Joan Price: What I've Learned About Book Publicity Since Wasting $1,000

My friend Joan Price shared with me an article she wrote for the American Society of Journalists and Authors about online marketing. She thought that members of my writers club might benefit from this and she allowed me to share this with others as long as I kept her words and her links intact.

The only changes I made was to make some of her links into hyperlinks for this blog post.

Enjoy!

-Linda

What I've Learned About Book Publicity Since Wasting $1,000

By Joan Price

When Seal Press published my book, Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty, at the beginning of 2006, the small publisher could only allot $1,000 for a publicity budget. I had been invited to speak at woman-friendly sex shops in the Midwest and Canada -- I live in California -- and I thought, what a perfect way to get my publicity and book sales rolling!

It wasn't. Although I got some good newspaper publicity at several of the cities I visited, attendance at my events was pitiful, and sales were underwhelming. I returned home knowing I had wasted Seal's $1,000 publicity budget.

Seal’s publicist continued to assist me with her admirable skill and a portion of her time for the first few months after the book’s release. The Seal team explained that our goal was to position me as an expert on senior sexuality rather than just promote the book itself. The book would only be “new” for three months, but my credibility as an interview source would make me the go-to “senior sexpert” for months or years. This proved to be true, and I think it applies to all of us who write nonfiction. At three years post-publication, I’m still interviewed regularly on a variety of aging and/or sexuality topics, and each time my Amazon sales and blog traffic spike.

I've become an eager student of book publicity and author self-promotion, reading the most recent books (because they give full attention to online opportunities) and attending conference sessions. I'm convinced that self-promotion in this new world has to be targeted at the Internet first. That’s the fastest, easiest, and most efficient and far-reaching way to get in front of readers, and it doesn’t cost a thing… except, of course, time, at least a few hours a week.

Here are some tips from my experience and that of other ASJA authors that can help you jumpstart your own book publicity and keep it alive for years.

1. Aim your efforts at pumping up your online presence. Have an attractive, professional looking website for the important information about you, your book, and particularly how readers can benefit from your expertise. Also create a dynamic blog filled with compelling information on your topic. Don’t fall into the seductive trap of using it for random ramblings about this and that – stay on topic, and make your blog the place your readers will want to keep visiting because the quality of information drives them there.

2. Be sure your blog is topical to attract media, and make it easy for media to find and contact you. When ABC Nightline was seeking an expert on senior sexual health, they Googled the topic and found a blog entry where my readers and I discussed this controversial topic in detail. This led to my appearance on the show and in fact I was shown blogging and reading readers’ comments, my book strategically placed by my computer.

3. Find the other experts in your field and treat them as your valued colleagues and allies, not your competition. When I find an expert in an area of senior sexuality that would interest my blog readers, I ask for an interview, include a photo and bio, and link to the person’s website or blog.

4. Review other books on your topic on your blog. When I hear about a book that might interest my readers, I request a review copy (publicists are eager to provide review copies for active, on-topic bloggers, I’ve discovered), blog about the book, send a friendly note to the author with a link. Frequently this leads to a link to my blog from the author’s website, or a reciprocal review. Even when it doesn’t, my blog becomes a better and more credible resource for my readers because I’m not just promoting my own book.

5. Read other blogs and websites on your topic, and contribute thoughtful comments. I find most bloggers welcome comments and don’t mind that I identify myself with my book title and blog URL, as long as my comments are specific to their topic and beneficial to readers.

6. Increase readership of your blog by finding major sites that already attract your potential readers (in my case, http://www.SuddenlySenior.com and http://www.ELDR.com) and offer them a column or the opportunity to co-publish your blog. Be sure they agree that you retain all rights to your content, and each entry they publish will carry your bio and byline and link back to you.

7. Subscribe to HARO (Help a Reporter Out, http://www.helpareporter.com ), a free service that emails summaries of reporter needs to publicists and experts.

8. Subscribe to several Google Alerts : your own name, your book title, and your topic and its variations. You’ll get emails with links to any online mention of whatever words you selected. You’ll find out, for example, when an interview with you was syndicated in another newspaper, or when your book was reviewed by a freelancer, or when someone blogged about your topic (when that happens, do #5 above).

9. Even if your book release was long ago, let your publisher’s publicists know whenever you score any publicity. They’ll be grateful, and might be open to small requests from you, like continuing to fill review copy requests so these don’t have to come out of the books you’ve purchased.

10. Read books about book promotion, particularly those written or updated in the last few years so that they cover online strategies adequately. Here are some that have helped me particularly and are filled with Post-Its for future use:

a. Penny C. Sansevieri http://www.amarketingexpert.com , Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Marketing Your Book on the Internet. Indispensable guide to making your website and blog work most effectively to attract customers and sell your book.

b. Patrice-Anne Rutledge, http://www.websavvywriter.com , The Web-Savvy Writer: Book Promotion with a High-Tech Twist . Whether you’re just starting with Web promotion or you think you know it all, you’ll find suggestions you can put into action immediately.

c. Sandra Beckwith http://www.buildbookbuzz.com, Build Book Buzz Publicity Forms & Templates workbook. This eBook gives you templates for do-it-yourself publicity: press releases, tip sheets, virtual book tour, and much more.

d. John Kremer http://www.bookmarket.com, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, 6^th ed. Although this 700-page book has only 80 pages specifically about online marketing, it is so full of helpful information that you’ll find plenty of tips that apply to your book.

e. M.J. Rose and Angela Adair-Hoy, How to Publish and Promote Online . Although the authors both insist that this 2001 book is outdated, I found plenty of marvelous strategies that I hadn’t seen elsewhere.

More tips for online publicity from ASJA authors:

· Tina Tessina (http://www.tinatessina.com) gets good results by listing with PRleads ($100/month) and ProfNet, which have led to “a whole lot of press,” several paid columns, and free PR by answering questions on Yahoo!Personals dating site, and being a Redbook Love Network Expert. Tina has a huge online presence, including her blog, website, advice columns, psychotherapy and author listings, Amazon Connect, Facebook, and LinkedIn. She recommends several books that have helped her develop her promotion strategy: Author 101 by Rick Fishman and Robyn Freedman Spizman; The Frugal Book Promoter by Carolyn Howard-Johnson; and Blogwild! by Andy Wibbels.

· Jean Fain (http://www.jeanfain.com ) reports that her YouTube videos, especially her "Why A Twinkie?" video and a press release about it to her favorite editors got her coverage in her local newspapers, including the The Boston Globe , which then got syndicated nationwide. “From that, my audio CD sales increased, and I had to start a waiting list for my private psychotherapy practice,” says Jean. “And The Twinkie video keeps on giving. The Globe is making a video about my very interesting job as a hypnotherapist and including footage from the Twinkie video, which I expect will do more of the same to my burgeoning business.”

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Joan Price (http://www.joanprice.com/, email joan@joanprice.com) is the author of Better Than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk about Sex After Sixty and The Anytime, Anywhere Exercise Book: 300+ quick and easy exercises you can do whenever you want! Joan would be really happy if you’d visit her blog at http://www.betterthanieverexpected.blogspot.com and comment on any topic that interests you. (Yes, of course you may mention your book title and link back to your own blog or website.)

Medievalism, Writing, Triumph, Love and Loss

I have some miscellaneous items about medievalism and writing that I wanted to share today.

I picked up a copy of Time Magazine this week and laughed when I saw this quote:

"Even the patience of the brothers was being tested by our slow Internet."

-- Father Daniel Van Santvoort, Cistercian monk, on his Welsh monastery's decision to get broadband access.

The image of monks in my mind's eye is one of balding men wearing robes and diligently copying sacred texts with quills and parchment in candlelight or possibly tending gardens and making wine, all the while being subjected to periodic or extended vows of silence.

I did not imagine them surfing the net, sending email or complaining about the slowness of dial-up internet connections. I guess even the habits of monks evolve over time.



Gabriele Campbell has shared pictures of the Regenstein castle in Germany that shows a castle different from traditional stone fortresses because it is partially sculpted from the mountainside. She has two posts on that subject. Post one and Post two.

Her pictures of Regenstein castle remind me of the ruined fortress at Les Baux-de-Provence. I have to continue with my travelogue posts, and my day at Les Baux will be the subject for a future post, but in the meantime here are a few pictures of that site to illustrate my point.



You can see smooth portions of the mountain as well as bricks that are attached in order to achieve the shape of the fortress. Well, what is left of the fortress for it now stands in ruins.





Below we can see why this location was chosen besides having the natural resources of rock. Namely it has a strategic vantage point.




For those who are a part of the medieval blogosphere, you have probably already read Jeff Sypeck's analysis of the military conflict going on in Ossetia between the nations of Georgia and Russia. If you are one of my readers who is not a medievalist, I recommend you take a few minutes to read his post for it puts the current conflict into an historical perspective that spans more than a few centuries and actually goes back to the time of the Romans.

On other news, I discovered the other day that my friend Erika Mailman's book The Witch's Trinity is due to be released in paperback on October 7th, just in time for Halloween.

It is an historical novel that deals with the hysteria surrounding witch trials in Europe and uses the Malleus Maleficarum as inspiration of the various "tests" used to determine guilt or innocence of accused witches.

Erika's blog includes several different posts including woodcuts from that era along with passages from texts as "extras." Here are two that I think are well worth examining:

Precursor to the broom where shapeshifters are in animal forms on a stick while flying through the air and trampling the cross where witchcraft is seen as a reversal of Christian traditions.

And for some unknown reason, the reviews for her hardcover version no longer appear on Amazon.com.

Here is what I had posted before as my review which has somehow been "disappeared" by Amazonmort:

Human nature can be strange. The mentality of a mob for example, shows how brutal people can become when surrounded by others who are filled with passionate anger.

Erika Mailman shows us through the eyes of an elderly woman what it would have been like to live in the Middle Ages when witchcraft was thought to be the cause of any misfortune.

The famine described in this small village of Tierkinddorf, Germany is haunting. It made me feel strange reading the novel while having my lunch. I began to feel guilty knowing that the characters were willing to accuse others of witchcraft just to get a bite to eat.

A scapegoat was needed to place all the blame of the village's misfortune. It was thought that then, all things would revert back to days of plenty. That the famine would end.

The paranoia, the suspicion, the opportunity to point the finger of blame at someone whom you bear a grudge.

An accusation of milk spoiling was enough to damn someone to being burned to death, and you didn't even have to bring forth the spoiled milk as evidence. Your word was enough, if coupled with other such scurrilous complaints, to condemn someone to death.

Given today's sensibilities the thought of public execution is abhorrent. However, it is a gruesome part of our history that drawing and quarterings, beheadings, hangings, and burning at the stake were all done in the village square to serve as a lesson to all.

Beware or it may happen to you.

The Witch's Trinity is a potent tale whose ending surprised me.

I highly recommend it.

You can pre-order a copy here.

Speaking of friends and books...Lee Lofland, author of Police Procedure and Investigation: A Guide for Writers, alerted me to an interview this past week where he was a guest on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation. The subject was about ethics in police interrogations and its genesis was due to the accusation that the intense and/or obsessive scrutiny by the F.B.I. in regards to the Anthrax murders led to the suicide of Dr. Bruce Ivins.

Gus Van Zandt was also on that show and you can listen to that interview here.

Closer to my home, Gil Mansergh reviews the movie Bottle Shock which is a Hollywoodized version of the events in Paris in 1976 when a California wine shocked the wine world when it beat the French wines in a competition. Gil then created a list of movies which includes mentions of wine. He even included the Muppet Movie's mention of a fine Idaho wine.

Another item of local (and national) interest is Sonoma County's own Levi Leipheimer winning a bronze medal in the Summer Olympics in the Men's Cycling Time Trials.

I was unhappy with the organizers of the Tour de France disqualifying the Astana team from participating in this year's tour. They were punishing Astana for the actions of former riders who were caught doping, but by not allowing that team to compete it penalized Levi and Alberto Contador who had just signed with the team and had never been linked to cheating.

Sonoma County will be looking forward to having another grand celebration to welcome Levi home as we did in 2007 when he place third in the Tour de France.

Santa Rosa loves cycling and it shows. We have been a part of the Amgen Tour of California since it started three years ago, and have had the largest crowds of any city in the tour. So we will once again be included in that race and will root for our Favorite Son Levi to win the stage and stand at the winner's podium.


Life in the cosmic sense delivers good news and bad news sometimes close together. So while I am celebrating on behalf of Levi's success in life, I am also honoring the life of someone who passed away recently.

Joan Price is a writer in my community who was a guest speaker for my writers club and brought along her husband Robert to the meeting. He did not say much, but it was evident there was a strong love between them. Joan recently posted notice on her blog of Robert's death from cancer.

They had seven years together as a couple.

It was a love that she waited years for. She had other relationships, but none like the one she had with Robert. In her time of mourning, people are telling her that they envy her for having had such a powerful love relationship because they have never experienced such a thing.

Her reply? It is never too late for love.

She also posted in her comment trail how the gift of poetry can help in such a time of profound loss.

For example, a man I barely knew recited from memory a 12th century poem about love and loss that starts:

Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.

I wish everyone the ability to love with their full heart and have that joy unconditionally returned by another. Even if the time with your beloved does not last for your entire life, the love will.

Be well,

Linda

Good news from some of my writing friends

I've mentioned before that I love being in a community of writers, because it helps to inspire my own writing. So much has happened recently (or will be happening) for friends of mine that I thought I should take the time to recognize them in one post.

Starting with...Ms. Joan Price who spoke in January at a meeting of my writer's club. She was named "Best and Mightiest Aphrodite" AKA "mature and wrinkly sex kitten" by the Bohemian newspaper. Hopefully it'll help bring more people to read her blog and buy her lively and engaging book, Better than I Ever Expected: Straight Talk About Sex After Sixty.

Ari Siletz, another guest who spoke at a meeting of our club, will be back in print soon. His wonderful book The Mullah with No Legs and Other Stories is being reprinted and should be available for purchase again soon. You should also check out his blog, he recently wrote a thoughtful review of the movie "300" and showed just how inaccurate it was from an historical perspective. I'll post again on this subject once the book is available.

My friend John Granger will be a featured presenter at a conference in June in Lancaster, California. I am hopeful that I will be able to attend, and be able to finally meet someone that I've corresponded with by email for the last four years. I recently received an autographed copy of his latest book which is Unlocking Harry Potter: Keys for the Serious Reader. I haven't had the chance to read it from cover to cover yet, but as always it is thought provoking because John provides insights regarding literary alchemy of which I am unfamiliar. Please check it out along with his other recent book, Who Killed Albus Dumbledore which is a collection of essays analyzing clues from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. If nothing else, please stop by his blog, Hogwarts Professor and check out some of his entries which allow for reader interaction with your thoughts and theories about the series.

Erika Mailman has a novel that has launched named A Woman of Ill Fame. It is through the eyes of a prostitute in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. She talks about the difficulties of researching and writing historical fiction in this posting on her blog. She has one more reading scheduled for her book which is next Wednesday, April 4th at Black Oak Books in Berkeley. After that, I think she'll be just waiting for her latest addition: a baby!

Then next September Erika has another book coming out in September titled The Witch's Trinity by Crown/Random House. It is about a medieval German woman accused of witchcraft. Another historical novel about a strong woman. Huzzah!

Now I'd like to share a funny story about both my friend Erika and another friend Lee Lofland. Erika and I first met at a writers conference in 2000 when we shared a room, and had asked the conference organizers to find us a roommate. We got along wonderfully. So much so that in 2004 we decided to room again together at the East of Eden Writers Conference. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, and were enjoying our chat trying to catch up with each other. I had wanted to go to a "night owls" session on Friday night because one sounded interesting. It was a police procedural question and answers session given by a retired homicide detective. Neither Erika nor I wrote mysteries, but you never know when a piece of information gleaned might come in handy.

Erika and I arrived late to the session because of our gabfest. I thought we could just sneak into the back of the room and not disturb anyone. WRONG. The room was set up so that the door was at the front. We walked in and saw a crowded room with no chairs and everyone facing us.

We slunk onto the floor at the front and tried not to be too embarrassed for arriving late and disrupting the proceedings. There were many questions Lee fielded with aplomb and then he was asked what he thought of "reality shows" such as "Cops." Lee grew disgusted and said that it was all fake, a pack of lies, etc. I was feeling a bit facetious, raised my hand and tried to sound as innocent as possible and asked:

"What about Reno 911?" (For those unfamiliar with the show, it's a comedy that spoofs shows like "Cops.")

Lee looked me directly in the eye and said, "That one's true. It's just like my old squad back in Virginia."

Then he laughed and began regaling tales about some of their personalities.

The next night I ran into Lee again, we chatted and laughed, exchanged cards and have corresponded ever since.

Lee's first book Police Procedure and Investigation: A Guide for Writers is due out in July from Writers Digest Books.

Another writer friend, and former guest speaker to my club is Jordan Rosenfeld also has a forthcoming book from Writers Digest. It is Make a Scene: Creating a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time, due out in November.

Jordan had created a radio show on KRCB our local public radio station entitled "Word by Word"where she interviewed authors. She moved away and there has not been a new show in quite a while. However, there will be a new host starting in April, and he is a member of my writers club the Redwood Writers Branch. As soon as more details are available to the general public, I will share them.

Shelley Singer, who will be our guest speaker in April, has a new novel Black Jack due out in June under the pseudonym of Lee Singer.

And last, but certainly not least, I stumbled across this the other day as I was surfing the internet. Donna Woolfolk Cross's novel Pope Joan had been selected as the Book of the Month for discussion by the Historical Fiction forums. I'll have to join that website, if for no other reason than to post my thoughts on her engaging and provocative historical novel.

I had the good fortune to meet Donna back in 1998 when she offered to do a reading and book signing. Due to her own tenacity for marketing her novel, her book is now in its seventeenth printing. Utterly amazing. I talked about the method she used in my first ever blog post which can be read here.

Once again, congrats to all my friends!

Linda

Sex, Blogs and National TV

Last night we had a wonderful meeting for my writers club, one of the best ever. It was due in no small part to our guest Joan Price and her amazing story of how her latest book Better Than I Ever Expected: straight talk about sex after sixty came about, and how her blog led to a recent appearance on ABC’s “Nightline.”

First off, Joan had written five books about health and fitness and was in the process of promoting her book, The Anytime, Anywhere Exercise Book when she got a call from her publisher’s publicist saying that she was trying to get Joan booked as a guest on a cable show in New York City called, “Naked New York.” The cable show dealt with sex issues, and did Joan have any exercises that were good for sex? Joan said yes, and then the publicist asked for a hook to grab the producers.

Joan answered, “Tell them I’m 59 years old and I’m having the best sex of my life!”

That did it.

She was booked as a guest. Joan thought she’d be able to get on the show and then ease on into talking about fitness. WRONG. They wanted to talk about sex.

As she sat in the Green Room waiting to go on as their last guest for the show, she kept hearing them promote her appearance before and after each commercial break with “And coming up, Joan Price who is 59 years old and having the best sex of her life.”

She said it made her sound like a freak.

Joan went on the show, and she did get to talk about fitness. For about ten seconds or so. They did mention and show her book, but mainly they wanted to ask her about having the best sex of her life as a woman in her late fifties.

She came home from that experience and talked with her lover (now husband) about it. She then started researching the market and found that there really weren’t any books about sex and the older woman where the subject was treated as anything other than a medical malady. Robert suggested that she write her own book on the subject.

Joan thought seriously about the idea. She bounced it off her agent, who felt that Joan’s expertise was in fitness books. She suggested that Joan consider ghost writing a book on sex.

Then comes the great part that I just love: Opportunity came looking for Joan.

She had a cover story article appear about fitness in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine

and the Saturday after it was published, an acquisitions editor from Seal Press read Joan’s article. She liked it. She liked Joan’s voice. She went to her computer and looked to see what she could find out about Joan, and found Joan’s website.

The editor picked up the phone and called Joan, introduced herself and said that Seal Press published women’s titles, but doesn’t publish fitness nor self-help books. She then asked Joan if there were any other ideas for a book she had been dying to write.

BINGO.

Joan pitched the idea of writing a positive book about sexuality as you age. The twenty-something editor loved the idea.

Then, she told Joan that they were going to have a meeting on Tuesday to decide titles to acquire for the upcoming year. Could Joan have a book proposal to her by the next day?

That could have been the end of the story, because Joan had written book proposals before and knew exactly how much work went into book proposals and knew that it was an impossible task to start from scratch and have a full proposal done in less than 24 hours. And have it done right. She demurred due to the timing.

The editor then offered to help, because she knew exactly what was needed in order to convince the other people in the meeting.

A few days later, Joan had a contract to start writing the book.

Amazing, huh?

I had heard part of that story back in September when I met Joan at the Sonoma County Book Festival I was there with other writers representing the Redwood Writers branch of the California Writers Club, and Ana Manwaring told me that I had to meet Joan Price. She thought Joan was a kick in the pants.

I went over to Joan’s booth and started schmoozing. I was talking up the writers club and wanted to see if there was some angle for Joan to be a speaker for our writers group. We don’t want our meetings to be simply a series of book signings. No, there has to be something regarding the business of writing and publishing that will be informative for other writers.

In our conversation I casually asked Joan if she had a website or blog, because our October meeting was on the topic of literary websites and blogs. It was then she told me the story of how her website led to a book contract. After she told me that story, she wanted to make sure that I didn’t just think it was good luck on her part.

Hardly. I knew that for that to happen she had to have worked her tail off to have a presence on the web, and to make herself as an author known. And that hard work paid off.

I had her scheduled to speak as our guest, and then the producers of ABC’s “Nightline” decided to do a story about the Baby Boomers, sexuality and susceptibility to AIDS/HIV. They didn’t go through a stack of press releases from publicists to find Joan. Nope, they surfed the web and they found her blog.

A producer called Joan, identified herself as being from ABC Television said the magic words, “I’d like to chat with you about…”

Joan knew enough that this was their screening process to see whether or not she would be a good guest. The producer would decide based on that phone conversation if Joan could speak in sound bites and give pithy answers that would make good television.

Joan passed the pre-interview hurdle. Later the interview was scheduled and a film crew was hired from Marin County to do the filming of the segment, and a producer from New York flew out to interview Joan. They spent close to six hours with Joan filming her at house, watching her teach line dancing and also interviewing her. All that and Joan’s appearance in the segment amounted to only about two and a half minutes on the nationally televised show.

Then came the waiting game. Joan told me about her upcoming appearance and while I was excited for her, I also knew from the experience of friends of mine that “things happen” with TV appearances. Both friends were on nationally televised shows, but their appearances were blacked out in the local viewing area due to major news events pre-empting their shows. GRRRR.

This was back in the early 1990s and long before You Tube, the internet, etc. I never saw the shows.

Anyway, Joan found out that nationally televised news show have their own inherent rules for schedules. Such as breaking news of national importance trumps “evergreen” stories that can be aired anytime. Her show was scheduled and rescheduled several times. Hours after Joan sent out email alerts telling people to watch for her that night, she’d get word it wouldn’t be airing that night after all.

After several iterations on this schedule/reschedule theme, the show aired. She had a nice bump in traffic to her blog, and then a nationally syndicated radio show of irresponsible shock jocks heard about her appearance. Then her positive national exposure turned ugly.

Because these “forty-somethings” somehow think that sex by “sixty-somethings” is sick. And they turned their dim witted listeners into trolls who spammed her blog with filthy, disgusting, age-ist flames.

As if neither of the radio shock jocks want to have a satisfying sex life when they reach their sixties, and none of their single digit IQ fans can imagine reaching that milestone either.

Joan tracked down the source of the trolling from a fan website of the radio show, and then saw some of their own online comments to one another. Infantile and despicable.

The hosts of the radio show then had the nerve to call Joan and ask if she wanted to come on the air as a guest. She turned them down flat.

I’m glad she did. I know how talk radio works because I’ve listened to it, been a caller and guest for that medium for about fifteen years. The hosts control the microphone, and they can cut you off at any time. After you are no longer on-air, they can sit and trash you for as long as they like. Going on with a hostile host is always a dicey proposition, and their listening audience was not Joan’s target market.

It would have been a waste of her time, and most likely a negative experience.

Furthermore, I’m thinking that those men/adolescent boys who made such sick comments about sexuality and aging need to realize that Karma can be a Real Bitch.

Joan wound up deleting the horrible comments on her blog, but unfortunately it was the same day that she received coverage by a local newspaper columnist telling about her appearance on national television and gave her blog address.

She just hopes there weren’t too many people who read the nasty-gram laden comment trail before she had a chance to delete them. She also changed her blog to screen comments before they are posted for the public to see.

Joan told us her story last night with verve, candor and great humor.

Our meeting room was packed, and we kept having people show up throughout the meeting. It was a great night for networking and for learning about how with persistence, hard work and talent that you can sometimes create your own good luck.

Thanks Joan!

Linda

Oh, and her book is a riot. I came home and started reading it. Funny, honest and energetic. Just like Joan.

Here's another perspective on that fabulous meeting from another writer who I'm still working on becoming a member.