Promotional Item #2

I also ordered 250 business cards from Vista Print that we can use to give to people interested in our book.

I will disburse some too you all at our next meeting. Anyone who can't attend an upcoming meeting, let me know and I'll mail some business cards to you.

As you can see at the bottom of the card, I also created an email address that I will monitor in case some interested people have any questions for us or in the event that some media types request that we appear on a late-night talk show. ;-)

Promotional Item #1

I designed and ordered 50 rack cards from Vista Print to place with our book wherever we plan to sell it and also as an informational device to leave with a library, at a writers convention, or just to leave on display at MCC or at any other educational forum.

If you think you'd like a few copies to help promote our book, let me know and I'll bring some to our next meeting.

If you can think of any other content that would help explain who we are or if you believe that there should be additional detail contained in the rack card, just let me know and I can modify it for the next time I order some.

Let me know what you think.

Another Writer in Our Midst

Bob provided the attached notice for a book signing by his wife, Patty. She wrote the book Behind the Smile. The signing will be on Saturday, January 7th from 1-3 PM at Bank Square Books in Mystic.

Biography (from Amazon.com)

Writing Behind The Smile was a final tribute to my son whom I lost to the disease of addiction. I never thought I'd be writing a book like this. However, it has been a catharsis for my grief.

Born in Boston, Ma. on April 16, 1950, I am a mother of 3 and a grandmother of 3. I spent most of my adult life teaching music both in schools and giving private piano lessons. I have been involved with many vocal groups and served as cantor for my church.

Now retired, I began writing by keeping journals following the death of my son. Having published one book, I am in the process of writing another, dealing with grieving the loss of a loved one.

This biography was provided by the author or their representative.

2012 Meeting Schedule

The 2012 meeting schedule is posted on our blog. I set Saturdays as our meeting dates with emailed stories due one week prior. All you have to know regarding the schedule is that emailed stories are due no later than the first and third Saturdays of every month and our meetings at the Lowe Building at MCC just outside the Culinary Arts Center will be at 10 AM the second and fourth Saturdays of every month.

Let's try to make these meetings if at all possible. One of our goals is to establish an incentive to write and attending the meetings should provide the drive necessary for us to write. If we have stories to critique and stories that we're looking for feedback then this will work. Another goal is to publish a second anthology in either 2012 or early 2013.

As you know the books arrived and I issued a schedule of where I will be for you to pick up your copies. I will be there at those days and times unless no one contacts me for one or more of those specific times. So don't plan on my being there unless you contact me to let me know that you will be picking up your books. You can always wait until a Saturday meeting to pick up your books. Just let me know what you'd like to do.

This Wednesday's Meeting is Canceled

This Wednesday's meeting is canceled because there are no submissions to critique. Please work on your stories so that we will have something to discuss at our next meeting in January.

It was suggested that we move all our meetings to Saturday mornings. How does everyone feel about that? Will that help more of us attend the meetings or were Wednesday afternoons important to some of you?

Having attended our first Saturday meeting I can tell you that the parking lot was nearly empty, the area outside the Culinary Arts Center was completely empty, and a noon wrap-up still allows us to have the rest of the day to ourselves. This contrasts to a Wednesday afternoon meeting where there was much pedestrian traffic and noise to contend with.

I'll draw up the 2012 schedule when we find out what the majority wishes regarding the meeting days.

Tales From Half Moon Room

We are Jordon's Twelve and have published an anthology titled Tales from Half Moon Room. In this book, you will find stories about growing up, romance, relationships, travel, adventure, fantasy, comedy, tragedy, and drama. In short, everything that makes up our human experience.

These are stories written from the heart in ways that demonstrate how we as individuals interact with one another in all the many inspiring, heartbreaking, and fascinating ways that people do and how we mature because of our experiences.

(click on the title of this post to purchase a copy of Tales from Half Moon Room)

Book Meeting Update

There were six of us at the 10 AM-noon meeting this past Saturday outside the Culinary Arts Center and it was readily apparent that we should squeeze in a Saturday morning group meeting to discuss story feedback. There were hardly any college students on campus and no one in the open area where we met. This would be a great opportunity to meet on a morning when most, if not all, of us are not working and then still have the rest of the day to ourselves.

At the meeting on December 14th, I'd like to draft the 2012 schedule. Here is my plan:

• 1st Wednesday of the month - story submissions via email
• 2nd Wednesday of the month - 3 PM feedback meeting @ MCC (Culinary Arts Center)
  
• 3rd Saturday of the month - story submissions via email
• 4th Saturday of the month - 10 AM feedback meeting @ MCC (Culinary Arts Center)
  

This will allow everyone to know exactly when the deadlines and meetings are. I also believe this schedule will allow most of us to attend at least one meeting per month. If we conflict with holidays we can address that when the time comes.

Regarding the group book. It was poured over on Saturday and everyone in attendance agreed that it looks good. I contacted Angela at BookLocker and told her that we are satisfied with the book and ready to move on to the next step. I am waiting to hear back from her.

I am a member of the Connecticut Authors & Publishers Association and plan to attend their CAPA-U writing conference this coming May in Hartford and also volunteer to man their booth at the Connecticut Building at the Big E in the fall. I would like to bring copies of our book to these events for sale to the public. If we're successful, I'll distribute the profits among the group.

It would be nice if we could publish a companion book in 2012. We could title it, "More Tales From Half Moon Room". So either dust off some old stories that you have or work on some new ideas and we can review them during our 2012 meetings.

December schedule

After hearing of your concerns regarding the December schedule I thought it best to cancel both meetings. The meeting on the 5th seems too close to the Thanksgiving holiday for some of you to have your stories submitted and then have edits and comments ready plus the meeting on the 21st is too close to Christmas & New Years.

I'd instead like to go with Wednesday, December 7th as the date to copy everyone with our stories via email and Wednesday, December 14th as the day we'll meet in the Lowe Building outside the Culinary Arts Center at 3 PM. This gives us more than a full week to get our stories in by the email deadline and the meeting on the 14th is more than a full week before Christmas. I believe this is an effective compromise.

Please do your best to comply with both deadlines. Only three members have provided stories thus far. I'd also like to set our 2012 monthly schedule at this meeting. I have not yet received the galley print from BookLocker so I sent an email to our contact to learn when that might happen and when we could order copies of the actual book.

Today was the due date for stories

Today was the due date for stories but because of the extensive power outages due to the recent storm I think it would be better if we just brought hard copies of our stories to the meeting on Wednesday, November 16th. The meeting is to be held on the 2nd floor of the Lowe Building just outside the Culinary Arts Center.

Please let me know how many plan to attend the meeting on the 16th so that everyone will know how many copies of their stories they should bring.

Angela submitted the book to the printer and said that the proof will soon be on its way. If I receive the proof before the 16th we can review that at the meeting as well.

November 7th meeting cancelled

The November 7th meeting is canceled due to the east coast snowstorm and its aftermath.

We still anticipate following the next two deadlines:

Wednesday, November 9th - email stories

Wednesday, November 16th - meeting @ Lowe Bldg outside the Culinary Arts Center

October 19th meeting

I'm going to end my practice of not revealing our meeting locations on this blog. Although I will not come right out and describe the state, town, address, or our individual member names, I will mention building names and rooms.

We met at MCC on the 19th and found that it's not conducive to meeting at the library. Rooms are available but must be reserved within a 2-week window and it seems like they can only be reserved for one hour. We then met in the lounge area near the Tower Cafe but found ourselves competing with traffic and noise. The plan is to gather in the Lowe Building on the second floor near the Culinary Arts Center. If you can, bring your cell phones with you and make note of my cell phone number (provided in the group roster spreadsheet) so that we can communicate if needed.

Please review the meeting schedule posted on this blog.

NY Times Article

Click on the above title to this post to read an article that appeared in today's New York Times regarding the publishing business as it relates to traditional publishing, self-publishing, and publishing with Amazon.com. This article is a must read for anyone who is published or plans to publish their work.

Deadline for stories

Tomorrow is the deadline to have our stories submitted. We meet at the college next Wednesday (October 19th) at 3 PM in the library. If you have a story available please submit it to the group as soon as possible.

I'll be leaving Montana tomorrow and I don't have a story ready. I apologize. However, I will email one by the end of this weekend.

Hope to see you all on the 19th.

32 days until our stories are due

Today is September 10th and that leaves us with just 32 days before our stories are due for submission. Please email stories to the rest of the group no later than October 12th at which point we are to then print and edit the copies. We will meet at the college's library on October 19th at 3 PM to provide a critique of the submissions. I will provide additional information once we see how many submissions and who has provided them.

Stories due October 12th

Just a reminder that as of tomorrow we only have seven weeks remaining in which to compose and share our stories with our fellow members of Jordon's Twelve. Stories are due on October 12th via email and we will meet on October 19th at 3 PM at MCC and we should be prepared to critique each others work.

August 17th Meeting Minutes

At yesterday's meeting we decided on "Jordon's Twelve" as our writing group's name. In addition, I submitted a few suggestions to Angela at BookLocker for our book title and she liked "Tales from Room D229" best. If we can all agree to go with this title then I think the book will go to publishing as soon as I send Angela the manuscript corrections that some of you provided and a descriptive blurb of what Room D229 means to us in the front of the book. I believe that I can get these items completed by next week at the latest. If in reviewing the manuscript that I emailed to all of you a few weeks ago, if anyone else has found something that needs to be changed please send me your comments by the beginning of next week so that I can stay on schedule with BookLocker.

The September 21st and October 3rd meetings have been canceled. However, we made a decision to go forward with our writing efforts as a group since the longer we procrastinate the more we will find other things to do besides writing. Our goal is to submit a story to the group by email no later than October 12th and then be prepared to offer in-person comments and critique at the October 19th meeting.

We also decided on a new venue. The Deli just won't work for creative writing workshops similar to the ones we had in Jordon's class. The suggestion is to investigate MCC as a viable alternative. I will contact the school and see if they will extend a courtesy and allow us to met in a private room on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. If they decline our request we can always meet at MCC in the library or outside the cafeteria. We may even find an unoccupied classroom that we can duck into from time to time.

Please check out the blog. I converted the site from the Night Writers blog to this new blog titled "Jordon's Twelve" and in the process I gave it a whole new makeover that I feel better describes our group. Here is the new link: http://jordonstwelve.blogspot.com/

That's all for now. I will keep the group updated on news regarding MCC and our writing workshops. We have five weeks in which to write a story or polish off a new one and have it available for submission by email to the group. Five weeks will go by fast so don't wait until the end of September to begin writing. Let's try and get it started at least by Labor Day.

Meeting at the Deli

Another reminder that we have a meeting at the Deli tomorrow at 3 PM. On discussion will be the naming of our group book as well as a suitable copyright name for our group.

August 1st Meeting Cancelled

The meeting scheduled for August 1st is cancelled. We met at the tavern on Sunday and reviewed a draft copy of our short story book, Night Writers. Let's plan on still having a meeting at the deli on Wednesday, August 17th.

Meetings

Based upon the meeting schedule that appears on our blog, we have a meeting coming up on Wednesday, July 20th at the deli. If some of you can make this meeting we can discuss the progress on the group book. We are currently waiting for one additional story and then we can send the book to the publisher.

We can also use this meeting to focus on and begin the discussion of how we plan to proceed with our writing group beyond the singular group book project.

Also we need to discuss which of the following dates is better for getting together for a twice delayed noon-time brunch at the tavern. We are looking at either Sunday, July 24th or Sunday, July 31st.

Let me know if you can make the meeting on the 20th and which date for the brunch is good for you, the 24th or the 31st.

Sunday Brunch

Sunday, June 26th is our scheduled brunch with our very special guest of honor.

Please update me and inform me no later than this Friday, June 24th if you will be attending. I need to provide the tavern with a head count by Saturday. I apologize if you have already told me that you will be attending but I would like an update from everyone, please.

The location is the same as our previous engagement and the gathering time is noon.

Hope to see all of you there.

JUNE 15th MEETING

We have a very important upcoming meeting on June 15th, 3 PM at the deli. We will discuss the setup for the group book. One member has provided a structured outline for the setup and we can use that as a template. I will bring one copy of everything to the meeting for review. I will issue an agenda by the end of this week. Hope to see as many of you as possible on the 15th.

Night Writers Blog

I plan to email blog update notifications at the beginning of each month to announce our upcoming monthly meetings and events. I will also send an email a few days before each meeting or event. These will be the only instances that I will issue an email to the group regarding information posted on the blog.

Please make it a habit to check out the blog at least once per week. In addition to a monthly email update on our planned activities I am also posting articles a few times per week to the blog that may be of interest to all writers.

Upcoming June Events

Thursday, June 2nd - deadline for short stories.

Wednesday, June 15th - Night Writers group meeting at the deli.

Friday, June 24th - deadline for brunch reservations.

Sunday, June 26th - brunch at the tavern.

5 Free E-Books Every Writer Needs

This article is relevant to all authors

Appeared on HealthNewsDigest.com on 5/18/2011

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - The publishing world gathers next week in Manhattan at BookExpo America, its annual trade show, but the one subject attendees won’t be discussing is the coming collapse of publishing and the inevitable disappearance of books.

It’s not just that books are going to Kindles and iPads. It’s that books are going away, and the publishers have no one but themselves to blame.

The traditional New York publishing business model—publish a ton of books, fail to market most of them, and hope that somebody buys something—worked well when publishers had a hammerlock on the distribution and marketing of books. Publishers essentially faced no competition and enjoyed complete control of what books people could publish and sell.

In today’s world, however, anyone from John Grisham to John Doe can put up a book online with Smashwords, Lulu, or Kindle Direct, and bypass publishers—and bookstores—all together. Authors can use Google AdWords or social networking strategies to market their books far more effectively than publishers ever could. So who needs New York?

Yes, Kindle and iPad are game-changers. When you read books on a device, a few things change. You’re moving into an environment where you typically don’t pay for content—almost everything online is free. So publishers won’t be able to charge $10 or $12 for an entire book when people only want a chapter’s worth of information. So much for ebooks as a revenue stream for the publishing houses.

Publishers can also blame Amazon for the collapse of their industry. When you went into a bookstore, you typically browsed and bought a handful of books, each from a different department. Amazon killed browsing. You go on, you find the book you wanted, you pay, and you leave. So instead of buying five books, you buy just one.

But the real reason why books are going to vanish is the remarkably un-businesslike business model of the publishers. Think of General Motors—decades of inefficiency, but without the federal bailouts.

In no other industry do producers actually wait passively to see what products are suggested to them, instead of doing market research to see what people really want to buy. Yet publishers seldom generate book ideas; instead they wait for literary agents to submit proposals. Houses decide which book to publish based on little more than a gut feeling that says, “I think we can make money selling this!”

Yet the books that publishers choose are almost entirely of zero interest to actual bookbuyers. After 9/11, there were a ton of books about 9/11, which nobody bought. Same thing with the Iraq War, the rise of Obama, the economic meltdown, and even, inexplicably, the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Or the books are rehashed business lessons, religious truths, sports clichés, motivational babble, exercise fads, weight loss techniques, or pandering to the political left or the right. Who wants these books? Almost no one.

Most of the major publishers today are owned by international conglomerates who, at some point, will awaken to the realization that English majors in their employ are spending millions of dollars on books that no one wants to read.

As a result, few trade books earn real money for the publisher (and certainly not for the author!). That’s because the publisher bears the entire risk of buying, editing, printing, and shipping copies of the book to bookstores all over the country on a 100% returnable basis. If your local Barnes & Noble doesn’t sell a particular book, it goes right back to the publisher, at the publisher’s shipping cost, for a full refund. Especially in the Internet era, you can’t make money putting books on trucks and hoping someone buys them.

At BEA next week, the attendees will solemnly discuss the latest trends, discuss how to get 70-year-old authors to use Twitter, and generally party like it’s 1989. But for traditional publishing, the party’s over. They just don’t want to realize that it’s time to turn out the lights.

About: Michael Levin is an eight-time best-selling author, a former member of the Authors Guild Council, and a prolific and highly admired business writer (www.BusinessGhost.com). He has written with Baseball Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, football broadcasting legend Pat Summerall, FBI undercover agent Joaquin Garcia, and E-Myth creator Michael Gerber. He has written for the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, CBS News, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, and many other top outlets.

How to Break the Rules and Get Published

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REMINDER

Our brunch scheduled for tomorrow (May 22nd) has been canceled.

It has been rescheduled for June 26th at noon at the same location where we had our brunch last September. Please let me know no later than Friday, June 24th whether you will attend so that I may contact the restaurant with a head count the day prior to our brunch.

Reminder

We have a brunch scheduled for next Sunday (May 22nd) at noon at the same location where we had our brunch last September. If you had a change of plans and cannot make it please let me know no later than this Friday (5/20) so that I may contact the restaurant the day prior to our brunch.

Daily Writing Tips - Archives for the 'Fiction Writing' Category

How to Create a Free Author Website on WordPress

Night Writers

Welcome to the Night Writers blog. Today, May 11, 2011 is the first day for our blog, the first day of many more daily blog entries.

Included in future blog entries you will find helpful tips for writers, links to such resources as upcoming writers conferences, writers organizations, the US Copyright Office, agents, authors, etc.

Stay focused and keep on writing!

3 Ways to Know When to End Your Chapters