Sat., May 21, 2016 • 2–3:30pm • Writers Panel • New York City
American Society of Journalists & Authors  (ASJA)
45 East 45th Street at Madison Avenue

Transit: 7, F or M7 bus 

The Latest Social Media Tricks: What Works, What’s a Turnoff

Our panel of editors and social media experts will teach you what works and what doesn’t. There’s never enough time in a writer’s life. It can be overwhelming without tips and tricks for efficiency. Don’t waste valuable hours. We’ll cover ways to maximize your efforts with titles, tags, topics, keywords, SEO, naming images and how Google rankings work. Editors will tell you how and what to pitch.
HERE’S HOW TO REGISTER FOR #ASJA2016
Speakers
Sacha Scoblic Zimmerman, senior editor at The Atlantic and author of the memoir UNWASTED: MY LUSH SOBRIETY. Her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Fix, The Guardian, Reader’s Digest, and The New York Times, where she penned essays for the Times blog “PROOF: Alcohol and American Life.”
Marcelle Soviero, editor-in-chief for the award-winning Brain, Child: The Magazine for Thinking Mothers which publishes 20-plus essays per month at competitive rates. She’s the author of AN IRIDESCENT LIFE. She has published essays in The New York Times, Salon and more. Soviero is also a writing coach who teaches how to get published.

Estelle Sobel Erasmus, an award-winning journalist, author, editing/writing coach, and former magazine editor-in-chief of five publications. She’s worked as top editor at American Woman and beauty editor at Woman’s World magazine. Her work appears in Salon, Newsweek, Redbook, Washington Post and Marie Claire and she’s a 3-time BlogHer Voice of the Year.

Russell D. Bernstein is an author who expertly utilizes social media to expand his fan base and maintain a successful website at www.bullytalks.com. His mastery of social media has increased his sales tremendously and rocketed his books to bestseller status. His social media tips will include the powers of multi-tasking and pursuing your dreams.

And me: Dorri Olds, a freelance writer, webmaster, and social media expert, who has been published in The New York Times, The Fix, The Forward, Book Anthologies and more. Check out my social media stats!
• YouTube 736K views
• Twitter 35K
• Facebook 5K
… and interviewed on Dr. Drew, NY1, and 7 On Your Side

The post Social Media Tricks: What Works, What’s a Turnoff appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

The Latest Social Media Tricks: What Works, What’s a Turnoff

Our panel of editors and social media experts will teach you what works and what doesn’t. There’s never enough time in a writer’s life. It can be overwhelming without tips and tricks for efficiency. Don’t waste valuable hours. We’ll cover ways to maximize your efforts with titles, tags, topics, keywords, SEO, naming images and how Google rankings work. Editors will tell you how and what to pitch.
HERE’S HOW TO REGISTER FOR #ASJA2016
Here are my as-of-now confirmed speakers for my Sat, May 21, 2-3:30pm panel at the #ASJA2016 annual conference:

The post SAVE THE DATE Saturday, May 21, 2016 ASJA Annual Writers Conference appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

UPublishU at BEA Conference • 5/30 at 1:30pm

“Connecting to Readers—With Social Media”

Tools & Marketing Mania
Time 1:30pm-2:20pm
Room 1E08

So many readers, so little time to make the right connection. For authors with busy schedules, and always working on the next book, it is important to find ways to connect with your loyal readers and engage with new readers. Join this panel of industry professionals as they share opportunities and tools that will help you stay productive and reach readers. Learn how to use Hootsuite to connect your readers all while making your writing life easier. Get insight into new ways to find and share content that can raise awareness about your book and engage in direct promotion. Learn how to schedule posts, manage your writing announcements, monitor your mentions, and engage your readers. Get insight on specific steps authors can (and should) take to expand their profile, their brand, and their platform with unique social sharing strategies.

Moderator:
Susannah Greenberg, President, Susannah Greenberg Public Relations
Speakers:
Denise Alicea, Book Blogger and Professional Freelancer
Daniel Langston, Co-founder and the Chief Sales Officer for BookGrabbr
Dorri Olds, Award-winning Writer and Webmaster

The post Connecting to Readers—With Social Media appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

CLICK TO REGISTER

ASJA 2015 Conference: Connect for Success at the Roosevelt Hotel (map)
May 1, 2015 • 11AM – 12:15PM

Use Social Media to Land Writing Gigs and Make Money (session: F06)

Most  hard-working professionals feel like there’s never enough time in a day. Between deadlines, creative pursuits, and trying to have a life, who has time to blog, update their website and keep up with social media?

In this session you will learn how to use your time efficiently to get the best results. You will be given tips and tricks based on hard-won experience. We’ll talk about the best tools to use for your specific goals and how to stand out online amidst worldwide competition.

You’ll learn about improving your website, blogs, and social media accounts. Find out the different language and etiquette for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Reddit, Google+ and YouTube. And, most importantly, you’ll learn how to use social media to make more money.

Dorri Olds, panel organizer, speaker and ASJA member • www.DorriOlds.com • @DorriOlds

Here are some of my social media stats (as of April 10, 2015): YouTube: 470,000 views (yes, that’s almost half a million!); Twitter: 33,5 followers; Facebook: 4,000 (likes and followers). My areas of expertise include freelance writing, social media marketing, web design and WordPress. I will discuss:

• Social Media Etiquette and the differences across platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube).
  Yes, there is a difference.
• Tips and Tricks: How to use your time efficiently and get the best results. Groups, hashtags, comments, blogging, linking, networking and the way money streams come my way all the time.
• How I’ve landed writing gigs through social media
• What to do and what NOT to do

Most Important Rule: Do not scream, “Look at me! Look at me!” Instead, pay attention to the people you want to connect with. Most editors are writers too. Google them, read some of their articles, compliment them. Share their posts and tag them, retweet their tweets, leave comments on their LinkedIn posts. That is the best way to introduce yourself. One of the biggest mistakes I see writers make is to contact me on Facebook or Twitter and tell me what book they wrote and to please like their page. It’s annoying that they introduced themselves by asking me to take time out of my swamped schedule to do something for them. Why would anybody want to stop what they’re doing for a complete stranger? But! If they’ve commented on my articles or shared my Facebook posts and retweeted my tweets, I will notice them and there’s an excellent chance that I’ll remember them and want to respond. That is how the best connections begin.

MEET MY WONDERFUL SPEAKERS:

Kirsten Koza, author, humorist, journalist and editor www.kirstenkoza.com • @KirstenKoza

Kirsten says: I will discuss Facebook Pages and how to target the right followers and attract publishers. Attend this panel discussion and you could win a waterproof, shockproof Nikon camera and memory card as part of a demonstration on how to quickly grow a Facebook Page of ideal followers using simple techniques such as raffles.

This editor admits it: I just finished reading thousands of stories to make my selection of 30 for a Travelers’ Tales anthology, and at times the writer’s social networking reach was a factor in my decision making process. Of course the story still has to be great, but if it comes down to a tie breaker and one writer has an audience of followers through social networking and I know they’re going to promote their work, then that will sway my choice. Publishers want their stories to be read. The writer is part of that process.

Hot Tips:

1. Facebook Pages have improved how you can target followers. But you still need to avoid click farms.
   See this video re click farms which are sometimes called the sweatshops of social media: www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag.Avoiding fake accounts LIKING your page can be done easily by selecting the countries you target. You can also select specific interests and hobbies when attracting new followers, or when promoting a story or book.
2. If someone follows your page and you suspect they are a fake account, delete them. Facebook sends your posts out to a certain percentage of your followers and you want those followers to be real.
3. Keep your page interesting and alive. Find your angle. Share material that benefits not just you but your followers.
4. Be generous to other writers on your Page and they’ll promote you on theirs.
5. You don’t know when a story is going to go viral but you can help spread it with a catchy teaser and social networking. And, yes, it is possible to be your own pimp without looking like one by following step 3.

I have 8,600 targeted followers on my Writers’ Expeditions Facebook Page. They consist of travelers, writers, editors and photographers. Through these 8,600 I can reach 100,000. I look forward to sharing what I’ve learned with you.

Tom Miller, Literary Agent, Greenburger • @ThomasWMiller

As an agent, I particularly look for writers who have substantial presences on Twitter and LinkedIn. If an author has 5,000 or more Twitter followers, and if he or she tweets interesting and on-point tweets 2–3 times a day, I take notice. So do publishers — believe me! I also notice an author who has a well-populated and impressive LinkedIn page. I’m not particularly impressed when an author says, “I have 1,000+ Facebook friends” about her or his FB personal page (nor are publishers), but I do notice when an author has an active and well-populated FB fan page with a lot of interactivity on it.

• Join Twitter and tweet about your writing 2–3 times a day. Follow writers you admire and retweet salient tweets from them. Use hashtags judiciously and strategically.
• Start a Facebook fan page for your writing. Invite the friends you think will respond and who can share your posts to their friends and contacts. It’s a matter of getting as many people engaged about your writing as possible.
• On LinkedIn, it’s actually OK to send LinkedIn invitations to people you want to connect with even if you don’t know them personally. Just don’t hound those people relentlessly or send them inappropriate messages. Upgrade to LinkedIn Premium if you want extra benefits.

Nikki M. Mascali, Editor in Chief, TheBlot Magazine • @NikkiMMascali

My areas of expertise are editing, writing, setting editorial calendars and hiring and working with freelancers. I’ll focus on:

• Branding yourself as a journalist
  You could have the perfect pitch that leads to the perfect story, but does any of it matter if no one sees it? Social media gives writers the tools they need to freely reach out to people with similar interests in an effort to self-promote their work and those at their respective outlets.
• Does the initial size of your social reach matter?
  Not necessarily. Sure, I want a writer that has tens of thousands of followers because, let’s face it, we’re all gunning for clicks, but one of the main things I look for as an editor is diligence in cultivating a social presence. As a writer’s body of work grows, so will their following across social media platforms — so long as they continue to seek out new ways to gain valued viewership.
• The king of self promotion for writers
  Twitter, by far, is the most valuable tool, especially for digital edition stories. Its forced use of the 140-character format is helping to establish a new breed of headline writers looking to instantly capture an audience. In fact, I credit my Twitter activity in the site’s early days for helping me become a more concise writer and editor.
• The worldwide pitch generator
  With so many voices spanning the web, digital media is not only a prominent way to promote your work, but to expand on it as well. Use social media as a springboard for story ideas by following subjects that you are interested in. Although most of your legwork will consist of fact checking, there is no other time in history that news can break faster than today’s digital age. I love getting a pitch from someone minutes after I saw that topic trending on social media.
• Reaching Sources
  Now that you have an idea on how to find, write and promote your story through social media outlets, you can start on expanding those articles using the same media. Sure you may have to still deal with publicists and agents, both of which could put speed bumps on the completion of your projects, but people of interest are commonly reachable through their social media channels. Don’t hesitate to reach out to potential sources directly — it may be the difference between your latest scoop and yesterday’s news.

Jason Gross, Social Media Manager, TheBlot Magazine, journalist and author • @jgrossnas

My area of expertise is marketing, promotion and branding. The points I will focus on are:

• Remember that social media platforms have a long memory and that employers (including publishing companies, agents) might search your accounts to see what kind of things you post there. What you say there can stay there, even if you delete it. The rule of thumb is: “Don’t say anything there you wouldn’t say in front of your mom.”
• Choose the social media platforms that are right for your needs and don’t over-extend yourself there. Usually good to pick 3–4 places to concentrate on.
• Arguments and disagreements on social media are fine. Flame wars are bad because they make you look bad even if you’re right.
• You don’t have to be a social media expert but it helps to keep up on the newest features on SM platforms so you can use them to your advantage. Some good sources for this are Mediabistro Social Media Newsfeed, Mashable’s Apps/Software and Adweek’s Social Times

The post ASJA Panel: Use Social Media to Land Writing Gigs and Make Money appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

The post Social Media to Land Writing Gigs & Make Money appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

 To learn more visit ASJA.org

The post American Society of Journalists & Authors (ASJA) Writers Panel on Thursday, April 24, 2014 appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

“Be Seen! Stand Out Online in the Most Time-Efficient & Cost-Effective Way”

If you’re feeling there’s never enough time to update your website and keep up with social media, blogging and marketing, this panel is for you. In this session Dorri Olds and panelists will teach you how to use your time efficiently to get the best results. You will be given tips and tricks based on hard-won experience including the best tools to use for your specific goals and how to get noticed online amidst worldwide competition. Learn to improve your website, blogs, and social media accounts. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube all have their own language and audiences. The model for journalists has changed. Everything we learned about not repeating words and using creative ways to say things doesn’t apply to blogging and social media and website content. Not if you want to be found. You need to blog with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind and make the most of using tags. Everything you write should be in your voice, but with a focus on keywords.
“Join 650 writers, editors, publishers and agents at North America’s premier conference for freelance writers and book authors! This year’s focus is the most important item in your writer’s toolkit: YOU. You’re the key to your success as an independent writer, and we’re here to help you boost your strengths, publicize your talents and turn your own personal stories into gold. You’ll hobnob with agents who are looking for the next bestseller and editors who are eager to buy stories. You’ll hear from the best in the business on topics like storytelling, custom content, self-publishing and negotiating. And you’ll learn the latest about protecting yourself from invasions of your privacy and your rights.”

Click here to learn more.

The post Writers, Be Seen! Stand Out Online in the Most Time-Efficient & Cost-Effective Way appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

Through murderabilia websites, auctions, and even Facebook, signed 8″x10″ glossies of serial killers go for hundreds. This is an underworld where anything goes. Groupies pay for fingernail clippings, locks of hair, and even foot scrapings (ew). Graphic crime scene photos of decomposing murder victims and dirt from victims’ graves can be purchased. Even the esteemed Christie’s auction house joined in. They sold Al Capone’s handgun for $110,000 in 2011.

Andy Kahan, a most persistent victims’ advocate from Texas, fought until he got eBay to ban these types of items. No prob, sellers just moved over to Facebook. Kahan isn’t having much luck with the behemoth social media site. Facebook ignored Kahan repeatedly until he proved he wasn’t going away. Finally, Facebook responded and said they were not shutting down the sites. Their defense was freedom of speech.

The Son of Sam law used to make it illegal for murderers to profit from their crimes. In New York alone, the law was invoked 11 times during the years 1977 to 1990. But, what you may not know is how much that law has changed. As of 2001, the Son of Sam law now only requires that crime victims’ families be notified if the murderer of their loved one receives $10,000 or more for selling something related to the crime. Incidentally, David Berkowitz became a born-again Christian in 1987 and said he is now the Son of Hope. Hmmm.

The website serialkillersink.com call themselves the premier true crime collectibles website. They were the first and they remain the biggest. Like a carney freak show, the site promises gasp-worthy ghouls and items that will rock ’n shock your world. You know what? They deliver what they promise. The nav links include a murderzine, interviews with the most depraved members of society, news of the latest creepy killers (are there any other kind?) and, of course, the store. On the ecommerce site you can search by killer name and type of criminal (i.e., cannibals, necrophiliacs, mass shooters, etc.). There’s even a murderer address list — kept current, of course.

Apparently it’s not too hard for Serial Killers Ink to get their hands on the terrible treasures. All they need to do is befriend the incarcerated murderers.

One saving grace is that the stuff from pedophiles doesn’t sell. I guess even macabre voyeurs have morals. Isn’t that comforting?

While Serial Killers Ink is the big kahuna, other websites have sprouted up to get in on the action. These include murderauction.com, darkvomit.com, and supernaught.com. Facebook pages and communities include Supernaught True Crime Collectibles and Memorabilia, Murderabilia, Killers and Madmen, and a closed group called Murderabilia & True Crime Collecting. Please write and tell us if you know of any more.

October is just around the corner. Happy Halloween shopping. Kidding. Don’t shoot.

The post I Just Want a Piece of You: Murderabilia on Facebook appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

WordPress is one of the best, if not the best content management systems when it comes to SEO. That being said, spending time on your WordPress SEO might seem like a waste of time, it most definitely is not. Optimizing your site to the best practices outlined in this article will help you improve your rankings, gain more subscribers and have a better website in general.

As I take quite a holistic view on (WordPress) SEO, meaning that I think good SEO should be engrained in all aspects of your online marketing and PR, this guide covers quite a lot of ground and is therefore a long read. But it’s worth it!

Read more…

The post The Definitive Guide To Higher Rankings For WordPress Sites—It’s in the SEO appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.

This all-day workshop will help you develop the connections, skills and strategies you need to build a successful freelance career. Hear from other freelancers about how they’ve made it work. Meet top editors from the New York Times, Working Mother, Vogue, Quartz, Fortune and more and learn about the pitches they like to receive.

• Where: City University of New York, 219 W 40th St New York, NY 10018
• When: 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Course Outline

• Session 1: Marketing 101 for the Independent Journalist: As an independent journalist, it’s up to you to pitch and market yourself. Get tips on pitching, negotiating and marketing yourself through social media and an online portfolio of your work.
• Session 2: The Major Leagues of Print: Editors from the New York Times and Working Mother dissect the best stories they’ve published from freelancers. Learn the do’s and don’ts of pitching these major publications.
• Networking Lunch Join us for a networking lunch. Here’s your chance to connect with fellow freelancers as we break up into small groups by interests and specialties. Share tips, contacts and ideas. Finish up with dessert and maybe even a lead on a new gig.
• Session 3: Pursuing Digital Fame: Media companies are rolling out new online publications and increasingly seeking more online-only stories. Hear from online editors about the stories they’re looking for, how they’re  different from traditional print pieces and how to come up with that story that gets shared across Facebook and Twitter.
• Session 4: Your Business Model: Get to the next level of freelance writing. Develop revenue and business goals, hone your niche and adopt other strategies that can help boost your career.

Speakers and Trainers

Pradnya (P.J.) Joshi
News Editor/DealBook, The New York Times
Pradnya (P.J.) Joshi is news editor for DealBook, a section devoted to the coverage of finance and markets at The New York Times. She joined The Times as a staff editor on the metro copy desk in 2006 after working more than 13 years as a business reporter at various publications including Newsday and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She has covered various business and metro beats including corporate fraud, economic development and telecommunications.

Mitra Kalita
Ideas Editor, Quartz
Mitra Kalita is the ideas editor at Quartz, an online global business publication launched in 2012 by Atlantic Media. She worked previously at The Wall Street Journal, where she edited coverage of the Great Recession, launched a local news section for New York City and, most recently, reported on the housing crisis. She also launched Mint, a business paper in New Delhi, and has previously worked for The Washington Post, Newsday and the Associated Press. She is the author of three books.

Thessaly La Force
Culture Editor for Vogue.com
Thessaly La Force is the culture editor for Vogue.com. She is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was Meta Rosenberg Fellow and the recipient of the Friedman Prize for Excellence in Fiction. Prior to Iowa, she worked at The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Public Library. She now lives in New York City.

Katherine Reynolds Lewis

Independent Journalist
Katherine Lewis is a Harvard-educated journalist with nearly 20 years’ experience writing for magazines, newspapers and online. A regular contributor to About.com and Fortune magazine online, her expertise is money, work and family. Her freelance articles have appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek, Money, The New York Times, Parade, MSN Money, Slate, USA Today’s magazines, Washington Post Magazine and Working Mother. Previously she was a national correspondent for Newhouse News Service.

Dorri Olds
Writer, Social Media Consultant and Web Designer
Dorri Olds is an award-winning writer, social media consultant, and web designer. As an online marketing expert, she
teaches clients how to stand out online. Olds writes A-List celebrity interviews, movie and book reviews, and all things dog. Her YouTube channel boasts 168,000 views. Her work has appeared in book anthologies and many publications including The New York Times. Visit her at DorriOlds.com or on Twitter @DorriOlds and Facebook.

Scott Olster
Editor, Fortune.com
Scott is an editor at Fortune.com, where he oversees the leadership, management, and careers coverage. He holds a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. @ScottOlster

Bao Ong
Food and Travel Writer

Jennifer Owens
Editorial Director, Working Mother Media
Jennifer Owens is editorial director of Working Mother magazine & director of the Working Mother Research Institute. As editorial director, Jennifer leads the editorial mission of Working Mother Media’s three brands — Working Mother, the National Association for Female Executives and Diversity Best Practices — through their print, online, social and digital channels, reaching more than 2 million readers nationwide.

Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Author
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New York-based journalist and author of “A Tiger In The Kitchen: A Memoir of Food & Family” (Hyperion, 2011). She is the editor of the fiction anthology “Singapore Noir,” which Akashic Books will publish in April 2014, and is currently working on her first novel. She was a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, In Style magazine and the Baltimore Sun. Her stories have also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Food & Wine, Marie Claire, Bloomberg Businessweek, Martha Stewart Weddings, Chicago Tribune, The (Portland) Oregonian, The (Topeka) Capital-Journal and The (Singapore) Straits Times among other places.

Shane Snow
Co-founder, Contently
Shane Snow is a New York City-based technology writer, infographicker, and co-founder of Contently.com, a new media company that empowers journalists and brand publishers. Shane has written for Wired, Fast Company, Mashable, Poynter, Gizmodo, and many others.

Scott Veale
Newsroom Editor for the Sunday Review section and former Arts and Leisure Editor, The New York Times

More speakers coming soon.

• What attendees will take away: Attendees will connect with fellow freelancers and editors. They will fine tune their story ideas and hone their pitches. They will learn about new opportunities and places to find gigs, and receive tips on how to market themselves and stand out online with a digital portfolio. They will improve their negotiating skills and develop a set of revenue and business goals that will focus their freelance practice.
• What attendees should bring: Story ideas and pitches for editors, portfolio, notebook, business cards and lots of questions.
• See the latest panel news at aajafreelancewriting.tumblr.com

The post Dorri Olds Will Be Speaking on a Panel at the AAJA Writers Convention: Building a Successful Freelance Writing Career appeared first on Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer.