Social Networking Class for Writers

photo courtesy of Margo L. Dill
logos courtesy of WOW!











My friend Margo L. Dill is teaching a 4-week course on social networking for authors. Learn how Twitter, Facebook and other techno stuff can help you expand your social network. Margo will show you how to spend a few minutes a day using these tools and others to get great results.

Margo is an excellent teacher, writer, conference planner and all around great person. She is also the social media manager for WOW! Women on Writing.

SOCIAL NETWORKING FOR AUTHORS: TWITTER, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN AND MORE! by Margo L. Dill

START DATE: Monday, February 22, 2010

DURATION: 4 weeks

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This class will teach writers how to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking sites such as Shelfari or Jacket Flap (students’ choice) to network; to build a following of fans; to start working on a brand/image; and to promote books, articles, magazines, and blogs. Instead of using Facebook and Twitter to write about your fabulous dinner or disastrous day at the grocery store, you will learn to sell yourself and your writing!

WEEKS AT A GLANCE:

Week One: Facebook: We will discuss how to use Facebook to promote yourself and your writing. We will talk about posting links to your work, using status updates to promote writing, joining Facebook groups for writers, and even starting a Fan page for yourself or your work.

Assignment: Create a Facebook profile if you haven’t yet, complete your Facebook profile, make it scream writer!, join at least one writing group and become active!, and start promoting your writing with your Facebook page.

Week Two: Twitter: My favorite marketing tool ever is Twitter. Twitter can be used in so many ways as a writer—to promote your work, to follow writers and editors who provide useful information, to find other writers for support, and to discuss writing. You will learn how to do all of this and more on Twitter. You will be introduced to two Twitter tools—Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, and you will register yourself with Twellow.

Assignment: Create a Twitter profile if you haven’t yet. Make your Twitter profile scream writer! Start tweeting. Participate in a writers’ chat. Register with Twellow. Try out Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.

Week Three: LinkedIn: This week, we will talk about how to use LinkedIn as a writer. LinkedIn seems harder for people to figure out and use to market yourself, but there are ways through your status updates, by checking out your contacts’ contacts, by recommending others and having them recommend you, and by participating in LinkedIn groups.

Assignments: Create a LinkedIn profile and/or complete yours. Make it scream writer! Join a few LinkedIn groups. Find more contacts. Check out your contacts’ contacts and link to them.

Week Four: More Social Networking and Evaluation: The content in this week’s class will depend on the participants in the class. The instructor will do a survey to find out what people are most interested in learning about and trying out with guidance: Shelfari? JacketFlap? Digg? Students will also fill out a class evaluation.

Assignments: Try out one or two of the social networks that classmates are most interested in. Fill out the class evaluation.

COST: $100, which will include four weeks of instruction on how to use social networking as an author and one critique for each student of a social networking profile page—student’s choice.

To sign up: http://wow-womenonwriting.com/WOWclasses.html#MargoDill_SocialNetworking (scroll to the bottom of the class listing)

Writer U.--Online Writing Workshop

photo courtesy of sgrace

April 3-30, 2009

"In & Out: Writing Believable Conflict"

by Sherry Lewis

http://www.writeruniv.com/



This workshop focuses on the art and craft of creating realistic, believable conflict for your character, both internal and external, and on weaving those conflict together in ways that are fresh, exciting, and powerful enough to catch an editor's eye.


Topics include:


* Understanding how a character's core beliefs crate conflict


* How internal and external conflicts work together


* When to hang on to / let go of a character's past


* Keeping conflicts realistic


* Creating layers of conflict


* Why urgency matters in conflict


* Applying conflict to each scene you write


* Avoiding anticipated conflict


Sherry Lewis is a career writer with more than 30 published mystery, contemporary romance, and time travel romance novels to her credit. She loves sharing what she has learned since selling her first book fifteen years ago, and has given workshops all over the country. Sherry has also taught online workshops for several years.

Online Writing Class

Online class: March 1-31, 2009

"Pacing: How To Create A Page-Turning Manuscript"
by Mary Buckham
Registration $30 at www.WriterUniv.com/

What keeps a book intriguing enough to have fans turn the pages and not set it down? How can one author's books have you riveted and another's leave you feeling ho-hum? Ever wondered if there are key craft tips and techniques to balance fast-paced conflict, tension, suspense or mystery, action and emotion? In PACING: HOW TO CREATE A PAGE TURNING MANUSCRIPT you'll learn:
* The ingredients of a page-turner
* What hooks are and how to maximize them
* The power of effective scenes: common pacing pitfalls to avoid
* The ten elements of strong pacing
* How to use subplots and secondary characters
* How to avoid a sagging middle
* What a beat is and how to use it
* Great beginnings & endings that have your readers wanting more!

Mary Buckham’s debut Romantic Suspense novel, THE MAKEOVER MISSION, was a Silhouette Intimate Moments release. Her second novel, INVISIBLE RECRUIT, was a May 2006 Silhouette Bombshell. A former magazine editor, she has written hundreds of free-lance articles and a non-fiction book. Currently she is a national writing-workshop presenter, both online and at conferences. Visit www.MaryBuckham.com or www.BreakIntoFiction.com for more information about the release of her Break Into Fiction book coming June 2009.

Synopsis Class

Online class: August 6-31, 2008

"Tips From Madison Avenue: The Selling Synopsis"

by Laurie Schnebly Campbell

Registration $30 at WriterU

No wonder so many great novelists have a tough time writing a synopsis -- the two jobs require completely different skills! Advertising copywriters have discovered a variety of techniques that make people want to buy a specific product, whether it's a bike or a burger or a book. So this hands-on workshop teaches those same techniques, including:

* Finding your unique selling points
* Headlines (or openings) that grab a buyer
* Identifying your target market
* When details matter, and when they don't
* Brainstorming a creative plot strategy
* Highlights that sell your product
* Changing format, emphasis or both

An advertising copywriter for 25 years, Laurie Schnebly Campbell was amazed when she realized her day job made it easier to "sell" editors on her books. So far she's sold six to Silhouette, including one that beat out Nora Roberts for Best Special Edition of the Year, and loves sharing marketing techniques with people who DON'T work on Madison Avenue.