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DURHAM—Phillip Loken, the Associate Digital Marketing Manager, and Ellen C. Bush, the Associate Digital Marketing Manager at UNC Press, will lead the session "Nerd Cool 101: Making Your Book Shine Online" at the North Carolina Writers' Network 2021 Fall Conference, November 19-21, at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Durham/RTP.
Conference registration is open.
Phillip Loken (he/him) is the Associate Digital Marketing Manager at UNC Press with 5+ years of digital marketing experience from working with Noirbnb, Lumina Clothing, Urbane Luggage, and Infinite Magazine. Phill is also a Raleigh, NC-based multimedia fine artist offering a unique approach to the documentation of Black southern culture, encompassing some of what you’re familiar with and some of what you’re not.
This year, NCWN is asking authors for "one good piece of advice," either something they were once told that they never forgot, or something they wished they could go back and tell their younger selves.
"Don’t undervalue the power of self-promotion," Phillip says. "Getting reviews, coverage, and features from various publications related to your book can justifiably be a task for whoever is publishing your book, but you more than likely already have some type of community of supporters around you that you may not have taken full advantage of. Social media is a great place to start, but creating a website for yourself as an author and including information about your book is a great asset as well."
In this crash course on how to effectively promote your work online, "Nerd Cool 101: Making Your Book Shine Online," we’ll outline the basic principles of metadata, online discoverability, and search engine optimization (SEO); offer tips for engaging with online platforms and social media; and examine a case study of a successful online marketing campaign. An in-class exercise will get you started planning your own campaign, and we’ll answer all your burning questions about promoting your work online. Whether you have a book to promote or just want to establish a more visible platform for your work, this session will help you create an online presence that amplifies your own authentic voice and helps you build new creative connections and relationships.
"Nerd Cool 101: Making Your Book Shine Online" is sponsored by UNC Press.
Fall Conference attracts hundreds of writers from around the country and provides a weekend full of activities that include lunch and dinner banquets with readings, keynotes, tracks in several genres, open mic sessions, and the opportunity for one-on-one manuscript critiques with editors or agents. North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green will give the Keynote Address. Additional business of books sessions include "How to Get Paid Without Anyone Getting Hurt" with Alice Osborn; "For Love and Money: Business Professionalism for Writers" with Karin Wiberg; and "Pathways to Publishing: Know ALL Your Options" with Tracy Crow.
Register here.
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to all writers, in all genres, at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.
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RALEIGH—At the North Carolina Writers' Network 2021 Fall Conference, November 19-21, at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Durham/RTP, Karen Tucker will lead the session "Conjuring Magic in Fiction."
Conference registration is open.
Karen Tucker is the author of the novel Bewilderness (2021). Her short fiction can be found in The Missouri Review, The Yale Review, Tin House, Boulevard, Epoch, and elsewhere. Born and raised in North Carolina, she earned her Ph.D in English and Creative Writing from Florida State University, and currently teaches fiction writing at UNC-Chapel Hill.
This year, NCWN is asking authors for "one good piece of advice," either something they were once told that they never forgot, or something they wished they could go back and tell their younger selves.
"The expression 'write what you know' is one of those enduring bits of wisdom that probably every writer has encountered at some point in their literary travels, and it persists for a reason: it works," Karen says. "For me though, a more useful and certainly more compelling approach is to write not what I already know, but what I want to figure out. James Baldwin put it best when he said, 'The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.' Write what you know, sure––but also write toward what you dare to discover. How can we hope to surprise readers with our stories if we have not surprised ourselves along the way?"
In her essay "The Site of Memory," Toni Morrison says, "If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning, it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic." Together in the class "Conjuring Magic in Fiction," we'll explore multiple passages and passageways to help us find the hidden magic lurking in even the most mundane of objects and characters. Craft topics include transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, vanishing acts, the reverse trick of rendering the invisible visible, and other illusions. Participants can expect published examples to read and discuss, guided free-writes, and props from a magic bag.
Fall Conference attracts hundreds of writers from around the country and provides a weekend full of activities that include lunch and dinner banquets with readings, keynotes, tracks in several genres, open mic sessions, and the opportunity for one-on-one manuscript critiques with editors or agents. North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green will give the Keynote Address. Other fictiom sessions include "How to Give Your Characters Voice" with Barbara Claypole White and the multigenre classes "Getting Back into the Writing Groove" with Heather Bell Adams (sponsored by Freedom.to) and "Adaptation" with Daniel Wallace.
Register here.
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to all writers, in all genres, at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.
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RALEIGH—At the North Carolina Writers' Network 2021 Fall Conference, November 19-21, at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Durham/RTP, Alice Osborn—author, editor, book coach, and secretary for the NC Writers' Network Board of Trustees—will lead the business of books session "How to Get Paid Without Anyone Getting Hurt."
Conference registration is open.
Alice Osborn’s past educational and work experience is unusually varied, and it now feeds her work as an author, book editor, and musician. In the past 15 years, Alice has coached and edited writers at all levels and genres both locally and around the world. Searching for Paradise is her most-recent CD featuring crowd-pleasing originals about history, heroes, and hope, and Heroes without Capes is her most recent collection of poetry. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her previous poetry collections are After the Steaming Stops and Unfinished Projects. Alice is the recipient of a United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County 2019 Professional Development Grant; she is the President of the NC Songwriters’ Co-op; and has served for eight years on the NC Writers’ Network’s Board of Trustees. She’s currently working on a novel and CD about the ill-fated Donner Party of 1846-1847. When she’s not writing or performing, Alice teaches guitar, fiddle, and banjo. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband, two children, and four birds all named after musicians. Visit Alice's website at www.aliceosborn.com and check out her music at www.reverbnation.com/aliceosborn.
This year, NCWN is asking authors for "one good piece of advice," either something they were once told that they never forgot, or something they wished they could go back and tell their younger selves. Here's what Alice has to say about the power of saying "no":
"When my writing career was first taking off, I should have said 'no' more often so I would have had more time to write. Sometimes we use busyness and volunteer activities as a way for others to see how busy we are or as a way to procrastinate from performing the real creative work or deep thinking. Guilty as charged! Over a decade ago, I organized an open mic, a book club, a women’s networking group, and a writers’ morning out. Because it was the Great Recession and I was a new writing and editing professional, I felt I needed to volunteer and spend time working on unpaid projects, but what that led to a lot of sleep deprivation, stress, and rushing out client projects. I was busy, but I wasn’t productive.
"My now 8th-grade daughter was a toddler, and I was constantly shuttling her from part-time daycare to part-time preschool, using day hours for meetings and my night hours for writing and client projects. Weekends? I worked late into the night on Friday and Saturday, as well as during the day when I didn’t have family duties. Fortunately, I stopped this cycle of workaholism and madness when my work quality suffered and several of my clients weren’t shy in telling me about my sloppy work. After I wiped the tears, I had a good look at myself and made changes. Yes, I disappointed people because I wasn’t organizing events they had once enjoyed, but I had to stop disappointing clients.
"Today I only take on editing projects that I know I will love and refer other projects to my steadfast referral partner who’s more than happy to have new clients. I also weigh every single opportunity: am I doing it out of love or out of fear? Love equals looking forward to the event or project. Fear equals being afraid I won’t get additional opportunities or income if I say 'no.' It works every time!"
We writers are introverts and it’s sometimes tough asking clients to pay us what we are worth. But, my friends, you ARE worth it and the writing and communication skills you bring to the world are invaluable. In "How to Get Paid Without Anyone Getting Hurt," you’ll learn how to arrive at the money conversation with ease by building that muscle, just like we go to the gym to keep fit. No more undercharging! We will discuss payment systems and how contracts can help prevent job creep with the necessary boundaries so that you are paid more if you do more work; we’ll also cover how to make sure your procrastinating client pays you without resorting to unsavory tactics. Writing can be emotional, but negotiating a proper fee should never be. Alice Osborn’s writing and editing business of 15 years has survived a recession, a pandemic, and a few toxic clients—come to this workshop with your questions and come away from it feeling empowered.
Fall Conference attracts hundreds of writers from around the country and provides a weekend full of activities that include lunch and dinner banquets with readings, keynotes, tracks in several genres, open mic sessions, and the opportunity for one-on-one manuscript critiques with editors or agents. North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green will give the Keynote Address. Other sessions that address the business side of writing include "For Love and Money: Business Professionalism for Writers" with Karin Wiberg; "Nerd Cool 101: Making Your Book Shine Online" with Ellen C. Bush and Phillip Loken of UNC Press; and "Pathways to Publishing: Know ALL Your Options" with Tracy Crow of Tracy Crow Literary Agency.
Register here.
The nonprofit North Carolina Writers’ Network is the state’s oldest and largest literary arts services organization devoted to all writers, in all genres, at all stages of development. For additional information, visit www.ncwriters.org.