As the president of NAMW, I’m still celebrating the successful and well-attended National Association of Memoir Writers Telesummit November 2! We had over 600 people sign up for the day— when they sign up everyone gets a free audio download afterwards, and we had as many as 100 people on some of the calls!

The day began with Mike O’Mary, who publishes memoir and Creative Nonfiction collections. He shared with us some important tips about approaching a publisher:

1. You have to have a great story
2. Your structure needs to work—write your memoir like a novel
3. Don’t hold back—you need to give enough details to create a universal story.

We also talked about issues of libel and invasion of privacy, and secrets to promoting your memoir with low or no-cost methods.

In session two with Lisa Cron, we learned about our brain on story, and what story offers our brain—that dopamine reward when we create curiosity in the reader and resolve the story problem. Story navigates reality, and MRIs have shown that when we are in story, our brain and body really ARE there in the scene. Even more great news: story enhances our ability to empathize.

Nina Amir in session three talked about blogging your book—how to do it, and why it’s helpful for your marketing and publication plans. Besides being a useful way to structure and hold yourself accountable for your writing, a creating a blog shows that

• You are an expert on certain topics
• Your become the go to person that an agent or publisher might seek out on your topic
• Your blog is a way to connect and network with a large audience, thus building your platform.

All of us need to learn more about social media, so Frances Caballo wowed us with information we need to know about Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. She shared with us many tips and websites that will help us understand and manage social media, which everyone needs to learn how to navigate.

Her list of resources can be found on this page at NAMW.

Brooke Warner and Kamy Wicoff, co-founders of SheWritesPress, talked about the role of traditional publishing, small publishers, and self-publishing in the current shifting world of publishing. Their imprint offers a hybrid model that may benefit women memoir writers. The SheWrites site is a great place to have your first blog and find out more about who’s writing what through their weekly newsletter, articles, and forum.

 At NAMW we offer  many free events, a monthly free Roundtable discussion, articles, a newsletter and videos. Members have access to the monthly teleseminars, and all audios archived since 2008–over 100 audios about all aspects of memoir writing, publishing, and marketing.

I hope you can join us for the Spring 2013 Telesummit. Stay tuned to news by signing up for our newsletter!