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WOW! Women On Writing
Classes & Workshops
Spotlight Newsletter: The Gatekeepers: All About Agents & Editors
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Greetings!
Recently, my fellow classroom manager shared some exciting news with me. She was reading the American Society of Journalists and Authors' publication, The ASJA Monthly, when she noticed a wonderful note about WOW ! instructor Andrea Campbell in the book review column. The author, Pamela Toler, highlighted several excellent books that helped her write her book proposal, including industry standards such as How to Write a Book Proposal by Michael Larsen and Nonfiction Book Proposals That Anyone Can Write by Elizabeth Lyon, and other helpful books like Get Known Before the Book Deal by Christina Katz. At the end she wrote: "A lagniappe (or perhaps a confession): I learned a great deal about writing a book proposal from the above books. But I learned much more from an online class taught by ASJA member Andrea Campbell, which she offered through WOW! Women On Writing. I highly recommend it." Andrea's classes are true gems. She's spent years perfecting them and developing them as the industry changes. Her latest class, The Gatekeepers: All About Agents and Editors, adds new information on platform, branding, and marketing--along with the solid information on the publishing industry that the course is known for. The class starts next Monday, April 25th and is limited to 10 students. We meant to send this newsletter earlier this week but we were having e-mail difficulties. (We apologize!) So, if you're interested in this course, please make sure you sign up right away, before the deadline passes. She's also offering students $100 OFF the regular price for this season. In the article below, Andrea shares some tips on author platform that you won't want to miss. I especially love her paragraph where she breaks down the numbers as an example of how to get a better advance. And she should know...one of her students received a six-figure advance. Enjoy!To view all of our upcoming courses click here. Happy writing! Angela & Marcia  Angela & Marcia Classroom Managers WOW! Classes & Workshopsclassroom@wow-womenonwriting.com
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Platform, Branding, and Marketing are the New Author Mandate
By Andrea Campbell
The world of book publishing is changing rapidly. With the onset of self-publication, e-book creation, and Web sales, business is in flux. It's harder than ever to get a book traditionally published in hardcover and trade paperback. It seems there's an unspoken panic of sorts. Everyone is asking: What is the future of book publication? But there are people selling books to major publishing houses; writers are doing it everyday and getting very good money for it too. So who are these people? Are they better writers than you? Do they have some kind of secret? How are they getting an agent? How do they garner the interest of an editor?
The writers writing books today know how to use the three tools that all selling authors must know: Marketing, Platform, and Branding. And it's funny, if you ask most writers what these terms mean, many of them might have an idea, but they really don't know how to define these concepts and articulate the subject, and more importantly, they don't know how to get these necessary advantages.
Today we're going to briefly tackle platform and explain some of the important principles of what this means to writers and how to begin to build your own platform.
Sometimes it is best to define a term by what it is not. Platform is not your biography. Platform is not a credential. Platform is not your publishing history. Although platform can contain all these things, it is more. Platform is about positioning.
In the book business, marketing is everything. It's not enough to just get your name into print and onto the cover of a book. For if no one knows about your title, where is your sales potential? And having a platform gets you more money, much more.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on where you are with establishing a platform, it can either be your friend or your enemy. But platform is important to agents. Platform is your ability to bring readers to your work. Now doing that may seem like a monumental feat and, for beginning writers, it will be problematic. And, of course, some writers have better platforms than others. Assuming you are not a celebrity, and assuming you do not have a movie coming out or a song rising on the charts, platform will need to be built from the ground up.
First, let's take a look at who you are. You have lived X number of years. Do you have experience in some particular field of work? Are you a leader in your industry? Do you own your own company? Do you possess some type of knowledge that is needed by a lot of people? Or is there an experience that is fairly singular to who you are? Are you using some type of media coverage? Is there something extraordinary about you?
If you can answer "Yes" to just one of the questions posted above, you are on your way.
But you also have to parlay this specialness into a platform. As an example, do you deliver speeches, maybe speaking 20 times a year? Are you getting reasonable fees for doing it (about $1,000-$3,000 on average)? Your chances of getting an agent are now much better, because the agent and publisher know you might be able to sell 30% of your audience at your speeches. If you reach 2,000 people per year, you may be selling close to 600 books. You will most likely get a better advance because of this. And if your agent knows something about speaking or the speaking circuit, she may help you increase your fees, sell more copies, and get more engagements.
I know this may sound like magic, or something unattainable. But it's not and if you begin building your platform, it gets easier because you will have direction, you can target your audience, and capitalize on your specialness.
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The Gatekeepers:  All About Agents and Editors
Getting them, Working with them, and Growing as a Career Author
Instructor: Andrea Campbell
Workshop Length: 4 Weeks
Price: $179 (normally $279)
Start Date: April 25, 2011
Limit 10 Students
The Course Objectives
In order to succeed in this industry, you, the writer, must know it intimately from all sides. If you were a clothing designer: you wouldn't start without creative talent, the right materials, and a pattern to guide you. If you opened up a retail business, you wouldn't expect to: sell your products without knowing how to produce or restock your merchandise; you wouldn't open your doors without having a business foundation or center from which to sell, and you wouldn't try operating without a market strategy or knowing the competition. So why would you expect writing to be any different? Yet, thousands of would-be authors do. They buy into the philosophy that if I just pen a terrific book, then I will become successful.
Well, craft is surely something all writers should work at and a beautiful book can certainly open doors, but only those writers who know and understand the business will stay on to succeed. Now if you want to write as a hobby or don't care to try to earn a living at this work, then this course will just be a knowledge presentation. But if you want to create and write for a living, then you must learn the principles for this hard-knock business.
By the end of this course you will:
- Know how the publishing business works
- Know what the key players do and how to find them
- Know how to describe your product and its features
- Be able to do a market survey and assessment, and apply those skills over and over to everything you do in the future
- Know what branding is and begin your own brand
- Prepare business documents that help to position your work for a sale
- Ride the wave of rejection with style and grace
- Learn brainstorming by yourself and with others
- See networking as a tool
- Make yourself a dream client/writer/author
- Pave the way for your continuing career
Visit the Classroom Page for a complete listing, testimonials, and what you'll be learning week by week. 
About the Instructor: Andrea Campbell is the author of twelve traditionally published nonfiction books on a variety of topics including forensic science, criminal law, primatology, and entertaining using interactive games, among others. Andrea is currently working on the 3rd edition of Legal Ease: A Guide to Criminal Law, Evidence and Procedure, which has been fashioned into a college law textbook, and she will be featured in an upcoming anthology, Now Write! Mystery, Thrillers and Crime, the next in the writing series published by Penguin/Tarcher. Andrea is a member of several professional organizations and stays current with book business. Her classes always offer students much more than they thought they'd get. One of her students recently got a "very good deal," and, according to Publisher's Lunch, a $100,000-plus book contract. |
 Instructors' Posts @ The Muffin
Have you checked out what's cookin' at The Muffin? Our instructors are stopping by and sharing their words of wisdom!
If you're too busy to stop by but don't want to miss out, you can always sign up to get blog posts via e-mail here.
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 Can't Write? Draw.
By Gila Green
All stories have a shape to them. Draw yours. I learned this in journalism school. At that time it was critical that we mastered the differences between writing for print, radio and television (there was no web writing then). We learned through shapes. The identical story, say about a student demonstration against a tuition hike, had to be written in three different ways, depending upon which medium it was for. Each medium, we were taught, had its own shape and presumably still does...MORE
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 When Your Nonfiction Book Idea is Stuck in the Mud
By Andrea Campbell
I've been teaching online for over twelve years now and there is one problem that people who want to write a book all commit--at least in the beginning. They get what they think is a great idea for a book and then get stuck. For some reason, they can't get going. The title won't come. They can't find a way to start the Overview or Introduction, and they get frustrated thinking they've got writer's block or maybe they figure they haven't spent enough time staring at a blank piece of paper. This is usually the state at which they come to me. I hear, "I've got a great idea but can't seem to pull it together." Or, "I started this book proposal six months ago and just seem to keep procrastinating. What am I doing wrong?"...MORE
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Upcoming Classes & Workshops
All the classes operate online--whether through email, website, chat room, or group listserv, depending on the instructor's preferences--so you do not need to be present at any particular time (unless a phone chat is scheduled and arranged with your instructor). You can work at your own pace in the comfort of your own home. If you have any questions, please reply to this email or email us at: classroom@wow-womenonwriting.com Enjoy!
April 25
The Gatekeepers: All About Agents and Editors | 4 Weeks | $179 | Limit: 10 Students
April 29
Blogging 101 and More: Start a Blog, Make it Unique, and Keep it Going | 5 Weeks | $125 | Limit: 20 Students
May 2
Short Fiction Writing | 8 Weeks | $175 | Limit: 8-10 Students
Introduction to the Craft of Screenwriting | 6 Weeks | $150 | Limit: 10 Students
All the World's a Stage: An Introduction to Playwriting | 6 Weeks | $175 | Limit: 10 Students
May 11
Finding Experts and Interviewing Them | 6 Weeks | $150 | Limit: 10 Students
Bring Out the Story-Teller in You | 6 Weeks | $140 | Limit: 10 Students
Writing a Middle-Grade Novel | 6 Weeks | $150 | Limit: 20 Students
May 24
Writing for Children: Everything You Need to Know About Short Stories, Articles, and Fillers | 7 Weeks | $200 | Limit: 15 Students
May 25
The Unwilling Grammarian | 4 Weeks | $140 | Limit: 10 Students
May 31
Independent Publishing: The Definitive Course On Achieving Self-Publishing Excellence and Profitability New! | 6 Weeks | $175 | Limit: 10 Students
June 6
Empower Your Muse, Empower Your Writing Self | 4 Weeks | $125 | Limit: 25 Students
June 10
Intro to Book Reviewing | 4 Weeks | $100 | Limit: 16 Students
Click here to see all of our upcoming workshops
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