Join the Generous Community

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

When they survey the personality of writers, the majority of them are introverts. Most people who have met me in person at a conference or an event would not categorize me as an introvert. I’ve taken personality tests and I do land in this category. At a party or event, I’d rather be sitting in the corner speaking with a person than leading the group or speaking to many people. Writing is something we do alone in our offices. Some writers intentionally need a busy environment to write so they will write in a coffee shop. I have written in those busy environments but it is not my preference.

While writing is a solitary activity, you don’t have to be alone or by yourself in this process. Years ago I learned to join the generous community of writers. Through my local writer group, I got connected to a community of writers. I joined a critique group (learn more how to do that here). At that time of my life, the bulk of the people I interacted with on a daily basis were Christians. I decided to expand my connections and I joined the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Some years I’ve been more active in this group than others. For over 20 years I served as the chairman of their membership committee. Unlike many groups, you have to apply and meet the member requirement of the ASJA to join it. Also I served a term on their board of directors and often attended their annual conference in New York City.

During one of those trips to New York, I rushed to the airport and when I reached my destination and unpacked, I discovered I had left my clothing in my closet at home. In NYC, I had a series of meetings scheduled with literary agents and editors and planned to wear my suit and be appropriately dressed. I called my wife, Christine, in a panic and she suggested, “You are in the biggest city in the world. Go buy yourself a suit.”

The next morning before my scheduled meetings, I went to Harold’s Square and purchased a suit off the rack. That shop adjusted my pants during the day and I returned later for them but I was appropiately dressed for my meetings.

The ASJA had two group meetings. One was the large well-known public meeting. A second meeting with a smaller group was only for members and held the day before the public meeting. That year, one of our members had written a book with Roselyn Carter and they had invited the Carters to attend our member meeting. As a regular member, I wasn’t invited to sit with the former President but with a colleague, we figured out where the Secret Service would sit and sat at that table.

That year I had written a new book with Joe Leninger, who traded for ten years in the Eurodollar Pit of the Chicago Merchantile. Broadman and Holman published our book, Lessons From the Pit and I had a copy in my briefcase. Also I knew Broadman Press published President Carter’s first book, Why Not the Best? I asked the Secret Service, “When could I give President Carter a copy of my book?”

He said, “I’d do it now because we are going to eat, greet and leave.” With the permission of the Secret Service, I signed my book to President Carter, then walked over to his table. The former President stood, shook my hand and graciously accepted the copy of my book. I have no idea if he opened and read anything in it but I know this book was the only one he carried out of the room that day.

I had this incredible opportunity because I joined the generous ASJA community. Among the members, a common saying is “We train our competition.” It’s true there is no competitive spirit among the members because there is plenty of writing work for all of us.

If you are feeling disconnected and alone as a writer, I encourage you to join the generous community and here’s some specific ideas:  

1. Make a short list of the types of groups that tie to your type of writing.

2. Join those groups online or in person and make plans to attend their gathering. 

3. When you are at the event, make sure you bring your business cards and swap with everyone you meet, then follow-up and expand your connections.

Through the years, I’ve met some incredible authors and writers through our generous community. I encourage you to not feel isolated in your writing but to take action steps to join the community and expand your connections and opportunity. I have no doubt my work and what I write and teach is built on what others have taught to me.

What actions are you going to take in this area to increase your connections to the community? Let me know in the comments below.

Tweetable:

We write in isolation. In this article, this prolific writer and editor encourages you to join the generous community with specific action steps. Get the details here.  (ClickToTweet)

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The Constant Hunt for Excellent Writing

The view from  Lake Washington

Last weekend I was in beautiful Seattle at the Northwest Writers Association Conference. I've been privileged to speak at this conference several times over the years. I always find it invigorating to get away from my computer and phone for a bit to meet face to face with writers and talk about books and publishing.

In today's connected world, we seem to rarely get away from our computer and phone but at least we can grab the face to face time. Several years ago at this conference, I met retired surgeon Lloyd Johnson. In recent years, Lloyd has been writing fiction. We've kept in touch and when I joined Morgan James, I reached out to him to him and discovered he had a great novel called Living Stones. I championed his novel to my colleagues at Koehler Books, the fiction imprint of Morgan James. If you click this link, you can read a sample of the book and see the attractive book cover.

Lloyd's passion is about telling stories about the Middle East and he has taken that passion into his storytelling and novel. Lloyd and I had dinner at beautiful Lake Washington (see my photo) and talked about book publishing. He is excited about the forthcoming publication of his first book and has connections to some great nonprofit organizations in this part of the world. I was encouraging him to include in his launch plans some ideas to sell his books large numbers.

Most writers are thinking of selling books one book at a time. What if you could sell boxes of books with one connection? It can happen with the right mindset and planning. To learn more listen to this free teleseminar. It's an interview that I hosted with Ted Rogers and Vickie Mullins (use this link). Lloyd has an excellent novel and now needs to reach as many people as possible with his new book. If you have a book, I encourage you to spend some time in strategic thinking about how to reach new audiences.

All day Friday, the Seattle conference had a series of group pitching sessions. Each one had five or six or seven writers. Often these conferences have individual meetings so it was different to hear the pitches in a group. I am actively looking for excellent writing. Morgan James publishes nonfiction, fiction and even children's books (a challenging area for any new writer these days).

In this group setting, I focused on one writer at a time and heard their pitch. Yet everyone else in the group also heard the pitch and could learn from what worked or didn't work. It was a different dynamic than one on one pitching but the participants seemed to enjoy the interaction and learning experience. 

Since meeting these new people, I've been writing emails and encouraging these writers to send me their material. Morgan James receives about 5,000 submissions a year and only publishes about 150 books. Yet you can't have your material considered if you don't send it. During the conference, I participated in a panel discussion with all of the faculty (several other editors and literary agents). We agreed that often we encourage writers to submit their material. It was confirmed that many times, we ask for the submission at a conference and the writer never sends it. Talk about a missed opportunity! Yes no one likes to be rejected—but you can't get into the consideration process if you never submit it.

As editors and agents, we are on a constant hunt for excellent writing. Yes we are looking for authors who are connected to the marketplace. Yet good writing is always important. Are you a good communicator? How do you become a good communicator? Practice. Good writing will result in more good writing.

Several weeks ago, I attended an excellent workshop at the American Society of Journalists and Author Conference in New York City called Book Publishing: Making It in the New Frontier. Unfortunately this session was not recorded. The panelists included Jon Fine, the director of Author & Publisher Relations at Amazon.com, Amy Grace Loyd, the executive editor of Byliner, and Jofie Ferrari-Adler, a Senior Editor at Simon and Schuster. Moderator John Rosengren organized this excellent event.

While this workshop had a lot of information about the future of publishing, at one point, each of the experienced panelists talked about the importance of excellent writing. Whether you are writing for Byliner or magazines or books, your storytelling and writing has to be excellent.

How do you learn to be an excellent writer? I believe it comes from constant practice and working in the publishing industry. So many authors want to publish a book so they work for hours and hours on a long 40,000 to 100,000 piece of writing—yet they ignore the magazine market. It is much better to learn to write with shorter articles than to “practice” with a longer work like a book. You are better to start a blog and begin writing short articles or to learn to write query letters to magazines and then write the articles than to work years on a longer book which finds limited readers. Thousands of people will read your magazine work so don't ignore those possibilities.

I continue to write for magazines on a regular basis—and have done so for over 20 years. It's where I can practice my storytelling craft on a regular basis—and you can do the same.

I'm speaking at a number of places in the coming months. I hope to see you on the road and we can talk about your book ideas face to face. I'm on the continual search for excellent writing.

The Holy Grail for Authors

Every business has a pinnacle of success. It is the ultimate mark of achievement. In book publishing, much of this mark of success is tied to winning a particular award or getting your book on a particular bestseller list.

The ultimate bestseller list is to see your book on the New York Times bestseller list.. If you study this particular group of authors, you will notice the same names repeatedly land on this list. 

When an author lands on the New York Times list, the achievement is forever carried with their publishing life. They are introduced as a New York Times bestselling author. In many ways, it is the holy grail of publishing to achieve such a milestone.

I’ve never achieved such a milestone but I know a number of authors who have reached this goal. Last Thursday, I moderated a panel with three members of the American Society of Journalists and Authors who have reached this milestone and become New York Times bestselling authors.

I wrote some these words in another airplane on the way to this event. As the moderator, I pulled together the speakers and organized the session into three parts: the pitch or the proposal, the writing and the promotion and life changes that came from the experience. 

I asked each speaker to pull together some tips and suggestions into a handout. This handout was given electronically to the conference attendees. Also I printed a number of copies that I hauled to the event.

This event is at a "members only session" for the ASJA. In other words, you have to be a member of this organization (about 1400) and have registered for the conference and traveled to New York City for the event (an even smaller number).  Several other workshops were going on at the same time but I had a good number in this session.

Originally I scheduled four speakers and at the last minute one of them got ill and could not attend. Yet her information is in the handout. Here’s the handout for this event. I found this document insightful and hopefully you will as well. It is nine pages of solid information and insight.

I give it to you in hopes it will help your writing life.

Competitor or Colleague. Your Attitude Is Critical

At first, the slogan seemed confusing to me. Within the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the leading nonfiction writers group in the U.S., I would often hear, "We train our competition." Why would someone train their competition?

I've been an active member of the ASJA for many years and I've seen the truth of this statement. Our members freely give information about how they snagged a magazine assignment at a top publication including the name of the editor and the details fo their query letter. We readily help each other to land a hard-to-get literary agent or a top book publisher.

Why? Because instead of seeing the world as competitive, we see the world that needs good writers. Plus underlying the slogan is the understanding there is plenty of work for everyone and the greater need is to help as many people as possible to achieve their dreams. Your attitude about the work is critical. In my view, there is plenty of work for everyone. It's more important to view others as colleagues than competition.

Seven years ago, I wrote Book Proposals That Sell which has 97 Five Star reviews on Amazon and continues to sell as an Ebook and a paperback. I often receive emails from authors who have used the book to get the attention of a literary agent or a book contract. Recently I heard that one of my agent friends, Marilyn Allen and her partner Coleen O'Shea released Book Proposals & Query Letters which is a part of mega-selling series, The Complete Idiot's Guide.

I read the book and wrote a five star Amazon review plus I sent the notice of my review out to my network. Why would I do that? Aren't I undercutting my own book sales and audience if I encourage people toward Book Proposals & Query Letters? Aren't they competitors? Not really. There are millions of people who need book proposal help. I would rather work with people as colleagues than consider them competitors. See the difference in attitude?

Here's what I wrote about Book Proposals & Query Letters:

I’ve been in publishing more than 20 years in many different roles (author, magazine editor, co-author, acquisitions editor, literary agent and publisher). If I’m going to read a how-to book about the creation of book proposals and query letters, I want to make sure I’m learning from someone who has the authority and experience on this topic. Marilyn Allen and Coleen O’Shea are publishing experts and this book is written with honesty and authority. It resonates with the undercurrent, “we know what we’re talking about here.” The pages of this book are packed with wisdom and sound counsel—whether you have just decided to write a book or whether you are writing your 31st book. Every author can learn something from reading –and re-reading this book. It deserves your careful study—then most importantly—taking action on their advice and applying it to your submissions.

Here’s the problem: some publishing experts estimate there are six million proposals and manuscripts in circulation at agents and publishers. You only have seconds to make a good first impression. The authors emphasize this important need in their fourth chapter about The E-Mail Query Letter: “Some publishing professionals estimate that only 1 percent of all queries ever result in representation. Put another way: for every 100 queries an agent reads, only one author has a shot at becoming a client. Yes, that means the odds are against you—but they aren’t impossible. As the adage goes, ‘You gotta be in it to win it.’ Increase your chances of getting into that coveted 1 percent by following a few simple ground rules before you even keystroke the word ‘Dear.’” (Page 43-44)

The authors begin with queries but make a clear preference to writing your proposal before you write your query letter. As they explain in a section called “Agents’ Advice”: “This might sound like a no-brainer, but don’t send out a query letter before you have written your book proposal. The query letter might go to the agent or editor first, but you need to have the proposal ready to be sent out as soon as possible when requested. Keep in mind, too, that the query letter might look easy because it’s a short document, but in fact it can be the hardest piece to write.” (Page 40)

Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, you can improve your queries and book proposals if you take action on the advice in these pages. I read it carefully with a yellow highlighter and found myself nodding and highlighting many sections of this book. THE COMPLETE IDIOT’S GUIDE TO BOOK PROPOSALS & QUERY LETTERS packs a power punch. I highly recommend it.

Ok, that was my review of this terrific resource that I posted on Amazon. In recent weeks, I've invested a great deal of energy to put together the lessons and details of my online course about book proposal creation: Write A Book Proposal. One of my bestselling fiction author friends called it a "bold new effort." I've not seen anything like it in the marketplace which teaches this step-by-step approach to creating an excellent book proposal. From my perspecitve, there is no competition in this area. I see a massive amount of need from people who would like to get published but haven't a clue how to properly approach a literary agent or book editor with their ideas. The critical element is your attitude and how you see the world around you.

Free Seasoned Writer Advice

When it comes to following advice from other writers, I've always looked for the most experienced sources. For example, if I'm attending a writer's conference, I want to take instruction from the most experienced and most published instructor. I will often carefully research their background as I make my choices about which classes to attend.

Not that I can't learn from new writers, from my experience, I've found someone who has written many books has much more depth to their teaching than someone who has only published four or five books.

For many years I've been an active member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. I've written about their conventions and other aspects of the organization. It is an unusual writer's group because to become a member, you have to meet specific qualifications. While the ASJA has a public aspect to their conferences, they have a monthly magazine for members. The internal part of the magazine is for members only but each issue has public pages with insightful articles which ASJA members write for the publication.

I recommend you sign up to receive the public version of the newsletter which is free. For example, the December issue includes an insightful interview from David Kohn with Philip Turner, the editorial director of Union Square Press. Or you can read what Joan Price learned about Book Publicity.

As an ASJA member, I look forward to each issue of the newsletter and normally I often read it the day that I receive it. Now you can read the public portion and grow in your writing with free seasoned writer advice.

A Room Full of Ideas

Years ago Elizabeth Sherrill spoke at a class which I attended and told us, "Writers are swimming in a sea of ideas." It's true there are many ideas around us all the time but which ideas do you execute? Is there some idea which crosses your mind or path which ends up becoming significant in your Writing Life? I've had these ideas become significant in my writing life over and over. It's one of the reasons I continue to attend conferences and meet new people.

Over the last few days, I've been writing about some of my experiences in New York City for the American Society of Journalists and Authors Conference. I hope writing about these experiences will stimulate some of you to come to this conference next year or take advantage of attending at least one conference a year. These experiences build deep value into my own writing and much more than I can capture in these brief entries. Notice whether you went to this conference or not, you can get the recordings from it and gain from the experience.

One of the unusual features of the ASJA conference is a room called The Idea Marketplace. It started a few years ago when some vendors wanted to be able to pitch the hundreds of journalists who attend the conference.

I've found great value in this room full of ideas. Each year it is different (follow this link to see the list from last week). I've learned it's important to enter the room as early as possible and catch the various people while they are fresh and see what they are pitching. For example, this year Consumer Reports was a new exhibitor and brought some of their magazines along with a few flash drives which are marked on the outside, "Consumer Reports.org." This little storage device will remind me of my brief interaction with these people.

Each table had some literature and often some unique reminder of their company. The American Kennel Club had a plastic notched rolodex card with the shape of a dog sticking up. Blumenfeld and Associates were giving away bottles of water from Iceland (I'm serious). Other groups were set up to provide sources for health-related stories or other resources.

You never know what can come from some of these exchanges. I'm glad to have had the experience and hope it encourages you to make the effort to get to such an event.

Back From The Big Apple

Mid-day on Sunday, I returned from five days in New York City. Whenever I travel to New York City, it seems to be a whirlwind of activity. I met with various editors and pitched projects for clients of Whalin Literary Agency. I talked shop with my colleagues in the American Society of Journalists and Authors. I met many new people and exchanged business cards and many other details.

Over the next couple of entries about The Writing Life, I'm going to break out some of those events and write about them here so you can get a hint of what transpired, what I learned from it--and you can learn as well. The majority of people who attended the conference from out of town stayed at the Grand Hyatt which was the conference hotel. It's a terrific place located right next to Grand Central Station yet typical for a New York hotel right in the center of town, not inexpensive.

With the advice from an ASJA colleague, several weeks ago I checked out temporary housing on CraigsList and found a one-bedroom apartment for less than half of the conference hotel rate. It was a terrific arrangement because I could cook my own breakfast and had a bit more space than your typical New York hotel room. It would have helped me to have one extra detail from my colleague: to look for buildings with an elevator. This one bedroom apartment was on the fifth floor with no elevator. It took quite a bit of personal heavy lifting to get my belongings up to that fifth floor with a narrow staircase on each floor. Then yesterday heading home, it involved some careful walking again with my suitcases to get down from the apartment. Because I was on the upper west side and at least 50 city blocks from the hotel, I rode the New York subway each direction.

Just to give you an idea about my diversity of transportation, I took my last subway ride to the apartment late Saturday night, packed up and checked out about 5:30 a.m. I flagged down a taxi who took me to the New York Port Authority. I rode a bus from the Newark Airport when I arrived to the Port Authority and now I was making this trip in reverse. The bus runs about every 15 minutes from Manhattan to the airport. I reached the airport and checked my luggage and purchased a bit of breakfast. My 4.5 hour flight from Newark to Phoenix was uneventful. I waited in the Phoenix airport baggage claim area until the last bag came off--and none of them included my bags. So...I went to the airline to report my missing bags. To my relief the airline worker found my two bags. Apparently I checked in so early in Newark, they put my bags on a previous flight. I took the airport shuttle to the economy parking, found my car and drove home. It made for a long day of travel.

Saturday I was a panelist at a workshop about blogging. Here's what the program said about our session and the various panelists:

(G) Successful (Money-Making!) Blogging

If you're thinking of creating a blog or looking to improve your current template, this is a must-attend session. Panelists will show how to achieve professional results when it comes to generating buzz, cultivating an audience, and writing the kind of content that gets you noticed by editors. Bonus: the latest tech details.

Moderator: T.C. Cameron, ASJA, blogs via TheWriteReferee.com. He has written for The Ann Arbor News, The Detroit News, The Lakeland Ledger, Great Lakes Golf Magazine, Referee Magazine, others. T.C. Cameron has recently authored his first title, Metro Detroit's High School Football Rivalries, offered by Arcadia Publishing. Cameron recalls the best games from prep football's golden age in the Motor City. Release due August, 2008. Cameron also blogs three times a week for The Oakland Press, which syndicates Cameron's TheWriteReferee to a 27-paper network of statewide dailies throughout Michigan.

Bruce E. Mowday, President of The Mowday Group, Inc., spent more than 20 years in journalism, winning a number of writing awards for investigative journalism, before founding his own company in 1997. Mowday's complete endeavors are found at Mowday.com. Bruce is a contributing editor for a business magazine and freelances stories for newspapers, historical organization newsletters and other publications. He has also hosted his own weekly radio show on two stations. Mowday is the author of eight published books, including The Selling of an Author, a marketing guide for authors.

Jerame Rief, owner of DataOne Solutions, Inc., a technology consulting firm specializing in building web-based solutions as they relate to the needs of writers, entrepreneurs and building business platforms.

Patrick Stiegman, is vice president and executive editor/producer for ESPN.com. Stiegman, who joined the award-winning site in April 2004, oversees ESPN.com's day-to-day public and premium sports content, including news, commentary, analysis, enterprise and community. His role includes collaborative strategic planning and content development across ESPN Digital Media. He has editorial oversight of the award-winning premium service, ESPN Insider, with additional strategic responsibilities for numerous business objectives. He was named vice president in November 2006 and added the title of executive producer in June 2007. Before joining ESPN, Stiegman spent five years as vice president/editor of Journal Interactive, the award-winning Internet division of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where he was responsible for editorial, business and strategic development of Journal Communication's new media initiatives.

W. Terry Whalin, ASJA board member, writer and literary agent, is an active blogger who is always updating his expertise on retaining an audience. He is the author of numerous books."

Moderator T.C. Cameron included some information about the panel on his blog along with some powerpoints from it at this link. Here's my handout that I created for this session. Notice my first link on this page. It's for a free Ebook about blogging. I hope it will be a useful resource for you as well. Our session about blogging was packed with hardly an empty seat in the room.

Over the next few days, I plan to tell you about some of my meetings at publishing houses across New York City, some of the free ideas that I found in the ASJA conference Idea Marketplace plus a bit of extra entertainment that I took in while there. As a hint, I will tell you that New York is one of the few place in the world to experience such clean family entertainment. I promise to tie each detail to the world of writing and publishing.

Finally, not that anyone is keeping track, this entry marks my 800th post about The Writing Life. Make sure you use the wealth of information here and the search tool in the right-hand column of the site.