Colleen Warmingham – Organizing Author Content and Business.

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Organizing, Organizing for Authors, Writing Conferences

Colleen Warmingham, Owner of Minimologist LLC, will be presenting two sessions on How To Organize Your Business and Content, Saturday March 25, 2017, at the GLVWG Write Stuff Writers Conference™ .

GLVWG member, Judy Mehl, had an opportunity to interview Colleen, who’ll provide insight to authors with organizing the materials that support the product you sell – your writing, and a separate session to organize the back office side of things.

Interview by Judith Mehl, www.judymehl.com

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GLVWG: You have a unique business based on organization, yet you’ve expanded that to encompass so much more than a filing system. Would you tell us about that?

Colleen Warmingham: I’ve been a member of the National Association of Professional Organizers, and in continual training monthly, for ten years. The organization has different specialties—different ways to solve problems. Others have specialties in downsizing or hoarding. Mine is office organization. I’m certified in FreedomFiler, a home filing system, and the Evernote paper and electronic system for note taking and keeping. This area is also something dear to me—repurposing, reusing, gifting. I created the name, Minimologist, LLC. because the name reflects my core value of minimizing my impact on this precious planet and helping others do the same.

An Interview with Kathryn Craft

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Women's Fiction, Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Conferences

Kathryn Craft

Last month, we announced Kathryn Craft will be conducting one of the Friday half-day workshops to explore MAXIMIZING THE EMOTIONAL POTENTIAL OF YOUR NOVEL, and two additional working sessions on Saturday at the GLVWG WriteStuff Writers Conference™ , March 24 and 25, 2017.

GLVWG member, Tammy Burke, had the opportunity to interview Kathryn about her upcoming seminar at the conference.

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What a delight that you’ll be at the 2017 GLVWG “Write Stuff” Conference as a presenter. You have been a motivating inspiration for GLVWG for many many years in various capacities. We’re happy to have you!

Kathryn Craft: Thanks Tammy! It will be so fun to be back home. I attended this conference every year straight from 2000-2012, when it was my honor to host my brand new agent on the agent panel, and then returned as a presenter in 2013. I’ve missed it.

Could you tell us a little bit about what got you into the writing world? Was it when you became a freelance dance critic for the Morning Call or was it before then? What was the spark?

Kathryn Craft: In 1983, when a company I was dancing with approached The Morning Call about a review, I learned they needed a dance critic. I wrote a sample review. The editor read it and said, “Don’t write in the first person because we don’t yet know who you are. Don’t say, ‘It seemed as if’—it weakens your writing. Don’t use more than five sentences per paragraph. Can you start this weekend?”

When you  have an area of expertise and know how to string sentences together, it can sometimes be just that easy to get paid to write nonfiction.

Fifteen years later I entered the longest labor of my life when my family suffered the kind of tragedy that can make a novelist out of you: my first husband committed suicide after a day-long standoff on our idyllic little farm. In the years to come, it grew clear that for me, the medium of story would be crucial to finding hope within this darkest trial of my life.

I quickly met the first of many fiction-writing obstacles, and each came stamped with the word “humility.” I took a voluntary downgrade from the nominal pay of a dance critic and wrote fiction without pay for a decade. I learned that stringing lovely sentences was no longer enough. An informed opinion was no longer enough. Desire was not enough. I needed to make a substantial investment of time and money in a storytelling education. I quickly realized I could no longer go it alone, and came to my first GLVWG meeting in 2000.

Jennifer Lader Helps Authors Turn Writing into a Business

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Author Coach, Being Productive, Business of Writing, Editing, Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Conferences

Jennifer Lader, editor and profile coach, will be helping authors turn writing into a moneymaking business at the Write Stuff Writers Conference™ on March 25, 2017.

Article by Charles Kiernan, Write Stuff Conference™ Chairman

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I have known Jennifer Lader for years, being part of my longest standing critique groups. I witnessed her “coming into her own” at a rather phenomenal rate. I am pleased to have her as one of the conference’s non-fiction presenters for 2017.

Jennifer Lader has developed a proprietary process for helping small businesses and sole proprietorships identify and share what they can do for others. After many years as a freelance writer and three years as the editor of what became an award-winning newspaper under her tenure, Jennifer brought her writing and business skills together to build up a successful enterprise as a contractor.

Today, she helps individuals and small businesses develop powerful and easy-to-share profiles, then get the word out.

Along with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Grinnell College, Jennifer has her master’s in public administration. She is the senior writer for the Center for Advanced Emotional Intelligence, marketer for Business & Community Financing Solutions, and managing editor for Architects Marketing.

She knows how to pitch stories to the media and has landed her clients in highly positive feature articles. Besides GLVWG, she is a member of the Nonfiction Authors Association and of the Lehigh Valley Storytelling Guild. Her work has been recognized with a 1st Place Keystone Press Award for niche publication and a 1st Place Simon Rockower Award for her article on the cultural impact of the television show “Bewitched.”

At the conference will be presenting two back-to-back sessions entiled, THE FINE LINE: HOW TO TURN YOUR WRITING INTO A MONEY-MAKINIG BUSINESS. You’ll come away with specific actions that you can take to launch or invigorate your freelance career.

GOAL: Get into the mindset that you can make money as a freelancer.

OBJECTIVES:

1. Find out the number one way that you can easily promote your services, enable others to envision how you can help them, and melt away your competition (lesson 1)
2. Learn how to think like a business person (lessons 2-7)
3. Make plans now to stake your claim in three easy steps (lessons 8-10).

 

Wow, could we really make a living at this craft? Let Jennifer tell you how.

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You can contact Jennifer Lader at jennifer@jenniferlader.com. To learn more about Jennifer Lader’s process, check out her website, jenniferlader.com.

 

Vicki Selvaggio Returns to the The WriteStuff Writer’s Conference™

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Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency, Literary Agent, Query Letters, Writing, Writing Advice, Writing Conferences

Article by Chaz Kiernan, GLVWG WriteStuff Conference Chair

 

Vicki Selvaggio was at our Write Stuff Writer’s Conference™ last year (April 2016) as an agent, and may I add, our most sought after agent for the pitch sessions. This year she comes as a presenter (although she will take a few pitches as time allows).

I am going to share with you an email from her (edited) that pretty much says it all.

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Hi, Charles,

Nice to hear from you. I’ve included some presentations below, but I offer more than these. I can also customize a presentation to match the needs of your members.

Agent 101: An Inside View of Acquiring Clients

(We decided to have Vicki present this one of Friday evening, March 24, before the Social Gathering. Think party.)

As an Associate Agent and Author, Victoria Selvaggio knows firsthand that finding representation can be as hard as or even harder than becoming published. But…having a good understanding of the agent’s role, as well as your own, as the author, is just as important as advocating further, for the right agent-author relationship.

Through this presentation, “Agent 101: An Inside View of Acquiring Clients”, attendees will get a behind-the-desk look at what being an agent means for Victoria—from query letters to rejections to revision to requests to finally, representation and beyond—which will provide helpful tips on how to review your manuscript as if you were also an agent.

Deborah Riley-Magnus to Offer Marketing Tips for Authors.

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Author Coach, Book Marketing, Self-Publishing, Writing Advice, Writing Conferences

We are pleased to have author and success coach Deborah Riley-Magnus present on the topic of marketing at the at The GLVWG WriteStuff Writer’s Conference™, March 24-25, 2017.  She has a twenty-seven year professional background in marketing, advertising, and public relations as a writer for print, television, and radio.

Her nonfiction—Finding Author Success, Cross Marketing Magic for Authors, and Write Brain/Left Brain—focuses on helping authors by teaching them how to bridge the gap between the creative writer and the marketing author.

Deborah’s fiction is imaginative and mystical, beginning with the Twice Baked Vampire Series books 1 and 2, Cold in California and Monkey Jump. The first of a 2 part Cowboys and Angels supernatural romance saga is entitled Lucifer’s Guide. Deborah is currently working on a supernatural new adult series, The Lost Race.

As an Author Success Coach she produces several pieces monthly for various websites and online publications. She teaches online and live workshops, clinics, and boot camps. She writes an author marketing industry blog and coaches authors, one-on-one, for sales success. Deborah belongs to several writing and professional organizations.