I discovered today that pre-orders are already possible for Ryan's book. This is mildly concerning since it's not yet finished. Ah, but it will be. It will be. Soon.
Last night was the final class of the Writer's Workshop. Twenty people attended. It was quite bittersweet -- it's been a great group of people to work with: dedicated, driven, and interesting.
So many are interested in pursuing their writing dreams and improving their manuscripts that I am going to be holding an ongoing Novel Writing Practicum: a roundtable reading group limited to only 8 members. It will exist for the sole purpose of helping members polish their work and get it into publishable form. I'm really excited about it. Looking forward to continuing my work with some of these students.
Last night we discussed marketing and promotion. It's the sort of thing that always gives me a reality check because I know I could be doing more on that front myself. (Having a mother who drills the lessons of humility, modesty, and the evils of blowing one's horn is a great thing -- until the day one realizes that one must engage in some Shameless Self-Promotion if one wants to feed her family.)
So, because I know how important it is to DO and not just to SAY, I bit the bullet today and created a FaceBook page for the "writer" me, as opposed to the "person" me. Hoping this allows me to keep business and personal things separate without adding extra upkeep time to my day.
The important thing, I always say, is to know what you're talking about before you tell others how to do a thing. Social networking is the future of marketing. Just ask my friend and author Trudy Morgan-Cole.
Trudy's latest book, By the Rivers of Brooklyn, made the Top 10 of her online Canadian bookseller after she used FaceBook and other networking tools to coordinate a successful online book launch. (I like to take credit for suggesting the thing. But Trudy gets all the kudos for actually putting it together and seeing it through.)
So... it's official: Ryan's book WILL be finished soon. And I officially exist as a "Writer" on FaceBook. Now I just need to fine tune how to use all the tools at my disposal... Further bulletins as events warrant.
