Authors Afterburner is the post-game show where we get to talk about whatever’s on our minds. Please note dear listener that this is not the regular Authors Access show and we don’t promise anything much except to present our news and views of interest to authors and publishers. So let’s light the afterburners and see what’s on our minds tonight….

Tyler and Victor consider whether the conventional press release is dead in the era of New Media and if so what to do about it. This discussion was inspired by the latest issue of Book Marketing Expert Newsletter.

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On July 9th, 2009 Victor R. Volkman and Tyler Tichelaar spoke with digital book guru Dan Oja on how digital and print media are converging. Dan is owner of Media Technics Corporation and has produced more than 200 college computer textbooks and is the author of a non-fiction World War II book titled Ordinary Heroes: Six Stars in the Window.  He has developed a multimedia book authoring system called BookOn which augments PDF documents with video and other interactive hooks.  Dan spoke with us about how he developed his proprietary system and what he sees for the future of digital publishing beyond the current PDF and Kindle paradigms.

Dan Oja was born in Ishpeming, Michigan and attended Ishpeming High School and Northern Michigan University. He has been working with computers since the early days of personal computers, back to the days of CP/M and the Apple II. Dan has written numerous computer programs including the BookOn digital publishing system. Dan currently lives in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands with his wife and co-author, June Parsons.

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On May 14th, 2009 Victor R. Volkman and Tyler Tichelaar spoke with Internet marketing entrepreneur Irene Watson on how to effectively engage the persona (or archetype) of the visitors to your website. She has been effective in online marketing since 2004, learning and implementing various techniques to promote her books and businesses. We talked about The importance of website presence, Making the site about your visitor (not you), Designing your site to fit a specific purpose and pattern of interaction, and Tailoring your site to improve response to specific Myers-Briggs typed personas.

Irene Watson is the managing editor of Reader Views, Reader Views Kids, and Inside Scoop Live. She also maintains BloggingAuthors.com. She is the author of The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference, and co-editor of A Story That Must Be Told and Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers.During this interview, we mentioned the following essential books: Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results - Bryan Eisenberg & Jeffrey Eisenberg Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web - Jon Wuebben

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Today Tyler R. Tichelaar is pleased to interview Irene Watson and Victor Volkman, his co-editors of the new book Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers.

Irene Watson is an author, entrepreneur, and former therapist and educator. She currently is the owner and Managing Editor of Reader Views, Reader Views Kids, and Inside Scoop Live, and a co-host on Authors Access Internet Radio. Irene holds her Master’s Degree from Regis University in Denver, CO and a Bachelor’s Degree from St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX. She is the president of Higher Power Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to awarding scholarships to people seeking recovery. Irene’s expertise in the publishing industry comes from being an author herself as well as managing an online book review service. Reader Views offers book reviews, author publicity, and many other elements needed by authors and writers. Irene also coaches authors to write book proposals and is a literary agent. Irene lives with her husband in Austin, Texas. Her memoir “The Sitting Swing: Finding Wisdom to Know the Difference” is currently in its second edition
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Victor R. Volkman began his writing career in the late 1980s writing for computer programming journals such as “Windows Developer’s Journal” as well as original books on the programming. Loving Healing Press, founded in 2003, has published dozens of cutting-edge books that promote its mission of “redefining what is possible for healing mind and spirit.” As such, he has produced a series of books on Traumatic Incident Reduction as well as empowering other authors in a wide range of helping areas including trauma recovery, self-esteem, physical disabilities, sexual abuse recovery, and much more. He has produced and edited more than 200 podcasts for “Authors Access” and a variety of other author-related shows. In 2007, LHP spun off a new imprint Modern History Press dedicated to empowering authors to speak about surviving conflict and seeking identity in modern times. When not publish
ing, he enjoys spending time with his wife Marian K. Volkman, a formidable author in her own right.

Tyler: Welcome, Victor and Irene. I’m very excited to interview both of you today, and of course, I was honored to work with both of you since we are the three editors of “Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers.” However, both the Internet Radio Show and the book based on the program were the brain-child of the two of you, so it’s fitting I sit back and listen to the two of you discuss what you initially envisioned for the program and why you chose to turn the radio interviews into a book on publishing and writing. So let’s get started. To begin, will you give us a little history of how the radio show Authors Access began and what were its initial goals?

Irene: Victor and I met nearly 3 years ago through Reader Views. He, being a publisher, submitted books to us for review. Through this connection we came up with the idea of interviewing experts in the field of publishing. Because of Reader Views, I already knew many experts and how to contact them. Victor’s expertise in mixing and publishing podcasts made us a great team. Our initial goal was to give an opportunity for experts to share their information with writers who wanted to self-publish their books. Over the past two years, Authors Access just kept evolving. As to where it goes from here, we don’t know. However, I do know we are picking up new listeners every week. We get about 1000 global listeners on a weekly basis.

Tyler: What led to the decision to produce a book based on the podcast interviews. How did the book develop and how did you choose which people would contribute?

Victor: Irene and I were approaching our 2nd anniversary of the Authors Access podcast show and we kind of sat back and brainstormed ideas on how to bring all this knowledge to more writers in an easy-to-digest package. Although our podcast catalog of shows has more than 1,000 listeners per week, we knew that potentially a much bigger audience was out there. At first, we thought about simply getting transcripts but what passes for interesting conversation isn’t the same as good reading. And so Irene, who manages all our contact with the guests, put out the call in Summer 2008 for papers from all our prior guests.

Authors Access: 30 Success Secrets for Authors and Publishers is actually the fourth anthology I’ve edited. Every anthology is a unique experience: you put out the call for papers and you never know who is going to answer the call. I count us extremely fortunate that we were able to attract 24 different contributors for this volume. These are all very busy and very successful people so it’s quite an honor for them to have written for us. The great majority of them have 20 to 30 years of experience in writing, marketing, and publishing AND they’re willing to share their lessons-learned and best practices. So I’m really in awe of our contributors. I’m happy to say that we accepted 100% of the submissions and some people, like our frequent co-host Tyler Tichelaar, went above-and-beyond the call of duty by turning in multiple papers. That’s how we got “30” success secrets from 24 guests!

Editing an anthology is a lot like casting a play. The framework of a play is its script and in the case of this anthology the framework was the lifecycle of a book. A play might have three acts, but we knew we wanted it to progress in the orderly fashion of the ideal book schedule. So I weighted the genre-specific writing tips in the beginning, editing articles toward the middle, and marketing/branding/promotion at the back end along with ways to leverage your book into new media.

Tyler: What does “Authors Access” offer that many of the popular books on writing and publishing don’t?

Victor: Critic Francine Silverman (Book Promotion Newsletter) said it best: “Each of the 30 articles is a workshop in itself.” In a conventional book about writing, marketing, or publishing, you’re getting the viewpoint and expertise of one (maybe two) people who have a very narrow focus of expertise. It just isn’t possible for one person to experience everything there is to know about writing AND marketing AND publishing. So in a nutshell, we have strength in numbers. Sure, if you’re writing a book you can research your subject but our contributors have LIVED their subject matter. Because we have subject experts, they can go really deep into material you would only expect to find at a writer’s conference. To be concrete, Janet Lane Walters’ article “Don’t Murder Your Mystery” actually works like having her sit over your shoulder pointing out areas for improvement in your plot, dialog, backstory usage, and word choice. She also provides an amazing consistency and quality checklist called

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On October 9th, 2008, Irene Watson and Tyler Tichelaar spoke with book industry expert Carol Denbow.  She educated on the intense competition in the book industry, book writing as a business, how to construct a book plan, researching and choosing the right publishing option, and marketing your book with creative sales avenues.
Carol Denbow is the author of three books including, “A Book Inside: How to Write, Publish, and Sell Your Story” released in Fall 2008. She is the founder of Plain & Simple books, LLC, has been interviewed numerous times on radio and television, and is the editor of nine Websites, including a very popular Web site amongst writers A Book Inside Blog

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On Thursday, September 18th, 2008 Irene Watson and Victor R. Volkman spoke with Tyler Tichelaar, author, entrepreneur, and current president of the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Assocation. Tyler R. Tichelaar holds a Ph.D. in Literature from Western Michigan University, and Bachelor and Master’s Degrees from Northern Michigan University. He has lectured on writing and literature at Clemson University, the University of Wisconsin, and the University of London as well as at several conferences across the country.  Tyler spoke to us about key aspects of author/publisher associations including:  how does an association get started, what are the differences between regional and national associations, what do people get out of being a member, how can a regional association leverage media and publicity opportunities, how to get involved, and how to host special events/conferences.

Tyler is a regular guest host of Authors Access Internet Radio and Associate Editor at Reader Views. He is the author of the regionally bestselling Marquette Trilogy, a family saga covering seven generations between 1849-1999 and centering on the pioneers who settled Upper Michigan. The trilogy consists of the novels: “Iron Pioneers,” “The Queen City,” and “Superior Heritage.” He also recently published his fourth novel, “Narrow Lives.”

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On September 4th, 2008 Tyler Tichelaar and Victor R. Volkman  spoke with publicist and industry veteran Alice B. Acheson about marketing on the cheap. Alice has been an independent marketing and publishing specialist working with large and small publishers since 1981. Alice answered some tough questions including, Is there really any publicity that costs pennies? How do I get started with publicity plans? What are some publicity ideas that truly cost nothing? How can I find organizations interested in hearing me speak? What about awards, postcards, bookmarks, tradeshows, and mailings?

Alice has worked as both editor and publicist, negotiating book contracts, and selling subsidiary rights. Four recipients of her publicity prowess have appeared simultaneously on the The New York Times bestseller list.She is particularly proud of her efforts for OLD TURTLE by Doug Wood, the author’s first book from a publisher who had never published a children’s book and never nationally marketed any of their books. It won the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year and sold 800,000 copies prior to its sale to Scholastic. For her efforts Alice was given the Literary Market Place Outside Services Award for Advertising, Promotion, and Publicity.

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On Thursday, July 17th 2008 Victor R. Volkman and Tyler Tichelaar spoke with Jim and Linda Salisbury of Tabby House press about smart self-publishing ideas: tips and techniques for becoming successful without spending a ton of money. We covered essential knowledge for self-publishers and a lot of specifics about Children’s Books, a particular area of expertise for Tabby House.  Specifically, how to make your book conform to industry standards (and hence be sell-able), how to understand your market, effective no-cost and low-cost marketing and promotion techniques, and making money outside of the bookstore arena.

Jim and Linda are authors of “Smart Self-Publishing: An author’s guide to producing a marketable book” now in its third edition. The book has been mentioned in both Newsweek and BottomLine Personal.  Listen up to this podcast and find out how to get a FREE copy of this $16.95 book for just the nominal charge of $6.00.Jim is the publisher at Tabby House now based in Central Virginia, and was president of the Florida Publishers Association for many years. He and Linda offer self-publishing seminars in libraries, bookstores and for writers’ groups. They are members of FPA, Publishers Association of the South, and Independent Book Publishers Association (formerly Publishers Marketing Association).Linda is the author of the juvenile fiction Bailey Fish Adventure series, which has won four national honors. The sixth book in the series will be out this fall, and she has another environmentally orien ted children’s book to be released soon. She is a former journalist and a free-lance writer.

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On Thursday, October 25th, 2007 Tyler Tichelaar and Victor Volkman spoke with writer, journalist, and researcher Liz Carmack. Her love for heritage travel and her desire to provide travelers with a practical reference to Texas’ historic hotels inspired her to write Historic Hotels of Texas: A Traveler’s Guide. Liz shared her hard-won experience and real-life stories of how to define your topic and its scope, identifying and exploiting research and information sources, how to work with an archival library, planning your time to be most effective, developing a useful information filing system, and how to maintain a sense of fun and curiousity about it all.

During her research, Liz traveled more than 20,000 miles across Texas to visit the 64 hotels featured in her book. Liz interviewed local historians, innkeepers and hotel guests, and uncovered historic hotel details in archives, libraries and museums.Liz is a freelance technical and business writer for the public and private sectors in Austin, Texas, and is principal of Liz Carmack Communications. Her travel articles have appeared in Texas Highways, Austin Woman, A, and Heritage magazines. A former newspaper journalist, she is the Austin City Expert for homeandabroad.com.

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Tyler R. Tichelaar holds a Master’s from Northern Michigan University and a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University. His family’s long relationship with Upper Michigan and his avid interest in genealogy inspired Dr. Tichelaar to write his Marquette Trilogy about his hometown. Along the way, he has become an acknowledged expert on Regional Writing.  Tyler will be speaking with us about what Regional Writing is and how you can take advantage of regional markets.  We’ll also talk about key ingredients for success in regional fiction and how you can get started in this fun and challenging genre.

Tyler/s  trilogy covers 150 years of Marquette, Michigan’s history from the town’s founding in 1849 through its sesquicentennial celebrations in 1999. The titles in the trilogy are “Iron Pioneers”, “The Queen City”, and the soon to be released “Superior Heritage”. Tyler hopes his writing stimulates others to seek out and gain strength from their own family stories and the courage and uniqueness of the people who came before them.  You can learn more about him at www.MarquetteFiction.com

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