RANT 'O THE WEEK: This week we have a truly heartbreaking and yet heartwarming story. A fellow writer, Lori Hall Steele, was struck in late 2007 with both Lyme Disease and ALS. Now, Lyme Disease is bad enough but ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) is usually fatal. Having both simultaneously confused the diagnosis for a while. Lori's illness has progressed swiftly and today she is almost totally paralyzed and breathing on a machine.
Lori is divorced with a seven-year-old to care for, an insurance company that decided (even before the tests were complete, tests for which they would not pay) that this was all "preexisting condition." As if one could even survive preexisting ALS. And her home mortgage company wants her house back too, since she is unable to work now to earn the money to pay the mortgage.
A sad tale, to be sure. So what? Well, I belong to ASJA, the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Now, ASJA already has a fund for financially strapped writers, the Writers Emergency Assistance Fund (WEAF),and that had already sent Lori $10,000, the maximum grant allowed. But we, collectively, plus a lot of other wonderful people, chipped in privately. We discussed all this on our message boards and decided we could send at least $25 apiece to Lori. We could not expect to cover her medical bills but at least we might raise enough cash to save her home.
Well, within a week, so many checks arrived at Lori's home that her home was, for the moment at least, safe. Last I heard we had contributed some $17,000—this is money from fellow writers who are not wealthy themselves, remember—and the total is climbing daily.
Besides sending my own $25 check I also decided to send Lori $25 out of every WritersCollege.com course registration fee I receive from now to the end of the year. That is, I admit, only a drop in the bucket. But if there are enough drops, from me and from others, the bucket will fill up.
If you should want to know more about Lori and her plight, and be moved to contribute on your own, you may do so at this link:
SAVE LORI'S HOUSE http://www.savelorishouse.com
And thanks for your kindness.
SCHOOL
NEWS: We have a new course! Poetry: Writing for Literary Publication is taught by Ren Katherine Powell:
If you write poems to express your feelings or share your personal experiences, you may have already discovered that the poems that deeply affect your friends and family members won't necessarily move readers who don’t know you. This course is for the poet who aims for publication in literary journals, anthologies or chapbooks—it will help you move from the emotive language of light verse and the private language of poetic diaries toward literary prosody and publication.
This course will help you move from the emotive language of light verse or the private language of poetry notebooks toward literary prosody. You will learn when to tell the whole story and when to tell enough of the story to invite readers inside to look around for themselves.
This course approaches poetry as an art form that is similar to painting: a work met and entered into by the viewer/reader regardless of the personality behind its creation. When a reader buys a literary journal and opens the pages, she doesn’t know you or how much broccoli means to you—and she doesn’t want to. She wants to read a wonderful poem.
No matter how mundane you think your life has been it is rich with the stuff of poems. No matter how terrible your childhood was, you can write poems that will touch people with the truths within your story: you can make the reader feel through you, not for you.
I'll have another new course to announce next week. We're on a roll around here!
FEATURED
COURSES:
Poetry: Writing for Literary Publication
(NEW!) |
This course will help you move from the emotive language of light verse or the private language of poetry notebooks toward literary prosody. You will learn when to tell the whole story and when to tell enough of the story to invite readers inside to look around for themselves. |
Jump Start Your Novel
(NEW!) |
Focus on how to plan your novel before you start writing it to make it as effective and intriguing as possible. By the end of the seminar you will have a variety of tools to help you in the writing process from character and setting sketches to scene outlines to a complete plot roadmap. |
Eulogies
(NEW!)
(A 1-week seminar) |
Writing one good eulogy can get you through a time of bereavement looking to the rest of your family like a knight in shining armor. Writing eulogies as a business can be a profitable sideline. This seminar is intended for both the person needing to speak at Uncle Fred's funeral day after tomorrow and for the person writing eulogies on a regular basis for other families. |
Creating
Characters |
Write
such full characters that their arms and legs stick
out when you try to close the book! |
Magazine
Query Letters |
Learn
to write a query letter that can attract the interest
of an editor and clinch the sale. |
ESSAY: Free Publicity for your Book
by Patrika Vaughn
Whether you self-publish or have a major publisher, you have to peddle
your book. Some of the best marketing tools cost only time, effort, and
the right timing.. Here are some ways to get FREE publicity that will
help your book sell:
Local
Publicity:
Two months before publication, send a short, snappy press release
to bookstores, radio and TV stations, newspaper reviewers -- to anyone
who
might order and/or want to read the book. Chain stores and book distributors
should be high on that list.
At publication time, follow up with an updated release and actual
copies of the book. Make yourself available for interviews, book
signings
and calls for further information.
Pre-publication offer:
Make up a flier about your book, including a picture of the cover.
At the bottom of your flier, print a tear-off order coupon which
offers a free reading or review copy and quantities at a discount.
Mail this
to potential buyers, including:
-
Wholesalers
-
Bookstores, especially those specializing in your subject;
-
Libraries (the second largest book buyers in the U.S., spending
more than a billion dollars
a year on books;
-
Catalog companies (there are nearly 10,000 ~ choose
the logical ones from a source such as
Catalog of Catalogs at your public library);
-
Special interest individuals, organizations, associations,
corporations, museums, specialized
stores, etc.
Review
copies:
Reviews provide the greatest sales impetus of anything you can do. Reviews
are worth your
greatest efforts. More than 40,000 books are published every year in the
U.S. Fewer than 10%
of them are reviewed. You'll have to be timely and persistent to succeed.
Several
months before your publication date , mail copies of your new
book to trade magazines
and large newspapers, also local newspapers and other reviewers. Send out
as many as you can
afford. Reviews often contain words of praise for your book which then can
be included in
your further publicizing efforts. Short quotes from several reviews look
especially good on the
back of your book's dust jacket, serving as an endorsement.
Use
the Web:
Be absolutely sure to spread the word electronically throughout the world.
Most ISPs include
a little free web space in their user dial-up account agreements, however
some have rules that
restrict commercial advertising in non-commercial web space. Tell about your
book and about
you, the author, and create links to other sources (amazon.com, for instance).
Once you have
your home page up and running, be sure to register your page(s) with all
major search engines
so anyone searching the web will be able to find your site and learn about
your book. And
don't overlook the value of creating your own e-zine or newsletter for publicizing
your book.
Conclusion:
The extent of free publicity available to you is limited only by your time
and imagination. None
of these steps is beyond your ability, and each is invaluable for generating
publicity that will
put your book before the public eye.
The
above article has been excerpted from the book, Everything
You Need to Know to WRITE PUBLISH & MARKET YOUR BOOK, by
Patrika Vaughn. Patrika is the world's foremost Author's Advocate,
helping writer's write better and get
published.
Find this book and others, plus online classes and consulting services, on
her website:
http://www.acappela.com/
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
See the WritersCollege.com online class, Start Here
COOL WEB SITE:
Book Launch
This one is from Dennis Cass, an author with a paperback book just out and talking to his agent on the phone. It's hillarous, the more so if you have experience with the whimsical world of publishing.
And don't forget to stop by and say hi on my new blog at: http://blog.stephenmorrill.com/
Where, incidentally, the most recent blog is more about Lori Hall Steele.
Tell me about any good writing-related web sites. |
