May 3, 2013    10 AM-4 PM PDT

An All Day Teleconference with Experts in Memoir, Marketing, and Publishing

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Memoirs are more popular today than ever—an evolving a grass roots movement where ordinary people, not just the rich and infamous, write and publish their stories. Memoirs are more popular now than fiction. Why? There seems to be a revolution in the personal story world, where thousands of people connect to the worlds of other people, and witness the lives of others. Concurrent with the publishing revolution still in progress, for the first time in history, anyone can write and publish their personal history, memoir, or spiritual autobiography. Of course, it’s important to know how to best present your work as a professional writer, to gain the skills to know what is expected in the book world, how to write and edit your work, and to be familiar with other books in your genre. 

We are pleased to present our 10^th  Memoir Telesummit—a free teleconference with experts in the areas of writing, publishing, blogging, and platform building.  Join us for a great day of learning, exploring, and sharing our passion about the ways that memoir writing and reading memoir has united people, and changed how literature and publishing are viewed. 

Denis Ledoux

A Grass Roots Movement: Memoir over the Last Two Decades–and Into the Future

10:00 AM PDT  11:00 AM MDT  12 PM CDT  1 PM  EDT

Denis Ledoux was one of the first creators of a structured memoir course with workbooks, guidebook, a training manual, and affiliates. As one of the long term believers in memoir writing, Denis will talk about the opportunities memoir presents for self development, leaving a legacy, creating meaning and messages through the generations, and how writing and teaching memoir can change the world, one story at a time. 

Denis Ledoux grew up in a three-generation home with paternal grandparents who lived upstairs. Stories have always played an important role in Denis’ life. As a child, he heard tales of his extended family and their history recounted by the family storyteller, his memere. He directs the Soleil Lifestory Network, an international group of life story writing teachers who use his method and materials to lead the popular Turning Memories® and Photo Scribe® workshops and programs

Denis holds a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Education. He has taught Franco studies at the university level and has been a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and universities on the subjects of cultural diversity and Franco North American culture and history. As a short story writer, he drew on family characters, settings, and stories for his fiction. In 1989, he won the Maine Fiction Award for Mountain Dance & Other Stories. His other titles include What Became of Them and Other Stories from Franco-America, and Lives in Translation: An Anthology of Contemporary Franco-American Writings which he edited. Denis’ short fiction has twice been honored with the Maine Writing Fellowship Award (1991, 1996), an NEA-based merit award. www.turningmemories.com

Jerry Waxler

The Memoir Revolution

11:15 AM PDT  12:15 PM MDT  1:15 PM CDT  2:15 PM  EDT

Lessons from the Memoir Revolution

In the 21st century, many of us have begun to learn our own stories and share them with others. In this talk, Jerry Waxler, author of Memoir Revolution: Write Your Story, Change the World, shows how this new cultural awareness works, and how you can tap into it. Weaving together the literary requirements of the form, and its implications for personal development and social responsibility, the Memoir Revolution motivates and informs your effort to apply the power of Story to your life.

We will discuss: 

1. How the memoir revolution invites memoir writers to band together to develop skills and stories.
2. Powerful literary stories have always explored the psychology of their main characters. By writing a memoir, you become  such a character yourself, increasing your understanding of your power as an individual.
3. The internet and self-publishing gives us the ability to find our own niche, providing us with a new, powerful way to understand social presence through our stories.
4. The Memoir Revolution breaks taboos. We turn mistakes, regrets, failures into lessons. Regret and humiliation changes from shame which isolates to authenticity which connects.
5. Life makes more sense in story than in memory.
6. Learning to construct a Story is a valuable life skill.
7. A groundswell of social awareness is shifting our collective attitude about the past, from the regret of lost stories to the joy of found ones.

Jerry Waxler teaches memoir writing at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania as well as online and around the country. His Memory Writers Network blog offers hundreds of essays, reviews, and interviews about reading and writing memoirs. His book Memoir Revolution explores the importance of memoirs in our times. He is on the board of the Philadelphia Writer’s Conference and National Association of Memoir Writers and holds a BA in Physics and an MS in Counseling Psychology.

Stephanie Chandler

12:30 PDT  1:30 MDT  2:30 CDT 3:30 EDT

Own Your Niche on the Internet and Beyond: Simple Strategies to Build Your Audience and Sell More Books

Before self-publishing her first book, Stephanie Chandler decided to build an audience online. The success of that effort led to book contracts with several traditional publishers, corporate sponsorships, major media coverage, product sales, and a variety of other opportunities. In this content-rich presentation, she shares the lessons that authors can use to effectively build an audience online. 

You will learn how to:

• Identify and attract your ideal audience online
• Create an effective website and optimize it for the search engines
• Leverage blogging to increase traffic and increase sales
• Conduct interviews with internet media sources
• Use articles, podcasts, videos, and content marketing tactics to boost traffic
• Expand revenues with information products
• Utilize Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest—all without a big time commitment (really!) 

With so much competition in the publishing field, it is critical that publishers and authors find innovative ways to promote their work. Whether you already have one, two or twenty books to your credit or you are just getting started; effective internet marketing strategies can have a dramatic impact on your publishing success.

Stephanie Chandler is the author of several books including Own Your Niche: Hype-Free Internet Marketing Tactics to Establish Authority in Your Field and Promote Your Service-Based Business, Booked Up! How to Write, Publish, and Promote a Book to Grow Your Business. Stephanie is also founder and CEO of http://AuthorityPublishing.com, specializing in custom publishing for nonfiction books and social media marketing services. A frequent speaker at business events and on the radio, she has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, BusinessWeek, Inc.com, Wired magazine, and she is a contributing blogger for Forbes. For author and speaker information, visit http://StephanieChandler.com.

Joel Friedlander

Publishing Strategies for Self-Publishers 

1:45 PDT 2:45 MDT  3:45 CDT  4:45 EDT

Many authors are taking advantage of the tools to publish their own books, and that means also taking responsibility for their own publishing career. But with all the choices available, how do you know how to produce a book that will get you where you want to go? In this teleseminar we’ll look at a number of publishing paths memoir writers can take to get their books into print. Whether you’re writing to sell as many books as possible, or for more personal reasons, you’ll learn how to navigate these critical decisions.

• Savvy strategies for personal and private publishers
• Getting your books to your readers: distribution options for self-published memoirs
• The crucial connection of marketing, distribution and production

Joel Friedlander (@JFBookman) is an award-winning book designer, a blogger, and the author of A Self-Publisher’s Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish. He’s been launching the careers of self-publishers since 1994 and writes TheBookDesigner.com, a popular blog on book design, book marketing and the future of the book. Joel is also the founder of the online training course, The Self-Publishing Roadmap, and the new site BookDesignTemplates.com.

Matilda Butler

Walls Come Tumbling Down: Impact of Change on Publishing, Marketing, and Writing

3 PM PDT  4 PM MDT   5 PM CDT  6 PM EDT 

As a wrap-up to the NAMW Telesummit, Matilda Butler, co-founder of www.WomensMemoirs.com, will talk about the changing face of the entire publishing industry and how we, as writers, need to know when to embrace it and when to stand firm.

 In her comments, Matilda will look at: 

– Four pillars of memoir writing

– Areas writers can easily embrace

– Ways to shore up the most important wall of all 

Matilda Butler and her co-author, Kendra Bonnett, have recently published Writing Alchemy: How to Write Fast and Deep, the result of four years of researching, teaching, and fine-tuning a new process for writing. The second edition of their previously published collective memoir, Rosie’s Daughters: The “First Woman To” Generation Tells Its Story, has just been released. 

@WritingAlchemy   @WomensMemoirs