Write NonFiction in November

WNFIN has a new reltative: Write Nonfiction in November

Yes, at long last the sister blog to Write Nonfiction in November is now live.  Write Nonfiction NOW! will host all my posts about writing and publishing nonfiction–articles, essays, books, e-books, etc.–when the Write Nonfiction in November challenge is not up and running. That means you can find many useful tips and lots of great information at Write Nonfiction NOW!–just like during November–from December through October each year. I’ll write most of the post, but occasionally, just like in November, I’ll have guest bloggers join me as well.

For the last two years, I have kept Write Nonfiction in November “alive” the rest of the year with a post or more each month. Recently, I decided to increase my number of posts. Then it struck me that the whole idea of posts added to Write Nonfiction in November from December through October seemed confusing–and a bit off point. That’s when I gave birth to the idea for Write Nonfiction NOW!

Please, always feel free to check out the archives at Write Nonfiction in November. It is home to three years of superb information. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, send me an email. I’ll make sure the information you want appears in Write Nonfiction NOW! or in the 2010 Write Nonfiction in November blog.

Enjoy. Learn. Write. Write nonfiction. Publish. Publish nonfiction. Write and publish nonfiction now!

If you’ve been wondering why it’s been so quiet here, let me explain. I’m getting ready for a change…and I thought it would happen a while ago…but it’s taking longer than expected.

Earlier this month I thought this blog would be changing from a free Wordpress blog to a hosted blog. That is still going to happen…in fact, it’s happening as I write…but it didn’t happen when I thought it would. Additionally, instead of continuing to add current posts to WNFIN, which really is all about the challenge that occurs in November, I wanted to separate out the current posts. I started categorizing them as Write Nonfiction Now. Then I had an idea: start a sister blog for current posts and call it “Write Nonfiction Now!”

Given that plan, I held off writing anything here. I held off…and held off…Any day now, though, WNFIN should become a hosted blog–which you will find at www.writenonfictioninnovember.com rather than at this location–and you will also find current posts at www.writenonfictionnow.com. You’ll also discover that I’ll be offer writing tips and publishing information on a more regular basis there in that blog. So, rather than just keeping WNFIN’s blog alive all  year long, I’ll be truly blogging about nonfiction writing and publishing all year to share with you the best of what I know and learn so we can all meet our publishing goals.

In the meantime, I do have a few classes coming up that might interest you. Here’s the basic information:

Birthing Your Book: How to Conceive a Successful Nonfiction Book (Before You Actually Write It)

When: Sat., May 15 & Sat., May 22; 9a.m.-5 p.m.
Where: 115 Belhaven Drive, Los Gatos, CA 95032
Cost: $110 (includes 14 hours of instruction and materials)
Bring bag lunch; space is limited to 15 attendees.

Learn how to use the step-by-step process of writing a nonfiction book proposal to help hone and focus your ideas so you can create traditionally published or self-published books that sell-to publishers and to readers!

This is NOT a workshop on how to write a nonfiction book proposal (but you’ll learn a lot about it). This IS a workshop about how to use the nonfiction book proposal writing process to conceptualize both the creative and business aspects of a successful nonfiction book.

For more info and to register: go to CopyWrightCommunications.com

Query and Proposal Basics: How to Pitch to Agents and Publishers

Sunday, May 23, 2010
9 a.m.-5 p.m. (with a 1-hour lunch break)
1590 Oakland Road, Suite B114, San Jose, CA 95131
Cost: $95

Before a literary agent agrees to represent you or a publishing house offers you a publishing contract, they must read your nonfiction book proposal.

Neither agents nor acquisitions editors will read your nonfiction book proposal until they have first read your query letter; after they read the query letter they may request your book proposal.

Your query letter has to be good enough to entice an agent or editor to want to read your proposal. Your nonfiction book proposal has to be good enough to serve as the publishing company’s business plan for your book.

That’s why you must learn how to write a top-notch query letter and proposal for your nonfiction book.

If you want to have your book traditionally published, YOU CAN’T AFFORD NOT TO TAKE THIS WORKSHOP.

For more info and to register: go to CopyWrightCommunications.com

Register with a friend and save $10 each.

Next Nonfiction Writers Meetup
Writing Winged Words: How to Use Life Experiences to Create Uplifting, Enlightening and Inspiring Personal Essays

Wednesday, May 5, 7-9 pm
1590 Oakland Road, Suite B114,
San Jose, CA 95131
Cost: $10

Learn how to become an inspirational writer or storyteller and to use your personal stories to help awaken others to the lessons in their own lives. Discover how to use your life experiences to transform the lives of your readers through the art of personal essay. Writing Winged Words will show you how to delve into your own life and discover material for personal essays that uplift, enlighten and inspire those who read them.

For more information, to join this meetup or to RSVP: Nonfiction Writers Meetup

As you can see, the blog may have been quite, but things are busy at my end. I’m gearing up to do a lot of workshops and teleseminars. I’m getting out there and speaking more. (Are you?) My agent soon will start peddling a new book proposal of mine, and I’m thinking of independently publishing one of my manuscripts. Plus, I’m now also offering publishing mentoring services.

What are you doing in the world of nonfiction publishing? I hope you’re building platform, writing, pitching, blogging, querying…anything that gets your work published. If I can help in any way, please let me know.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And consider joining my mailing list.

I have been accused of being an old-fashioned editor. I edit or correct grammar and punctuation the way I’ve always done it—the way I learned grammar long ago in high school. I also typically follow the AP Stylebook I had to use in college as a magazine journalism major.  I do, however, pull out other style books from time to time as needed. Strunk and Whites’s Elements of Style lies close at hand.

However, some grammar rules have changed on me over the years. They became modern, and I remained old fashioned. (Occasionally someone points this out to me.) Actually, I’ve been know to say people allowed themselves to become lax about the rules, and I didn’t.

Read the rest of this post here.

Take a break from your writing. Rest from your worries that the publishing world is going to hell in a handbag, as the old saying goes. Listen to this message. It’s well worth just over two minute of your time. I promise.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Weq_sHxghcg]

Ah….don’t you feel better? Now go write your book.

While at the  San Francisco Writers Conference last month, where I served as a volunteer, a “book doctor” and a panelist, I had the opportunity to hear several great keynote speeches. Typically I’m not too interested in the speakers at conferences; they tend to be novelists of one sort or another. They focus on the craft of writing fiction or their particular niche, and this typically has little to do with publishing nonfiction. However, I took note of one thing in particular that thriller writer Steve Berry, author of The Paris Vendetta, said during his talk.

Read the rest of this post here.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, please come join me for this workshop…

Birthing Your Book
How to Move from Nonfiction Book Conception to Finished Product

A 10-Hour Workshop Led by Nina Amir (over the course of two Saturdays)

March 13 and 20
10am-4pm

1590 Oakland Road, Suite B114, San Jose, CA 95131

$150

Giving birth to your nonfiction book doesn’t have to take nine months or longer. You can give birth quickly and easily if you understand the conception and pregnancy process and utilize effective birthing exercises. (Of course, a good midwife to coach you along from start to finish helps as well!)

In this workshop, you’ll learn to:

• Develop the appropriate mental mindset for writing
• Remove obstacles to authoring a book
• Allow in ideas
• Crystalize your idea
• Conceptualize your book
• Understand why you need the book proposal process
• Write a book proposal (for self-published & traditionally published books)
• Discover how to use your proposal to hone your idea and as a writing guide
• Explore publishing options
• Start writing your book

You’ll also learn about:

• Editing
• Sending out query letters and proposals
• Finding an agent or publisher
• The self-publishing process
• Promotion

Attendees will leave this workshop with an understanding of what it takes to write a nonfiction book and get it published traditionally. Those who plan to self-publish will understand how to approach their book with a business eye. Everyone will have worked through their mental writing obstacles, crystallized their book idea and conceptionalized their book and at least one chapter. Additionally, they will have started work on a proposal and have written and practiced a “pitch.” They also will have begun writing the overview of a proposal and their first chapter.

Nina Amir is a seasoned journalist, nonfiction editor, author, consultant, and writing coach with more than 30 years of experience in the publishing field. She specializes in mind, body, spirit and Jewish books. She is the founder of Write Nonfiction in November and the Jewish Issue Examiner. She has edited or written for more than 45 local, national and international magazines, newspapers, e-zines, and newsletters on a full-time or freelance basis. Her essays have been published in five anthologies and can be found in numerous e-zines and Internet article directories. Nina writes four blogs and currently has seven books in different stages of the writing/publishing process. She also has a proven track record as a book editor; one of her client’s books (Enlightened Leadership) was self-published and then purchased and re-released verbatim by Simon & Schuster (Fireside) and another (Radical Forgiveness) won the 1998 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Award (Inspirational category), received a contract from William Morrow but remained self-published and went on to sell over 115,000 copies; recently Radical Forgiveness was purchased by Sounds True. Another of her client’s books (Finding Heaven Here) was purchased by O-Books. Her clients proposals regularly help them land contracts with agents as well.

To register, go to www.copywrightcommunications.com.

Register with a friend and SAVE $25.

I just returned from speaking and working as a “book doctor” at the San Francisco Writers Conference. I’ve attended or worked as a volunteer at this particular conference for six years! This was my first year as a presenter.
If I could pass along just one bit of information I heard stressed over and over again at this conference I’d offer this one: BUILD YOUR PLATFORM NOW!

This tip isn’t a new one by any means, but each year the state of the publishing industry makes the need for platform more and more important. And this remains true whether you want to publish your book traditionally or independently. However, each year writers have more and more ways to build that coveted platform without even setting foot outside the door.

That’s right. You can actually remain at home in your lonely garret simply writing and still build a platfrom…but…and this is a BIG BUT…you must get out into Cyberspace. You must become a social creature–even if you do this only via social networking. You must blog, tweet, comment, post, update, link, etc.

Of course, getting out and speaking helps, too. You’ll find, though, that participating in social media increases your odds of getting speaking gigs.

And then you must put the information about your platform in a truly great proposal that has been preceded by a truly phenomenal query–both of which have to contain the most outstanding pitch ever.

That’s not too much to ask of a writer, is it?

I know this task feels overwhelming, but every writer can accomplish the “feat” of building a great platform.  I’ve been whittling away at a platform for quite a while myself, and now I actually have one big enough to attract an agent and, hopefully, a publisher. I know a lot about pitching and writing proposals as well. Some of you may have even been at the conference’s pitch contest, which I helped judge, or come to talk to me about your proposal during the book doctor sessions.

I’d like to help you get your writing projects and career off and running this year. And that’s why today I’m posting a long list of teleseminars and workshops I have coming up that might jump start whatever writing project you want to start or finish in the near future. I’ve designed them with that purpose in mind. Here they are:

Birthing Your Book
How to Move from Nonfiction Book Conception to Finished Product

March 13 and 20; 10am-4pm
San Jose, CA
A workshop held on two consecutive Saturdays.
Cost: $150

Giving birth to your nonfiction book doesn’t have to take nine months or longer. You can give birth quickly and easily if you understand the conception and pregnancy process and utilize effective birthing exercises. (Of course, a good midwife to coach you along from start to finish helps as well!)

Attendees will leave this workshop with an understanding of what it takes to write a nonfiction book and get it published traditionally. Those who plan to self-publish will understand how to approach their book with a business eye. Everyone will have worked through their mental writing obstacles, crystallized their book idea and conceptionalized their book and at least one chapter. Additionally, they will have started work on a proposal and have written and practiced a “pitch.” They also will have begun writing.

Propose, Publish, Promote
Three Essentials for Getting Your Book Out of Your Head and Into Readers Hands

Saturday, March 27;8:30am-2pm
Palo Alto, CA
(Continental breakfast and lunch are included)
Cost: $49

PROPOSE: A step-by-step approach to writing a book that sells
presented by Nina Amir
As an editor, writing coach, and consultant, Nina Amir has helped numerous authors create successful books, both traditionally published and self-published. She has guided aspiring non-fiction writers through the book proposal process, helping them find both agents and publishers. In her session Nina will teach participants how to ensure their book starts on the road to success.

PUBLISH: Indie-artist authors-a guide to self-publishing
presented by Lewis Greer
It all started with a friend who had the makings of a book, and today Lewis Greer has helped a number of authors navigate the paths of publishing and has published books himself (sometimes two or three) for about half-a-dozen of them. He’ll teach you what you need to know to self-publish-or even if that’s your best choice-and turn what looks like a mountain climb into a walk in the park.

PROMOTE: Six steps to get thousands of readers to your blog
presented by Bill Belew
Bill Belew speaks from experience, not theory. More than 18 million folks have visited his blogs. Some 40,000 come daily and more than 1 million each month. Bill will teach participants in this session how to get visitors to their sites.

How to Blog a Book
A Step-by-Step Teleseminar about Writing and Publishing Manuscripts on the Internet One Post at a Time

Tuesday, February 23, March 2, 9, 16, 23, 30; 2-3pm PST
A 6-week tele-class held every Tuesday for one hour.
Cost: $119

Blogs provide writers with an awesome platform-building tool and a superb way to gain exposure to agents and publishers. Given the current state of traditional publishing, however, writers must also consider creatively taking their careers into their own hands and taking advantage of the technology currently available. The savvy writer, therefore, might want to use blogging as a unique way to not only write a book but publish it as well one post at a time.

This teleseminar is geared primarily towards nonfiction writers, although fiction writers will find most of the tools offered useful also.

Writing Winged Words
How to Use Life Experiences to Create Uplifting, Enlightening & Inspiring Personal Essays

Thursday, March 11, 18, 15, April 9, 16; 12-1pm PST
A 5-week tele-class held each Tuesday for one hour.
Cost: $99.

Learn how to become an inspirational writer or storyteller and to use your personal stories to help awaken others to the lessons in their own lives. Discover how to use your life experiences to transform the lives of your readers through the art of personal essay. Writing Winged Words will show you how to delve into your own life and discover material for personal essays that uplift, enlighten and inspire those who read them.

Turning Writers Into Speakers
How to Get Your Words Off the Page and Out of Your Mouth

Monday, March 22 & 29; 5-6 pm PST
A 2-part tele-class held on 2 consecutive Mondays for one hour.
Cost: $35.

A 2-part tele-class that teaches writers how to get their stories off the page and into their mouths. All writers-both fiction and nonfiction-are storytellers at heart. This tele-class will help them learn how to take their written stories and turn them into ones they can speak to audiences. This will allow them to build their platforms as public speakers, which will help them become published book authors.

There’s a new blog at CopyWright Communications in addition to this one! It’s called How to Blog a Book.

More specifically, I’m blogging a book about how to blog a nonfiction book. So, if you’re interested in blogging a nonfiction book yourself, check it out!

I’ll also be teaching a new six-week teleseminar on the subject starting February, 15 at 2 p.m. PST.  If you are interested in signing up, please shoot me an email. (This teleseminar is not yet listed on the Teleseminar page of my website with easy Palpal payment. Hopefully, I’ll have it up soon…) I’ll put you on the list of attendees. I’ll be limiting the number of people who can take the class at any one time.

In the meantime, happy blogging!

The other day I wrote a post about author J.D. Salinger’s death for my Jewish Issues Examiner column, but I didn’t think too much about what his passing on January 17, 2010, meant to me as a writer. Then, today I happened upon author Mitch Albom’s column in the Jewish Word Review. (If you recall, Albom wrote Tuesday’s with Morrie.) His words got me thinking.

While today writers–especially  nonfiction writers–constantly feel pressured to go out into the world and become visible, J.D. Salinger provided a phenomenal example of how successful an author can become without ever setting foot outside the house.

Read the rest of this post here.

If you look back at some of my posts from April 2008, you’ll see that at that time Amazon was threatening to monopolize the print-on-demand (POD) publishing industry.  Amazon wanted all POD publishers to print their books using BookSurge, a POD owned by Amazon. In other words, they wanted all POD publishers to pay Amazon via BookSurge to print their books. If they didn’t agree to do so by signing a contract, Amazon said it would remove the “buy it now” buttons from Amazon.com for all their authors’ books. This sent a lot of authors who were about to or planned to self-publish running to BookSurge, despite the company’s quality issues. It also caused some POD publishers to sign that Amazon contract in an effort to keep those “buy it now” buttons working.

One POD publisher, however, fought back: BookLocker. Despite a run in I had with Angela Hoy, who runs BookLocker and WritersWeekly.com (see this post), I gave her a lot of credit (and still do) for doing what the whole industry should have done–stand up to Amazon. She not only boycotted Amazon.com (which some other POD publishers and many writers did as well) and refused to sign Amazon’s contract (which quite a few POD publishers did not),  but also filed a class-action lawsuit against Amazon, alleging their actions violated federal antitrust laws.

In the latest issue of WritersWeekly.com Hoy provides an update on the Amazon/BookSurge antitrust lawsuit.

Read the rest of this post here.