Luncheon, May 19 – Marketing and Monetizing Your Writing Specialty

Tips for Making Money from Your

Writing/Photography in Any Genre

presented by

Lee Foster

Travel Writer/Photographer

Saturday, May 19

11 AM–1:00 PM

(10:15 Early-Bird Session – TBA)

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

It is good to create, it is better to create and publish, and it is best to create, publish, and monetize.

The above “truth” is followed by Lee Foster, who will share 11+ tips for writers at the May 19 meeting of the California Writers Club Sacramento.

Lee has spent a fair amount of time trying to understand the modern publishing scene and to position himself to benefit from the revolutions occurring around us. By studying the steps that Lee has taken, CWC members can better plan their futures, whether their genre is memoir, historical novels, fantasy, or nonfiction.

While Lee has 18 books (listed on his Amazon Author Page), only 13 are “traditionally published.” Why has Lee changed to develop five books “independently,” including a book on the indie publishing process?

Even as Lee has published travel writing/photography in every major U.S. travel magazine/newspaper, he now advocates a strong website and Social Media presence. Why? He started his fifth Social Media effort (Instagram) recently.

In the past, Lee focused on presenting travel content in English. Now he has two books, on California travel and a literary book on travel, translated into Chinese, selling each month as ebooks in Chinese as Book A and Book B. Who sells Lee’s ebooks in China? If you answered Amazon.cn, you guessed correctly. Amazon even sells Lee’s Chinese books in Chinese on his USA Amazon Author Page. The links for Book A and Book B are from Lee’s USA Amazon Author Page.

How might a consumer want to access a writer’s work? When should a writer consider making an audiobook, as Lee has?

Lee says he feels responsible for shaping the future of “content creators” in a trajectory that will make them artistically and financially sustainable. He does not minimize the challenges facing the modern writer/author/photographer. The solution, he feels, is to understand the revolutions occurring and position yourself as beneficially as possible.

Attendee Takeaways

In a presentation filled with information, Lee hopes to inspire and assist writers/authors/photographers to be successful in three ways:

-create excellent and artistic content;

-connect with an audience; and

-earn income.

Lee lives in Berkeley and develops writing/photography projects in travel, literary, and “independent” publishing genres.

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:15

Luncheon Information

Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
The meeting fee includes speaker, lunch and beverage
Cattlemens Restaurant, 12409 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova, CA

The restaurant is located just east of Hazel Ave. at the northeast end of the Nimbus Winery complex along Highway 50. Cattlemens offers CWC a spacious meeting room with free WiFi, quality AV equipment, free off street parking and excellent food.

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Luncheon, Apr 21 – Using Photographs in Your Memoir

Focusing Your Memoir or Family History

Through Photographs

presented by

Jacqueline Doyle

Author and Essayist

Saturday, April 21

11 AM–1:00 PM

(10:15 Early-Bird Session – Celebrate National Poetry Month)

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

Photographs are often all that remains after a loved one has died. They remind us of those we’ve known well and have lost, introduce us to distant relatives who are no longer here to tell their stories, or conjure ancestors we never knew.

Whether you include the actual photographs or not, spending time on written description and written exploration of what you see in family photographs can significantly deepen your memoir or history project. Photographs can be used not only to illustrate your personal or family story but also to:

* develop your reflections on those close to you

* explore the lives of those you don’t know, or the early lives of those you do

* document the past

* evoke an historical era

* focus description

* deepen characterization

* inspire imagined recreations of the past

* inspire imagined interventions in the past

We’ll talk about why and how you can use photographs in your memoir or family history, and look at examples from Dorothy Alison, Paul Auster, Sharon Olds, Judith Kitchen, and others.

Bring a photo of a relative in a previous generation (preferably one or two people, or one or two that you can single out in a group photo) for a short writing exercise

Attendee takeaways:

some written description,
avenues for imaginative speculation, and
ideas on how to use what you’ve written.

Jacqueline Doyle is a prolific author who has published memoir essays in The Gettysburg Review, Under the Gum Tree, Full Grown People, NOR: New Ohio Review, Southern Humanities Review, Under the Sun, and many other literary journals. Her work has earned four Pushcart Prize nominations and numerous awards, including Notable Essay citations in Best American Essays 2013, Best American Essays 2015, and Best American Essays 2017. She is a professor at California State University East Bay.

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:15

Download (PDF, 349KB)

Luncheon Information

Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
The meeting fee includes speaker, lunch and beverage
Cattlemens Restaurant, 12409 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova, CA

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Luncheon, Mar 17 – Why Write at All?

Why Write at All?

The Story, the Essay, and the Poem: the Quest for Examples and Answers

featuring

Steven Nightingale

Novelist, Poet, Essayist, Short Stories, Historian

Saturday, March 17

11 AM–1:00 PM

(10:45 Early-Bird Session TBA)

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

Come hear Bay Area’s Steven Nightingale, one of the most talked-about motivational presenters on writing, share lucid and graceful language from many sources and centuries.

Takeaways:

—beautiful sentences to hold in mind

—the most enlivening & surprising way to practice

—ancient tricks of the trade

Steven Nightingale is the author of ten books: two novels, six books of sonnets, a long essay on the city of Granada, Spain, and a book of short fiction. His interests include the medieval art of Spain and Italy, the wild country of the American West and the Caribbean, cooking for his wife and daughter, astronomy, venture capital, and Emily Dickinson, whom he loves. Chief among his pleasures is teaching by invitation in schools and universities in Nevada and California.

He is a graduate of Stanford University, and divides his time between Palo Alto, California, his beloved home state of Nevada, and the beautiful Albayzin, a barrio in Granada, Spain.

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:45 – TBA

Luncheon Information

Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
The meeting fee includes speaker, lunch and beverage
Cattlemens Restaurant, 12409 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova, CA

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Luncheon, Feb 17 – Marketing for Low-Key Authors

Relationship-Based Marketing

featuring

Cristina Deptula

Literary Publicist at Authors, Large and Small

Saturday, February 17

11 AM–1:00 PM

(10:45 Early-Bird Session TBA)

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

Do you cringe at the thought of being perceived as a self-promoter? Would you rather be perceived as “humble” than unabashed? Then Bay Area’s Cristina Deptula will deliver an important message to you.

Christina believes in relationship-based marketing, getting to know particular, influential people, and sharing information and resources with them in a way that’s mutually beneficial over a long period of time. Book promotion doesn’t have to mean “making a big deal out of yourself, but sharing what you have learned with others in order to help.” She advises authors to view their books in terms of what they offer: information, insights, beauty, perspective or just plain fun and entertainment. Christina knows how to take the focus off ourselves and put it into our work and message. This shift in approach makes it easier to promote – because we are talking about something beyond ourselves.

Cristina is a literary publicist with Authors, Large and Small (authorslargeandsmall.com), providing affordable outreach and marketing for writers. She helps to find audiences wherever they gather and to reach them in the manner in which they communicate. She’s the founder of Synchronized Chaos Magazine (synchchaos.com), publishing art and writing from around the world and developing a monthly theme based on the submissions received. Cristina has also reported on science and technology topics for the California Aggie.

You will come away from Cristina’s presentation knowing:

-the definition of relationship-based marketing

-why it’s more successful in the long-run

-the confidence that comes with marketing “humbly,” avoiding the reputation of unabashed self-promoter

– Ways to share with, not show off to, an audience.

-Build authentic relationships through outreach

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:45 – TBA

Luncheon Information

Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
The meeting fee includes speaker, lunch and beverage
Cattlemens Restaurant, 12409 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova, CA

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Luncheon, Jan 20 – Love and Sex on the Page

Love and Sex on the Page

featuring

Joey Garcia

Award-Winning Writer, Columnist & Relationship Expert

Feel free to bring short examples, 3-4 sentences good and bad!!!

Saturday, January 20 11 AM–1:00 PM (10:15 Early-Bird Session TBA)

Cattlemens, 12409 Folsom Blvd, $15 members/$20 guests (includes lunch)

Photo credit: Kendall Tobe

Joey Garcia tells it straight – her writing contains scenes that illuminate relationships. It’s up to the writer to learn how to do it effectively. Joey promises to plunge in – providing examples to the Ca Writers Club Sacramento.

As Sacramento’s best-known “relationship” columnist, Joey draws on 21-plus years of dispensing relationship advice to 300,000 weekly readers in in the Sacramento News & Review. Her book, When Your Heart Breaks, It’s Opening to Love: Healing and finding love after an affair, heartbreak or divorce, was selected as a 2014 CSUS Summer Read . A year later, the book – published by a company Garcia started — won a national Bronze Living Now award that recognizes books that inspire tolerance and forgiveness.

Joey has been featured in the Huffington Post, Sacramento Magazine, Sacramento Bee, Good Day Sacramento, Capital Public Radio’s “Insight,” KQED radio, KFBK radio, KCRA-TV, and ABC10-TV. She’s currently the Relationship Expert for Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto Fox 40 News and fills in as a host for The Pat Walsh Show on NewsRadio KFBK.

Her poems, essays, and short stories have been published in literary journals and received international awards. In 2014 her poem, “After 9/11,” was nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. She has received poetry fellowships in Spoleto and Paris.

In 2004, Joey created Rise Up Belize! Advancement through Education, a non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of over 1,000 children and more than 500 teachers in her native Belize, Central America. She also launched a leadership program that has trained more than 100 Sacramento-area teen girls in skills that translate to workplace success. Joey has taught relationship education programs in schools, shelters, jails and the Learning Exchange.

Joey founded the Belize Writers’ Conference with an inaugural date of April 23 -28, 2018, for memoir, fiction, and nonfiction writers who are ready for manuscript critiques by two New York literary agents and a writing coach/author.

Luncheon 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Early Bird special 10:45 – Common Query Letter Mistakes, presented by Ted Witt

Luncheon Information

Monthly Luncheons are open to the public
Cost is $15 for members, $20 for nonmembers
The meeting fee includes speaker, lunch and beverage
Cattlemens Restaurant, 12409 Folsom Blvd., Rancho Cordova, CA

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