First Annual Self-Publishing Conference to Be Held at Writer’s Digest Conference East

WritersDigestConferenceOne way to learn what’s new in writing and publishing is to attend the Writer’s Digest Conference East 2013 at the Sheraton New York Hotel, from Friday, April 5 to Sunday, April 7.  Before the main conference opens at 4 pm on Friday, April 5, you can attend the first annual Self-Publishing Conference or a three-hour boot camp on writing 21st century fiction, writing a novel, or public speaking for writers.

Writer’s Digest Conference

Whether you want to learn more about the craft of writing or are seeking an agent or broader readership for your work, sessions at The Writer’s Conference can help you.

Expert speakers and panelists will explain how to:

  • Pitch your work to an agent
  • Write for big-name publications
  • Build an audience for your work
  • Create great characters
  • Write non-fiction book proposals
  • Create a career out of e-books
  • Use social media to sell books
  • Decide whether to self-publish or find a traditional publisher (or both)

In a session entitled, “The Future of the Writer,” you will get insights into some of the challenges and opportunities facing writers in the years to come. You’ll learn not only what to expect, but also how to prepare and succeed.

Self-Publishing Conference: April 5

During this event from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm, publishers, agents, editors, authors and marketing gurus will share their expertise through sessions entitled:

  • Freemiums, Crowdfunding, and Hybrids: The New Era of Self-Publishing
  • The Complete Package – Why Good Writing Is Only Half the Battle
  • The Agent/Self-Published Author Relationship
  • How Self Published Authors Found Success
  • Legal Issues for Self-Published Authors
  • You Wrote It – How Do You Sell It?
  • The Future of Self-Publishing

Public Speaking for Writers Boot Camp: April 5

This session (12:30 to 3:30 pm) is for authors (or soon-to-be-published authors) who want to generate more book sales from their readings. Former CNN anchor and Equity actor Porter Anderson will explain why strong, live readings can do more to convert fence-sitters into book-buyers than any other marketing tactic.

Whether you will be presenting your work in a bookstore, conference ballroom, campus lecture hall, book fair, or corporate auditorium, you’ll learn how to deliver your work with impact. From what to wear to the Q&A, you will learn how to take control of every appearance and come out with sales.

You will learn:

  • What an audience wants from an author at a reading – and how to give it to them.
  • How to choose what to read.
  • How to rehearse ahead of your reading.
  • How to prep your reading for your listeners.
  • How to present yourself to the audience.
  • How to actually deliver your work and follow it up.

Attendees should bring two pages of their own work to read (either from a work in progress or from published material). You will experience reading on your feet and get feedback from your peers and session leader Porter Anderson.

For more details on this boot camp, and the other two boot camps on April 5, see the Conference schedule.

Discounts are available to attendees who register by Friday, February 15.

LINKS
Writer’s Digest Conference 2013

Self-Publishing Conference

Schedule: Writer’s Digest Conference

 

Conference Explains How to Build a Platform for Book Sales

WRITERS. Whether you are in the process or writing or book, or simply have an idea you might want to write about, it’s never too soon to starting building the visibility and authority you will need to create an audience for your books,

One place to learn how to build a ‘platform” for your work, is Authors Launch, a new full-day conference that will be held on Friday, January 18, immediately following the 2013 Digital Book World Conference + Expo Jan. 15-17 at the New York Hilton in New York City.

Presented by Michael Cader and Mike Shatzkin of Publisher’s Launch Conferences, Authors Launch is designed to help authors establish a platform for their content, grow awareness of their work, and ultimately drive book sales. At Authors Launch, you can learn:

  • How to establish and manage your brand through blogging, social media, video, and other online tools and channels
  • How to develop, maintain and monitor audience engagement
  • The strengths and weaknesses of book clubs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and other social media channels for different categories of work.
  • How to get measurably better returns on the time you invest in specific marketing strategies
  • When, why, and how to hire additional marketing and publicity help
  • Tips to develop a practical SEO strategy
  • How to prepare for an interview

Other topics that will be covered include: email list management; best practices for using audio and video; getting and dealing with reviews; and working with publishers and other marketing partners to coordinate a book launch. A variety of publishers and independent experts will share their expertise and discuss how you can most effectively work with their publishers to cultivate reader support and translate social media and online connections into book sales.

The cost of attending the full-day Authors Launch conference on January 18 is $495. If you would also like to attend the Digital Book World Conference from Jan. 15-17, you can buy choose the Authors Launch/Digital Book World Package foir $825

LINKS

Authors Launch

Digital Book World Conference

RELATED POST

Digital Book World Conference Looks at Business Challenges to Traditional Publishing

Bitingduck Press Provides Full-Service Publishing for E-Book Authors

WRITERS. The recent merger of Bosun Books with Bitingduck Press has created a new publishing option for e-book authors. The expanded Bitingduck Press offers full-service publishing with no author fees for editing, copyediting, typesetting, and e-formatting.

“E-books have made self-publishing easy,” says Bitingduck Press founder Jay Nadeau, “but everyone needs an editor. We offer authors personalized attention and quality editing to make the best e-books possible.” The press also does print runs and specializes in electronic formatting of books containing equations and graphics.

Bosun Books was founded by Nancy and David McAllister, who were considered revolutionaries when they began offering electronic books through the brand-new WWW in 1994. Bosun offers worldwide distribution through all major e-tailers in all popular e-book formats. They represent nearly 100 authors worldwide, making getting published a reality for writers of quirky, geeky, or unusual mysteries, science fiction, and romance.

Bitingduck Press was created by Jay Nadeau and Chis Lindensmith, two PhD physicists with a passion for science and the environment. Their original goal was to provide high-quality, low-cost, highly accessible electronic and print books for anyone interested in science, mathematics, and the lives of scientists. The merger with Bosun enables them to expand into a wide range of quality fiction, narrative nonfiction, and technical books.

The merged catalog offers about 140 active titles for sale and six that will become available within the next few weeks to months.

The first e-book by the new collaboration between Bitingduck Press and Bosun Books is “Somebody Wants Somebody Dead,” a collection of suspenseful, darkly humorous short stories by Phillip Gardner. The book is now available on Amazon.

In June, the press will offer color and black-and-white versions of “The Yoga Facelift (2nd edition),” by the founder of organic sunscreen company Marie-Veronique Organics. Also planned for publication this year are one adult mystery/suspense novel and two young adult paranormal adventures.

Bitingduck Press is open for author submissions. They will be exhibiting at the Pasadena Lit Fest May 12 in Pasadena, California; Book Expo America on June 5-7 in New York; and the book fair at the American Library Association Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California on June 22-25.

LINKS

Bitingduck Press: Who We Are

Bitingduck Press: Why Publish with Us?

Guide Explains How to Format Self-Published E-Books

WRITERS. If you would like to try the do-it-yourself method of self-publishing an e-book, check out the new book “Book Formatting for Self-Publishers: A Comprehensive How-To Guide.”

The 248-page guide was written by Jennette Green, who has years of experience producing professional book files for clients. She believes anyone who already owns Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat Pro (version 7 or later) can produce professional-looking fiction or non-technical non-fiction books on a small budget.

In this book, Green explains how to:

  • Use Microsoft Word to format your novel or nonfiction book.
  • Format e-books for Kindle, NOOK, and Smashwords.
  • Use templates to build a book cover.
  • Convert your book-cover file so it will be accepted at Lightning Source and CreateSpace.
  • Format and submit your book to Amazon’s Look Inside program

The book presents simple, step-by-step instructions accompanied by dozens of illustrations.

Note that instructions for using professional page-layout programs such as Adobe InDesign are not Included in this book. So if your nonfiction book includes lots of tables, charts, and illustrations, this book might not be suitable.  This book also isn’t intended for authors who would like to apply advanced Kindle formatting.

LINK

Book Formatting for Self-Publishers: A Comprehensive, How-To Guide by Jennette Green

Nonfiction Writers Conference To Be Held Online May 16-18

WRITERS. Registration is now open for The Nonfiction Writers Conference, a 3-day online teleconference for writers who want to learn how to publish profitable non-fiction books.  Five 50-minute sessions will be presented from 9 am to 3 pm PST on Wednesday, May 16, Thursday, May 17, and Friday, May 18.

Topics include traditional and self-publishing, e-books, virtual book tours, social media, Amazon sales strategies, blogging, SEO, professional speaking, freelance writing, information product sales, and other book marketing tactics.

Conference organizer Stephanie Chandler has assembled a stellar line-up of 15 speakers, including:

  • Dan Poynter, author of “The Self-Publishing Manual”
  • Mark Coker, founder of the Smashwords.com e-book publishing platform
  • John Kremer, author of “1001 Ways to Market Your Books”
  • Michael Larsen, literary agent
  • Penny Sansevieri, author of “Red Hot Internet Publicity”
  • Jane Atkinson, author of “The Wealthy Speaker”
  • Jim Horan, author of “The One Page Business Plan”
  • D’vorah Lansky, author of “Book Marketing Made Easy”
  • Roger C. Parker, author of “Looking Good in Print”
  • Karl Palachuk, author of “Publish Your First Book: A Quick-Start Guide to Professional Publishing in a Digital Age”
  • Dana Lynn Smith, author of “How to Sell More Books on Amazon”
  • Kevin Smokler, author of “Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times”
  • Peter Bowerman, author of “The Well-Fed Writer”
  • Bill Belew, a search engine optimization expert.

Chandler, who has written a book “From Entrepreneur to Infopreneur:  Make Money with Books, eBooks and Information Products,” will also present a session.

The speakers will discuss:

  • How to write a compelling book with market appeal.
  • Methods for generating business revenue and opportunities with your book.
  • Simple ways to attract valuable media exposure.
  • How to break into professional speaking–from free to fee!
  • Ways to build your platform and get known as an expert in your industry.
  • How to take advantage of low-cost, high-return social media marketing strategies with Facebook and Twitter.
  • What it takes to turn your website into a traffic-generating machine.
  • The pros and cons of self-publishing vs. traditional publishing and mistakes to avoid.
  • Real-world advice on how to land a book deal.
  • Insider secrets for promoting your book online.
  • How to generate passive income from ebooks, special reports and other information products.

Stephanie Chandler conducted the first Nonfiction Writers Conference in 2010. She is the author of several books, including “Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business,” “The Author’s Guide to Building an Online Platform: Leveraging the Internet to Sell More Books,” and “Booked Up! How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book to Grow Your Business.”

Several registration options are available, including discounts for writers who register early.  If you can‘t listen to all of the sessions live, you can register to receive MP3 recordings of all sessions and/or transcripts of the sessions.

LINKS

Nonfiction Writers Conference

About Stephanie Chandler

Book Publishing Trends that Will Affect Aspiring Authors

Books on library shelvesWRITERS. Here are a few links, quotes and predictions from a variety of expert sources in the book-publishing industry. Reading these posts can help you think strategically about how you develop your skills and manage your writing career.

E-book Market Forecast to Hit $2.5 Billion as the Book Industry Burns

In this post on GigaOM, industry analyst Michael Wolf states “I’ve never seen a market changing faster than the digital publishing market of today, where the sudden love of e-books has created a ‘digital backdraft’ that has set the entire publishing industry value chain aflame.”

He notes that book discovery is going social: “Whether readers are learning about new books from friends or general-purpose social networks like Facebook or through reading-centric networks like Goodreads, social recommendations are becoming increasingly important in the age of ebooks.”

Why 2012 Will Be the Year of the Artist-Entrepreneur

In another post on GigaOM, Michael Wolf observes that: “Everywhere you look, artists are taking more control over their own economic well being, in large part because the Internet has enabled them to do so. You see it in all forms of content, from books, to video to music.”

He says the web has democratized everything: content production, distribution, and monetization. He also sees a generational shift toward more tech-savvy artists who are creating their own apps and websites.

Ten Bold Predictions for Book Publishing in 2012

In this post on Digital Book World, Jeremy Greenfield includes these predictions:

  • We will see more self-published best-sellers next year, with an exponential rise in the number of million-selling authors”
  • Authors will become disenchanted with the rights they sign away to publishers. Shorter and more flexible copyright terms will become more attractive to authors.”
  • The standard ebook royalty from major publishing houses will rise next year and will escalate with increased sales.”

David Farland Predicts That the Release of the iPad3 in 2012 Will Spell the End of Reading as We Know It Within 3 Years

In a press release issued on PRWeb, the author who founded East India Press predicts that “enhanced books” are about to change how we read. He believes we are at the start of a new era in which creative troupes of authors, artists, musicians, and publishers will collaborate to produce “books” in which text, images, and sounds come together in a collage.

The Publishing Industry, 5 Years from Now: Theories from the Frankfurt Book Fair

On the BookBaby blog, Chris Robley suggests 5 ways he believes that publishing will look different 5 years from now.  Here are two of his predictions:

The market for shorter works (10 pages to 10,000 words) will expand. He says, “Size really doesn’t matter. It only matters how useful and engaging the content is. So, pretty soon the novella will be back in vogue. Short stories will sell individually. If you’ve got something valuable and succinct to share, you no longer have to pad it out with fluff, filler, or filigree.”

Digital books will be serialized, including non-fiction books. Readers who purchase an upfront subscription will receive each chapter as soon as it’s finished. Meanwhile, as an author, you can get instant feedback from readers, so you can revise as you go. Robley writes: “By the time you release the full book, it will have gone through an invaluable editing process (for free) and it will be completely up to date.”

Publishers will recognize two types of consumers: those who like the “enhanced” ebooks that include video, audio, and interactivity, and those who prefer “old-fashioned” text-only ebooks. He predicts that publishers will “market these two kinds of products in increasingly different ways.”

Because of the increased costs involved in printing and distributing physical books, Robley also predicts that five years from now publishers will produce e-books for all of their authors, and physical books for only a few.

So, what’s your take? Would you like to share any other links to other big, bold predictions for the future of book publishing?

Website Can Help You Become an Award-Winning Author

WRITERS. If you would like to mention in your publicity that you are an “award-winning” author, you can enter a growing number of contests. Whether winning any of these contests has any real value is up to you to decide.

For example, one of the stated goals of the website Readers Favorite is to help authors gain more exposure through a Book Award Contest. In their 2011 Literary Award contest, awards were given in 70+ categories including Children, Christian, Fiction, Non Fiction, Adventure, Fantasy and Romance.

Debra Gaynor, owner of Readers Favorite claims that, “Award winners can enjoy increased exposure and the attention of bookstores, publishers, libraries, journalists and readers.”

Contestants are invited to submit full manuscripts, published and unpublished books, eBooks, audio books, comic books and poetry books. There are four award levels in each category: Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorable Mention.

Each winner will receive a personalized Award Certificate, a digital high-resolution version of their Award Seal for publication, and a roll of 500 reflective Award Seal stickers to affix to current editions of their book. Finalists will receive a digital high resolution Finalist Award Seal for future publications of their book, website or other marketing materials.

You can enter a book in one category for $89, or enter in up to three additional genre categories for $65 each. The deadline for entering the 2012 contest is May 1, 2012.

Readers Favorite also helps authors get their books reviewed, and will post the reviews on their site, Barnes & Noble, and Facebook. The site’s reviewers will also post your review on their websites, blogs, and popular review and social-media sites.

According to the Readers Favorite website, “We do not post negative reviews. If an author receives a poor review, we provide constructive criticism to the author instead. We are in the business of helping authors, not hurting them.” You can read bios of the volunteer reviewers on the Readers Favorite website.

LINKS

 Readers Favorite

 Winners of the 2011 Literary Award Contest