Marla Miller Marketing the Muse

MarlaMiller.com

2010-12-14T10:37:00.001-08:00

hi folks,
I launched this blog years ago and just kept it up. I've decided to keep this up so that I can route all my commentary here. If you want VALUABLE content-much of it free-subscribe to www.MarlaMiller.com----the site is FAB and full of valuable information including video interviews with well known authors and FREE Quick Query Critiques!

Writer Beware™ Blogs!: One Way Not to Get Published

2010-12-14T10:35:00.000-08:00

Writer Beware™ Blogs!: One Way Not to Get Published

2010-02-26T15:05:00.000-08:00

2010-02-26T15:03:00.000-08:00

Good example of branding & platform building

2008-02-06T20:46:00.000-08:00

Last week at the Santa Barbara Writers Workshop, a writer asked about platform building and branding. Excellent examples of both are found on Lois Stern’s website. This publish on demand author has branded herself as a lay person expert on plastic surgery and built a platform that got her an interview in a NYT story. Hard work over time is what it takes. A good book doesn’t hurt either though plenty bad ones have sold millions as we all know…
With the plastic surgery market growing as we grow older, Stern’s timing is spot on.
Lois W. Stern
Author of SEX, LIES AND COSMETIC SURGERY
http://www.sexliesandcosmeticsurgery.com
cosmeticsurgery@optonline.net

Marla's teaching gigs

2008-02-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I presented Marketing the Muse Workshop at the Santa Barbara Writers Workshop, a one day FREE workshop held at SB Community College. Cork Millner does a terrific job each year hosting this one day event. Fannie Flagg keynoted. She's inspirational and speaks such truths about the writing life. Even after phenomenal commercial success, it doesn't get easier. You still have to put 'your butt' in the chair. The stories she shares about circling around it endear her to audiences. Her newest book, a work in progress, is about a woman who considers taking herself out of the game of life. Fannie read the opening-poignant and funny-she is a gifted storyteller.
I will be teaching at the upcoming Southern California Writers Conference held in San Diego on 2/15-2/18. Check website for details; www.writersconference.com. In June, I'm back at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference with my Marketing the Muse Workshop that I will teach daily throughout the almost week long conference held at the Doubletree in Santa Barbara, www.sbwritersconference.com

Business and Writing

2008-01-01T18:31:00.000-08:00

I am convinced, a writer's best friend is knowledge about the business world. It is not enough to write well-not in 2008. For Christmas, I gave my 3 daughters 3 books to read and share, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, Women & Money by Suze Orman and Basic Black by Cathie Black. I'd already read the first two but hadn't read Black's book. I devoured it in 2 sittings.
For a while now I've known that my negotiating strategies are not what they need to be-after reading Black's treatise on women and business, I'm less hard on myself. Women-historically-are lousy negotiators when it comes to asking for appropriate compensation for work done. Read this book, writers. It might keep you from sharing 'war' stories about being minimally compensated for maximum product you deliver-your ideas in words and stories.

New York Times-100 Notable Books of 2007

2007-11-28T14:44:00.001-08:00

Scroll the list for familiar names. Breaking into a market with proven commodities, i.e, authors that have already made money for publishers, is what unpublished writers are up against. Remember this when you think your book proposal and/or manuscript is 'good enough'.
Literary agent Michael Larsen, in his book on book proposal writing, says that a proposal is done when it's as perfect as that writer can possibly get it!

Holiday Books
100 Notable Books of 2007
December 2, 2007-The Book Review picks outstanding works from the last year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/books/review/notable-books-2007.html

Writers: Our Own Worst Enemies

2007-11-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

A timely rant from the upcoming feature documentary on Harlan
Ellison, "DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH". Go to www.dreamswithsharpteeth.com for
more excerpts!!

One of my NYC writer friends emailed this UTube interview with these words...."all the work I gave away..."
A familiar writer's lament.

Given the WGA's strike and jagged nerves of those writers picketing, Ellison's rant offers some comfort.
Offering several URL's -one will work!

http://tinyurl.com/2hwtwl

Salon Advice columnist Cary Tennis......

2007-11-19T20:42:00.000-08:00

...gives good advice. He's also a nice guy. I asked him for some this morning in an email and by mid afternoon, he'd emailed me back good food for thought. Read him on Salon (see post). Cary has wrapped his columns into a collection "Since You Asked" on sale in bookstores and his website www.carytennisbooks.com.
Thanks again Cary for your good advice.
,

Since you asked, Cary Tennis, Should I take my husband's name? | Salon Life

2007-11-19T20:28:00.000-08:00

Since you asked, Cary Tennis, Should I take my husband's name? | Salon Life: "Buy Cary's book! 'Since You Asked,' a collection of your favorite columns by Cary Tennis: On sale now at Cary Tennis Books. Buy now to receive an autographed first edition! "

Salon.com's Cary Tennis gives good advice.

2007-11-19T20:12:00.000-08:00

I asked him for some this morning and got a email back this afternoon. Read him on Salon (see post). Cary has wrapped his columns into a collection "Since You Asked" on sale in bookstores and his website www.carytennisbooks.com.
Thanks again Cary for your good advice.

Marla's Writer Magazine interview with Christopher Moore

2007-11-14T14:40:00.000-08:00

Christopher Moore is well read by a wide range of readers: from born again Christians to those whose only belief is letting the good times role. Moore is prolific, hysterically funny and loyal to his fan base. Read my interview in Writer Magazine if you want lessons on how to be your own best marketer.

Writer Magazine excerpt of Christopher Moore 6/07 interview:
........
Today Moore enjoys the PR support offered by his publisher, but he remembers those days when he had to go it alone. "I had two novels published when it dawned on me that if I wanted people to read me, I had to reach them first." With help from the Web and friends he met along the way, Moore did. In our interview, he mentions a Borders book manager in Dallas who helped him make a bestseller list for the first time. "He pushed my book because he liked it," says Moore. Understanding the power of e-mail has served him well. In 1995, Moore became the first nontechnical author to include his e-mail address in his novels. "I've answered every e-mail sent to me from readers since," says Moore. "It's always been important to me to be a commercial success."

Authors Lose Air Time as Writers Strike

2007-11-10T12:41:00.000-08:00

This piece in today's (11/10/07) PW one more example of our industry's dependence on 'shit not happening.' The aftermath of 911 bottomed out the book promoting/buying business for some time. The film industry's WGA strike now making an impact on writers of books, too.

Authors Lose Air Time as Writers Strike
By Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 11/8/2007 10:23:00 AM

The Hollywood writer’s strike has reverberated in the halls of New York publishing, in particular with the suspension of production of the late night talk shows that have become integral to launching a book to a national audience.
This week Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart had interviews scheduled with Karen Greenberg, author of The Torture Debate in America (Cambridge Univ. Press), Robert Reich, author of Supercapitalism (Knopf), CNN talking head Lou Dobbs, author of Independents Day (Viking), and former UN Ambassador John Bolton, author of Surrender Is Not an Option (Threshold). No interviews have made it on air. And The Colbert Report planned to interview David Levy, author of Love And Sex With Robots, AJ Jacobs author of The Year Of Living Biblically, and radio producer David Isay, author Listening Is An Act Of Love.“For the right author, they are the gold standard,” said Lisa Johnson, v-p executive director of publicity and marketing for Dutton and Gotham. Gotham author Jared Cohen was scheduled to appear next Monday on The Colbert Report to talk about his book Children of Jihad. “It is his first book and getting him booked on Colbert was a coup.”

Ray Carver comforts writers

2007-10-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

This is fascinating-I encourage all of you to read it. Tess Gallagher was Ray Carver's second wife. She's written a book about his 'first drafts' that challenge the belief that Carver was a minimalist. Writing is rewriting and sometimes editors rewrite your words best-hard to believe-but true.

Raymond Carver is my all time favorite author-the best short story writer(Catherine Ryan Hyde is close behind) that I've ever read. Read what his editor at Knopf did to his stories. Amazing.

The Real Carver: Expansive or Minimal?

By MOTOKO RICH

Published: October 17, 2007

Tess Gallagher, the widow of Raymond Carver, one of the most celebrated American short-story writers of the 20th century, is spearheading an effort to publish a volume of 17 original Carver stories whose highly edited versions were published in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,” his breakout 1981 book.

Largely as a result of that collection, which became a literary sensation, Carver was credited with popularizing a minimalist style. But many of his fans have been aware of reports that Gordon Lish, Carver’s first editor at Alfred A. Knopf, had heavily edited, and in many cases radically cut, the stories before publication to hone the author’s voice. At the time, Carver begged Mr. Lish to stop production of the book. But Knopf went ahead and published it, to much critical acclaim.

Ms. Gallagher, who is also a novelist and poet, wants to see the original stories published as a volume called “Beginners,” the title that Carver gave to the story that became the title story in “What We Talk About.”

A document that compares the edited and original versions of Raymond Carver's stories (pdf)

The Carver Chronicles (August 9, 1998)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/17/books/17carver.html?ex=1350360000&en=94a0c5f6f2a1d219&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

MEMOIR WRITING- What defines it?

2007-10-15T21:25:00.000-07:00

MEMOIR WRITING.

Writers in my workshops often confuse memoir writing with other narrative non fiction which includes autobiographical writing. So what is a memoir?

Think of it as a turning point-that time in life when crisis catapulted you in some significant way.

Read good memoirs. Favorites of mine include Drinking: A Love Story and Eat, Pray Love. Commonalities to both: pivotal moments that anchor the telling of these tales. For Caroline Knapp, it was the day she almost killed her friend’s daughter during a drunken spree. For Elizabeth Gilbert, the fetal position on the bathroom floor sobbing wretch of a woman she’d become to stay in a marriage she knew she had to leave.

Pivotal moments that resonate.

I am writing my memoir and if it’s going to have resonance, I must go to that place both of these authors traveled to-a painful place that I’ve been to and now must revisit.

I can tell my whole story though this prism but I must not lose sight of it during the telling.

Does a good memoir always have to flow from pain?

My first instinct is to say ‘yes’ but then I remember Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions that chronicles her meeting with motherhood; a funny accounting that does come from pain-the pain of knowing that she cannot have this baby and his father in her life.

So I’m back to my first instinct-memoirs worth reading resonate with us because we relate to the pain that sparked the change in these authors lives.

Before The Big Bang: The Secret Internet Marketing Book, destined for New York Times Bestseller List.

2007-10-01T17:19:00.000-07:00

Ladies & Gentlemen,
In my humble, this is our future-web marketing that virals its way into hard drives- Simon & Schuster who?
I met Dan at the So Cal Writers Conference. Here's a tip-begin marketing your book 3 years before it's published. That's what Dan Hollings is doing-he's one of the marketers behind The Secret's success. Contrary to the legend building, the 'universe' had help getting this book out there and into Oprah's hands-his name is Dan Hollings.

Before The Big Bang: The Secret Internet Marketing Book, destined for New York Times Bestseller List.

Southern California Writers Conference

2007-09-28T12:44:00.000-07:00

I'm teaching three workshops and presenting on one panel. If you are going to be there-and at my sessions-I welcome your feedback.

More stuff writers on the road to publication need to know.

2007-09-23T13:17:00.000-07:00

RE: securing a book review in Publishers Weekly

As you know, a review by PW, Publishers Weekly book review is a must. However, don’t depend on your agent to remember to tell your editor OR your editor to file review guidelines. Mine didn’t. I always suspected the reason why my editor "forgot" was because Simon & Schuster didn’t think my book would be big enough.
I could be wrong.
However, I’m enclosing the guidelines PW requires for its review. Please notice that they ask for 1st print run # and publisher's marketing budget-the two indicators of a publisher’s prediction of your book's sale-ability.

From: PW Daily for Booksellers [mailto:PWDaily@email.publishersweekly.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 8:08 AM
To: OCWRITER@COX.NET

……An accompanying letter should contain a description or synopsis of the book, and any pertinent publicity information, including the author’s previous titles, blurbs, or previous reviews. Book club, paperback, audio or movie rights sales, author tours of 5 cities or more, a print run of more than 10,000 or an ad/promo budget of more than $30,000 should be noted.
Please include a separate cover sheet or letter for each copy of every title submitted.
Finished books and bound manuscripts are acceptable for submission. Please clearly mark them ‘In Lieu of Galleys’. Unbound F&Gs are acceptable only for submission of heavily illustrated books.
We review books in the following categories: Nonfiction, Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror, Poetry, Comics, Lifestyles (cooking, gardening & home, health & fitness, or parenting), and Mass Market. Again, children’s titles have their own guidelines (see below). We do not review self-published books. Submissions must be sent (3) months—preferably (4)—prior to the 1st day of the month of publication.
You must send (2) copies of every title submitted. Submissions of a single copy will not be considered.
All galleys should have the following information on the cover:
• Title
• Author
• Price
• Publisher and imprint
• Format
• Number of pages in the finished book
• 13-digit ISBN
• Month and day of publication
• Distribution arrangements
• Publicity contact information

2007-09-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is not me it's my daughter signing autographs after a CAL-Berkeley game-they kicked Stanford's butt-She is now writing for me and my magazine in Newport Coast. She's also wondering what the hell she's going to do now that her star athlete days are over-at least I think they are though she's mumbling about trying out for the new pro soccer league forming (once again!) in early 2009. Personally, I'd rather she took a pass and pursued other interests-writing and graphix design. I tell her that body is going to have to last her a lifetime and she's already taken quite a pummeling over the last 2 decades that she's played ball.
What I'm trying to do on this dang site is upload a video that demonstrates what I do with writers in workshops.
In my next life, I'm coming back as a computer nerd. Though I'd been married to one for too many years, turns out that's not good enough. I lost his skill when I left him. Small price to pay, still....where's nerd when you need one!
Stay tuned.

Marla Miller Marketing the Muse

MarlaMiller.com

Writer Beware™ Blogs!: One Way Not to Get Published

Good example of branding & platform building

Marla's teaching gigs

Business and Writing

New York Times-100 Notable Books of 2007

Writers: Our Own Worst Enemies

Salon Advice columnist Cary Tennis......

Since you asked, Cary Tennis, Should I take my husband's name? | Salon Life

Salon.com's Cary Tennis gives good advice.

Marla's Writer Magazine interview with Christopher Moore

Authors Lose Air Time as Writers Strike

Ray Carver comforts writers

This is fascinating-I encourage all of you to read it. Tess Gallagher was Ray Carver's second wife. She's written a book about his 'first drafts' that challenge the belief that Carver was a minimalist. Writing is rewriting and sometimes editors rewrite your words best-hard to believe-but true.

Raymond Carver is my all time favorite author-the best short story writer(Catherine Ryan Hyde is close behind) that I've ever read. Read what his editor at Knopf did to his stories. Amazing.

The Real Carver: Expansive or Minimal?

Related

MEMOIR WRITING- What defines it?

Before The Big Bang: The Secret Internet Marketing Book, destined for New York Times Bestseller List.

Southern California Writers Conference

More stuff writers on the road to publication need to know.