

HOMEWORK: Using the information that you gathered in week four's homework, write a letter to one source announcing your book.

(Note: Week six is taught by both Dorothy and Sandy Zjawin. Your contact for homework will be Dorothy Zjawin.)

Dorothy Zjawin — author, speaker, instructor — has over ten years of writing experience. Her publications include a how-to book for teachers, Teaching Ideas For The Come-Alive Classroom (Parker Pub. Co./Prentice-Hall) and numerous Instructor and Star-Ledger articles. In addition, she has created a Writer's Institute at Montclair State University and taught courses as How to be Your Own Literary Agent and How To Write Query Letters That Sell. At the present, she teaches writing courses at various colleges and serves as a consulting faculty mentor of technical writing at Thomas Edison State College. She has also served as a freelance developmental editor for Addison-Wesley and a projects editor at McGraw-Hill.

Sandy Zjawin is an experienced workshop instructor and published writer who knows the value of effectively-written magazine and book query letters, as a result of having written a number of successful queries. She is now working on a book, Checks in the Mail, based on her personal experiences in locating part-time income sources. . She has assisted new writers in creating and submitting queries and readily admits that book queries are longer and take more time to develop. Her other writing credits include Family Circle and Working Woman articles. She has also developed and taught workshops in technical writing and writing for the web, as well as classes in computer literacy and application software, such as MS Word and Excel. Her academic credentials include an M.S. (Rutgers).