NAIWE NewsWire

NAIWE Publishing Expert Jerry D. Simmons will be on The Freelance Life online radio show this coming Wednesday. His topic will be:

“The Seven Things Every Author MUST Understand About Publishing”

Recording of Part 1 of this interview:

They include:

(1)              It’s a business,

(2)              Two distinct parts to becoming a successful author,

(3)              Become a student of the marketplace,

(4)              Good story trumps great writing,

[6/2/2010 Note: We didn't get through all the questions, but we'll finish on Wednesday, August 4, at 3:30 p.m. EDT.]

(5)              It’s easy to get published, difficult to sell books,

(6)              Perception is critical, every author has choices, and

(7)              There are no guarantees, ever.

Here’s the recording of Part 2 of this interview:

There will be an opportunity for questions and answers at the end of the program. We hope you can join us!

• The Freelance Life
• Wednesday, August 4, 2010
• 3:30 p.m. EDT
• Phone Number: (724) 444-7444
• Call ID: 38165

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If you want to have your non-fiction book published, you need to know how to effectively construct a book proposal. You can learn bits and pieces from many sources, but the very best place to learn is from someone who has successfully crafted a wide variety of non-fiction and fiction proposals.

NAIWE Expert Mary DeMuth is the author of several novels, three books on parenting, a recently published memoir, and countless articles. She mentors budding writers through The Writing Spa, and has written two tutorials, Nonfiction Book Proposals that Grab an Editor or Agent by the Throat (in a good way!) and Write a Powerful Fiction Proposal. These two resources are full of practical advice and annotated samples of proposals that worked.

Nonfiction Book Proposals that Grab an Editor or Agent by the Throat (in a good way!)

Wednesday, May 19, at 3:30 p.m. EST

In this teleclass, you’ll learn:

1. How to identify and articulate your passion before you write the book
2. What belongs in The Introduction and About the Book sections
3. Where to find information for About the Market
4. What to put in the Comparative Analysis section
5. How to construct a realistic Marketing Plan
6. What to say in the About the Author section
7. How to shape a convincing Conclusion
8. What to include in Chapter Outlines
9. What you need to know about the first three chapters that most publishers request

Mary’s latest book is Life in Defiance, the final book in the Defiance, Texas trilogy. You can read more about it at Mary’s online bookstore, where you can purchase the proposal tutorials and signed copies of her books. You’ll also find her books (but not the tutorials) at Amazon.com and other bookstores.

Members will receive call-in information for the class via a member mailing. Be sure that you’ve whitelisted *@naiwe.com and *@naiwemail.com (an asterisk, followed by @naiwe.com and @naiwemail.com) in your e-mail program so that you receive the message.

If you’re not a member and you’d like to join in time for this teleclass, you may click on this “Join NAIWE” link to do so.

If you would like to register for this single teleclass only, you may do so for $27 by visiting the Teleclass page.

We’re delighted to announce that Jerry D. Simmons, a 30-year veteran of publishing (Random House and Time-Warner Book Group), will be appearing on the first Wednesday of each month on The Freelance Life, discussing topics relevant to the business of publishing. As a new member benefit, NAIWE members will also be able to contact him directly to ask questions.

You may visit his new NAIWE blog at http://jerrydsimmons.naiwe.com.

Staying “Well-Fed” in a Changing Writing World:

Short and Long-Term Strategies for Boosting Your Writing Income

Wednesday, 17 March 2010, at 3:30 p.m. EST

It’s a tougher writing world out there today, and the writers who thrive in the coming years are those who can successfully adapt to the changing realities. In this one-hour info-packed session, join NAIWE Expert Peter Bowerman, veteran commercial freelancer and self-published author of the award-winning “Well-Fed” titles (www.wellfedwriter.com), as you explore…

* Strategies for standing out in crowded writing marketplace
* How to “un-commoditize” your writing and raise your market value
* How to diversity into the lucrative field of “commercial” freelance writing
* How to turn your expertise into multiple money-making products and services
* Why self-publishing could be your best publishing option
* How self-publishing a book can boost your industry reputation, your short-term profitability and your long-term financial security

And much more… Don’t miss it!

BIO:

Peter Bowerman, veteran “commercial” freelancer and popular business coach, is the self-publishing author of the award-winning Well-Fed Writer titles on lucrative commercial freelancing (www.wellfedwriter.com). He chronicled his self-publishing success (60,000 copies of his books in print and a full-time living for eight-plus years) in the award-winning 2007 release, The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living.

Members will receive call-in information for the class via a member mailing. Be sure that you’ve whitelisted *@naiwe.com (an asterisk, followed by @naiwe.com) in your e-mail program so that you receive the message.

If you’re not a member and you’d like to join in time for this teleclass, you may click on this “Join NAIWE” link to do so.

If you would like to register for this single teleclass only, you may do so for $27 by visiting the Teleclass page.

Carol Topp, CPA

In honor of Words Matter Week, NAIWE’s resident Tax Information Expert, Carol Topp, CPA, will be chatting with us on The Freelance Life. We’ll talk a bit about why words matter in financial areas, and Carol will talk about what writers and editors need to know about the IRS, tax returns, and accounting. Remember, access to Carol for tax information question is one the NAIWE benefits, and this is a great time to get acquainted with her and even ask a few questions if you would like. I hope you’ll join us!

Date: Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Time: 3:30 pm EST

Listen online: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/38165 (You can listen live or listen later.)

Listen on the phone (and ask questions, if you like): Phone Number: (724) 444-7444 Call ID: 38165

Understanding the IRS

Does the IRS consider my writing a hobby or a profession?
Net Income. Why don’t they just call  it profit?
EIN, SSN, PIN: What’s with all the acronyms?

Understanding Your Tax Return

Deduction or Credit? What’s the difference?
Tax loopholes. Anything special for writers?

Understanding Your Accountant

LLC, S Corp, C Corp: What’s the difference? What’s best for me?
How to interview a CPA

In honor of Words Matter Week, March 1-7, 2010, we’ll be hosting editor and NAIWE Expert Barbara McNichol for a free teleclass on The Freelance Life. Barbara is the author of Word Trippers: The Ultimate Source for Choosing the Perfect Word When It Really Matters. She’s edited 240+ books in the past 15 years, and we’re delighted that she’ll be sharing her expertise during this special week.

Class Date and Time: Wednesday, March 3 at 3:30 p.m. EST at The Freelance Life. You may listen online or on the phone.

Description: In Whack Wordiness, editor Barbara McNichol will share techniques that editors use to perfect your writing, brought to life with lots of examples. You’ll receive an optional assignment for practice – and we’ll make it lots of fun.

In this class you will:

• gain fresh insight into how to tighten your writing
• learn warning signals for excess wordiness
• gain greater confidence in your ability to revise your own work

Instructor: Barbara McNichol

Tina Games, Journaling Expert

NAIWE Member Teleclass

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. EST

We’re excited to host Tina Games, the NAIWE expert on the art of journaling. She has focused her writing and coaching career on working with women through the power of focused journaling, and she’ll be sharing some very specific techniques writers can use to power up creativity and defuse stress.

In this one-hour teleclass, Tina will discuss:

• - How journaling is helpful to a writer
• - Setting the stage for journal writing
• - What types of journals are best for writers?
• - What are some journaling techniques for capturing the best ideas?
• - How can journaling help with writers block?
• - How to use journal writing to map out a story, article or book

Members will receive call-in information for the class via a member mailing. Be sure that you’ve whitelisted *@naiwe.com (an asterisk, followed by @naiwe.com) in your e-mail program so that you receive the message.

If you’re not a member and you’d like to join in time for Tina’s teleclass, you may click on this “Join NAIWE” link to do so. If you would like to register for the teleclass only, you may do so for $27 by visiting the Teleclass page.

Wednesday’s Teleclass with Janice Campbell

Carefully honed craft, top-of-the-line skills, plus sound business practices still form the foundation of a successful writing or editing career, but in the 21st century, seven things have emerged as increasingly essential to lasting success. At the National Association of Independent Writers and Editors (NAIWE), we believe it’s possible for any writer or editor to cultivate these 7 Essentials, and we’ve created an association that encourages best practices in each area. Here is a birds-eye view of the 7 Essentials to help you implement the pieces you may be missing.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

12:30 noon PT / 1:30pm MT / 2:30pm CT / 3:30pm ET

If you’re on the e-zine mailing list (you can sign up on the NAIWE home page), you’ll receive an e-mail with a call reminder and the call-in number on the morning of the call. We may host this teleclass on The Freelance Life podcast site, so be sure to watch for details!

You’ll learn:

• The 7 Essentials for creating a successful writing or editing career
• Tips for tweaking what you do now so that it reflects 21st-century reality
• How to add social media to your life without wasting time
• And more!

*Don’t miss our Annual Thanksgiving Membership Drive! Use Coupon Code 9A4DEC0 to get $27 off dues when you join before November 30, 2009.

The October teleclass with Paulette Ensign, our Tips Booklet Expert was inspiring, and we got a lot of great feedback! As a direct result of the teleclass, we have decided to commission Paulette to create a “collection of experts” booklet that the Association and participants can offer, both on our websites and at the conventions and speaking engagements that we’ll be going to next year. With Paulette’s amazing promotional ideas, plus fourteen people and the power of the Association behind it, this booklet should travel far and fast!

The idea of a tips booklet fits into the kind of cooperative marketing that NAIWE advocates. By joining with other members and experts, we can share great information to a much larger audience than we would have alone.  People who purchase or receive a copy of the booklet will have plenty of reason to keep it, and the freelancers who share tips automatically gain a greater measure of credibility through the quality of their information and their inclusion in the project.

We have settled on the theme of “Building Credibility as a Freelancer” because that was the number one reason people cited for joining a professional association in our January survey, so it’s obviously a concern. The booklet will be a wonderful way to introduce the association and those of us who want to participate by sharing 5 tips and a short bio.

I’m way too busy to take on another big project, and I’m sure you are too, so this sounded like an outstanding way to promote without a lot of effort. Paulette is the most organized person I know, so it’s nice to have her doing the work. Each participant will be able to use the booklet in any way– as a promotion, list builder, bonus, or just a “sticky business card.” Every time it goes out, it will promote all the participants by offering useful information people will want to keep and use.

I have already invited our NAIWE Experts and members, and some of them will be participating, so there are fewer than twelve spots left. As experienced freelancers, I know that each of you has worked hard to establish credibility, and you probably have some very good tips to offer. You’ll find all the details below and at Paulette’s website.  I’d love to have you join me in this!

Invitation to Participate in the NAIWE Tips Booklet

You know what it’s like balancing your marketing and delivering your services, even if you enjoy the marketing part at all. Like you, I’m forever looking for ways to promote my business as easily, economically, and uniquely as possible so it doesn’t get in the way of doing the part of my business I love most.

Wait ‘til you see a solution I discovered. This is probably the easiest promotion you’ll ever do, since your colleagues are marketing your business for you, positioning you as a leading expert in your field in the process.

It’s a cooperative tips booklet, spearheaded by the Queen of Booklets herself, Paulette Ensign. Paulette has personally sold over a million copies of her own booklet without spending a penny on advertising, so she knows how this is done.

• It takes you less than 10 minutes to participate
• You get instant credibility with your prospective clients as an author in addition to  your book
• The price can’t be beat.

This is not some slicked up brochure, but rather a resource packed with information that prospects and clients will be begging to get their hands on.

It’s a no-brainer. For a small investment of time and money, you’ll get tons of things from Paulette’s company. I was surprised by how much she put into this package and how little she’s charging. And Paulette makes it incredibly easy, which is also why I’m bringing this to you.

To see what you get and how you can benefit from a Collection of Experts Tip Booklet, go to www.CollectionOfExperts.com.  A link for our booklet, “NAIWE.com Building Credibility as a Freelancer – Tips from a Collection of Experts” is at the bottom of the page.  If you still have questions, contact Paulette at paulette@tipsbooklets.com or 858-481-0890 (Pacific time zone).

A maximum of 14 experts will be accepted for the booklet and the deadline for your commitment is November 6. Priority is given to NAIWE Members and Experts.

This is an easy, inexpensive way to add more options for your clients and readers to know about you and your company or your books. Do this today! Go to www.CollectionofExperts.com   The link to our “NAIWE.com Building Credibility as a Freelancer – Tips from a Collection of Experts” is at the bottom of the page, ready for you to take action.

If you’d like to participate, please don’t wait– there are fewer than twelve spots available at the last count! Visit www.CollectionOfExperts.com right away to sign up.

Join NAIWE’s Tips Booklet Expert, Paulette Ensign, as she calls in to teach us how to strategically and creatively use Twitter to create a product and market your business. Expect to learn a lot!

Wednesday, October 21, 200912:30 noon PT / 1:30pm MT / 2:30pm CT / 3:30pm ET

Watch your inbox for the call-in information (be sure you’re signed up for e-zine mailing list to the right so that you don’t miss any teleclasses or events!)

Create a Product and Market Your Business a Minute at a Time Starting on Twitter

What if you could create a product and market your business all at the same time for literally minutes a day, at no cost?  Oh, and have fun doing it, too? Well, you can.

Paulette Ensign, of tips booklets fame for almost two decades, crossed over her own barrier into the world of online social networking through the free mini-blogging service, Twitter. While many people are creating applications and guidance for effectively using Twitter to promote their business, Paulette realized it’s the ideal vehicle to write tips of about 22 words each. It’s a way for you to give useful information and create a presence for your business simultaneously, in less than a minute per tip. It’s multi-tasking at its finest.

Once you post the tips online, there are so many more things you can do with that content. Sharing useful tips through tips booklets has been and still is one of the easiest and quickest ways to become a published author, build credibility, and market yourself all at once. As fast as it is to write a booklet compared to a whole book, you can start a new product or distribute one you’ve already got as bite-sized pieces to a much broader audience. Plus there’s no design, production, or delivery costs online. You can then decide if you want to develop or extend a whole product line from that information.Discover:

* A simple formula for writing effective tips in 22 words or less.

* Ways to leverage tips into 7 other products and formats for sale and to give away

* Ideas for making money with this information, online and offline

* Licensing the content for huge profits

This session is just the thing if you are:

o A Reluctant Marketer

o The Introvert of the Century

o Transitioning into Info Products

o Older Than a Teenager

o Skeptical About the Value of Social Networking

Bio:

Paulette Ensign has personally sold well over a million copies of her own tips booklet, ‘110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life,’ without spending a penny on advertising. She did this with no business training, and enough guts and natural irreverence to figure it all out as she went.  Her first career was more than a decade of happily teaching string instruments in public elementary schools, before becoming a professional organizer from 1983 until the mid 1990’s after she wrote her booklet. Paulette has unwittingly become The Booklet Queen since writing her booklet in 1991.With a sense of humor and a ‘can-do’ attitude, Paulette shares her experiences with clients and audiences worldwide, through her consulting, speaking, and teleseminar services and products.

Paulette made a cross-country move from New York to San Diego, California in 1996  without missing a beat in her business because of the role that booklets play. When asked why she moved, her answer has consistently been “It doesn’t snow in San Diego.”

This event is for NAIWE Members, but non-members may listen live.

If you’re already on the NAIWE e-zine mailing list, you’ll receive the teleclass phone number and access code in your inbox on the day of the call. If you’re not, you can sign up on the teleclass page.

Can’t make the live call? Don’t worry! All calls are recorded and will be available to NAIWE members in the private members-only area of the NAIWE website. Join today and you can listen to this call, plus all of our past teleclasses on great topics such as ghostwriting, smart self-publishing, and more.