Volunteer Webmaster Sought By London Writers' Society

I have advised Richard Nagel, the current president of the London Writers' Society, that I must divest myself of all responsibilities  I have been carrying out for the society - website maintenance and updates, newsletter creation and editing, and maintaining the email delivery system - effective September 1, 2010.

This is year four for me,  and I need to hand things over. It's time for others to get involved and lend a fresh perspective. 

Anyone interested in volunteering to update the website (built in css) or who is interested in working with Richard to create another newsletter, please contact him at:

president(at)londonwriterssociety.ca

If no one comes forward and the society is unable to pay for website maintenance, then it is possible that the site will simply have to come down as there is nothing worse in cyberspace than a stale website with inaccurate information. 

(Well, maybe it's clicking on a link on some innocent-looking site  in a search for legitimate information about a legitimate topic and facing some hideous bit of pornography, and yes, that happened to me once.)

I don't know if I will have time to add posts to this blog; time will tell.

If, however, the LWS site must be taken down, then the issue will probably be moot since this blog was meant to be a quick way to add supplemental information to the website. 

September 1st will mark the end of four years of  extensive volunteer work on behalf of the society, so that's a great date on which to end it. 

It's been an adventure, but all adventures eventually must end and give way to new ones, and a new one awaits my full attention. 

Fringe Words 2010: A Hoot

This year the London Writers' Society paired up with the London Fringe Festival to bring Fringe Words back to the festival.

If you did not attend Fringe Words 2010, you missed a good time and some great stories, all of which were linked through associations (real or imagined) with London, Ontario.

Hosted by LWS president Richard Nagel, this was what you missed

Seeking Writing Festivals

LWS member Miguel Carbonell sent me the email below giving an update on how his book signing went and his desire to do more of them. He has one coming up this month on June 5th.

If anyone knows of a writer's festival other than the four he mentioned here -  Words Alive, GritLit, Eden Mills and Bookfest - please leave the info in a comment.

Hi Clyo,

I have a signing Saturday, June 5th from 1-3 p.m. at the Chapters in Ajax. My next signing in London will be at Chapters North (opposite Masonville Place) on Saturday, June 26th from 1-4 p.m.

    I thought the signing at Chapters London South went fine. I sold a few books and got to talk to a bunch of people.Also important, the salespeople at the store now know what the book is about.

    Often, people ask them for suggestions, so it's good to have them on your side. Because the children's section of the store was curtained off for remodelling, they placed me across the main aisle on the wrong side of the store. I had to explain to everybody that my book was a children's book.The store manager decided to keep my book and suggested another signing event some time in the Fall. That's good news.

    On another subject, I was going to ask you if you have a list of festivals in Ontario where writers can go and sell their books. I got some locations from Brian Henry, but maybe other members of the LWS know of promising opportunities. This might be useful information for the LWS website or your newsletter. This is the list from B. Henry:

    Words Alive, north of Toronto: www.wordsalive.ca/news/

    GritLit in Hamilton: www.gritlit.ca/

    Eden Mills festival: www.edenmillswritersfestival.ca/

    Bookfest in Windsor: www.bookfestwindsor.ca

I've looked into these four, and the one at Eden Mills in September appears to be the most promising. It costs $25 to rent a table and two chairs for the main day. I've asked them if they want me to present my book at one of the festival sessions, but I think I'll be running against some major writers for a spot.

    Cheers,
    Miguel

Sell Your Fiction With Videos

50% of what people look at on the Internet is video, so a video campaign is a great way to get traffic to your writing website.

Likewise, a good way to get viewers desperate to read your book is to record a bit of it (a very interesting bit) that leaves the viewer wanting to know the end of the story and, therefore, wanting to buy your book to find out.

You can hire a professional videographer to do this and/or go to a studio, or you can do it yourself with your home video recorder or camcorder.

Just be sure to include a URL at the end of your video that shows viewers (and readers) where to go to purchase your book.

Let's say that your book is called Agatha's Exile and you choose to read a harrowing account of Agatha stumbling into a group of zombies. (My tongue-in-cheek tip of the hat to Liz and her hilarious creation, Helga Bitter.)

So your call to action in that case could be something like:

Liz Bardawill Publishes Video On You Tube

LWS member Liz Bardawill is using video to showcase her writing and story skills. Here's her first video, featuring "Helga Bitter." It's a riot - very funny - I loved it (and I don't think it's just because it's Liz), and I bet you will too.



In terms of getting filmmakers to call her, however, there is one thing missing: a call to action.

After all, Liz wants a job as a writer or on a film crew, right?

So what she needs to add at the end is a call to action that says something about who she wants to call her, and for what work, something like:

Filmmakers: Darlings, need a talented concept creator and writer for comedy horror films?

You've seen just a teensy sample of my work.
 
Don't wait. Contact me at: (email)

If like Liz, you are thinking of using video to find a writing partner or filmmakers to work with or (gasp) pay you to write scripts, then be sure to include that call of action, otherwise people will think that you put up the video just for fun and with no particular goal in mind.

If you do not want to use your primary email address at the end of the film, then set up a gmail account and use that address.

I will tell you, however, that as long as your email address is in a film and cannot be mined by bots, spammers are unlikely to bother you.

Once you have your video ready, sign up for a free membership with TubeMogul. You can upload your video to about 25 sites through the free version of the service.

(By the way, I've shared these ideas with Liz and she agrees they are good and she'll use them for her next video. Now you have the benefit of them too.) ;-)

Video Of Me At Freedom To Read Project

Back in February (2008) I participated in Global Importune's "Freedom To Read" project at the London Public Library. I read the opening piece - "The Cell Door Closes" - written in 1937 by Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian, who was imprisoned during a stay in Spain on charges he was a spy.

The video is on the right side of the page that will open when you click on the link below. I didn't introduce myself because I didn't want to draw attention away from the piece. As a result Ed Corrigan identified me afterwards winging it, bless his heart, which is why he didn't quite have the name of the London Writers' Society on his tongue. 

View Freedom To Read Video