AuthorHouse Blog

We kicked off our 2007 writers’ conference schedule in sunny (and a little chilly) San Diego at the San Diego State Writers Conference. Scott Walters, one of our esteemed author advocates from AuthorHouse, joined me yesterday manning our exhibitor table in the registration area of a very active and energetic conference.

I presented my “Internet 101″ workshop at 10:30 am and a book marketing workshop at 3:00 pm entitled “Leveraging the Internet to Market Your Book”. I have to say that the 3:00 workshop was definately the place to be with a full room of aspiring and accomplished authors all clamouring to learn more about Internet marketing. If business card swapping is any indicator of success, my 1″ stack of cards ranks this one as a “10″.

After the hustle and bustle of fielding questions from attendees at our table all day, we unwinded at the 5:00 pm wine and cheese reception and got ready for our big announcement. As we have done at past SDSU conferences, we hosted a drawing giving one lucky writer a publishing contract worth $698.

But last night was different.

We collected tickets from anxious attendees, but we also had a surprise for everyone up our sleeves. As Diane Dunaway introduced me, I walked to the podium and made the big announcement:

I explained to the audience that AuthorHouse wants to inspire all writers in their journeys to become published, and to help, we are launching the Authors Across America initiative for 2007. From San Diego to Cape Cod, from San Francisco to Ft. Lauderdale, AuthorHosue is visiting writers conferences coast to coast sharing stories of authors in their quest to become published. It was appropriate to launch in southern California given the density of published authors and aspiring writers in this area.

After the annoucement, Diane pulled Vivian Smith’s name from the fishbowl. She’s a young, aspiring author from the San Diego area that grew up in Miami and has always had a love of writing. She told me “I started writing poetry, but when I moved to San Diego I found that I would have a vivid dream in the middle of the night and I would wake up and start writing about it.”

Most ironically, this was Vivian’s first writers conference, and she admits that she is “just getting started” and this publishing contract will really inspire her to finish that first book. We’ll stay in touch with Vivian and see how she comes along in her publishing journey. In the meantime, share your stories on the new AuthorsAcrossAmerica.com web site.

Watch the “I Write Because…” video from various aspiring and published authors from this great conference:

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated everyone on how the atFishers.com experiment is going. Truth be told, it is not going as well as I thought; however, things are beginning to look up this month. We started the website in July 2006 and launched the print publication in August. Frankly, we should have waited until November or early 2007 to start printing newsletters…we needed more time to give the website traction. Sales have been essentially flat since we started. Each month we publish 16-20 page newsletters, editorial is not as targeted since we are so slim, and advertisers are mostly coming from the atGeist.com newsletter (surprise here).

Over the holidays, I lost my associate publishers (both atGeist and atFishers) within 24 hours of each other. The job description was too broad, goals and expectations weren’t clear on either side, sales were flat, and the experiment looked as though it was over.

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve made an effort to get out and start networking again…just like the old days of atGeist. Chamber meetings, a new Fishers Networking Group, open houses, and just resigning renewals with old customers in person have given me new insights on how the local portal/newsletter business should be done. I’m also finding out that the 800 lb. gorilla (Gannett) isn’t making much progress in their latest efforts (plural). Advertisers that I talk to that are advertising with their new Fishers Star publication for the most part aren’t getting any response, and in most cases, are buying them at a discount. They are spread too thin with their resources while I’ve decided to focus even more and shore up what I have even more.

The online store for atGeist.com launched in late November, again, not many fireworks at first. The concept is local e-commerce from a trusted brand that is available to local merchants. It’s a little ahead of it’s time, but give me a few years. A week or so ago I seen a need for local charities, schools, and fundraising activities to sell tickets online for them. We’re trying that now for a local church that is hosting a “Fat Tuesday” dinner. I’ll let you know how that goes.

My big update is the debut of a new writers’ community website on my townepost platform: WriteStuffWriters.com. It’s not local, but it is a community. It is complete with an online store for registration, “writer posts” (instead of towne posts), and a “writer directory” (instead of towne directory). Check it out, I think the platform is solid and the cross pollination of traffic will help all the townepost sites.

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