October Newsletter

Hello everybody,

I want to welcome you to our second meetings of our season. Our meeting will be this coming Thursday, October 1st from 6-8 PM at the West Regional Library on Grelot road. I look forward to seeing everybody and continue to get to know everyone. I am new this year as President, and I have many exciting things planned for this upcoming year.

This Thursday’s meeting is titled “ NaNoWriMo and Podcasts: the Basics“: MWG President Craig A. Price, Jr. will take us through what we need to do this month, to be ready for National Novel Writing Month in November. Topics include research, outlining, and finding help and inspiration through writing related Podcasts. He will also talk a lot about using different Podcasts for help with writing, publishing, and marketing.

Please remember to bring cash or check to renew your membership and for our new donation raffle. Remember, tickets will be $1 each and you may buy more than one. This month the book we will be raffling is “No Plot? No Problem!: A low-stress, high-velocity guide to Writing A Novel in 30 days” by Chris Baty. This novel is by the founder of NaNoWrimo (National Novel Writing Month) and he talks about ways to force your plot out and keep your internal editor at bay. I will speak a bit about it at the start of the meeting, and if you are interested in it please buy a few raffle tickets to see if you can win it. Remember, the donations for these tickets are going to our Mobile Writers Guild cards, the cost of the books, and to help us bring a New York Times Bestselling author to Mobile. We will also be raffling audio DVDs with Writing Podcasts and a CD with audio files for our meetings last season. Make sure to purchase several raffle tickets for an opportunity to not only win a copy of “No Plot? No Problem!” but a chance to win audios about writing! We will be using the left over donation tickets to give away the following audio DVDs: Mobile Writers Guild: 2014-2015 Season, Grammar Girl Podcast, Get Published Podcast, I Should Be Writing Podcast, Sell More Books Show Podcast, Rocking Self-Publishing Podcast, Self-Publishing Podcast, Dead Robot Society Podcast, Writing Excuses Podcast, The Creative Penn Podcast, Write For Your Life Podcast, and Self-Publishing Success Summit.

We also have a very exciting opportunity with the library for a “Home for the Holidays” event. Home for the Holidays, an event we are working on hosting this holiday season, will give writers an opportunity to set up a table and sell their books. Members are invited to decorate and share in the fun as people will enjoy festive foods and readings from local authors. More details to come soon.

Pecan Festival in Mobile, AL will be featuring a writers festival. This will be set up in the Community Center during the festival. Authors will each have a table on which to display and sell their books. The dates are November 6 – November 8. The person to get in contact with about your book and contact information will be Angela Blomquist Stombaugh.

The Mobile Writers Guild has been featured in Mobile Bay Magazine under “What to see & do: in our great city”. We are under Literature for “Do it”. If you can, pick up a magazine and check it out. I have a copy of the magazine I will pass around at our meeting to see the article.
Here is a copy of the online article:
http://www.mobilebaymag.com/Mobile-Bay/September-2015/What-to-See-Do-in-our-Great-City/

In our future we could also see our members books on the shelf of our local “Mobile Bookseller” on HWY 90 & Azeala. The building is still labeled as “Book Rack” and the new owners there have only had the store for a month. However, the changes inside are wonderful. The floors have been redone, and they have overhauled the entire interior and reorganized all the books. They plan on making new shelves to hold larger books and are interested in having a “local author” section. I have been talking with them about it, and in the future we hope to get our books in there and have the opportunity to have author signings there as well. They are new owners, and are still busy organizing, but I will keep everybody informed when that will come to pass. Right now, they have a wonderful book trade in policy. You get $1 credit for each book you trade in. That one dollar goes toward a book that you purchase there. It is an even trade process. Therefore, if you trade in 5 books, but only buy 2. You get $1 off each book. The remaining three go on a credit system at the store. If you have a lot of used books that collect dust on your shelf it is worth looking in to. If you’d rather not bring them to the store for trade in, we will collect them for you and donate them to the store. I will not receive credits for them, but will be donating them to the owners as a gift from the Mobile Writers Guild. With these gifts I hope to start a wonderful partnership with the bookstore that will help us in the future for hosting our books and signings. Please bring any books you are willing to donate.

Remember, this year we are recording all of our meetings, and I hope to find a way to make my voice and our speakers heard easier through the room. If you are a member and missed a meeting or want to go back and listen to one of our meetings, you can get the private address from us where you can do that. We also have most of the audios from last season as well if you want to go back and listen to any of them.

Our Critique groups will be starting soon. We have 11 people on the list, and I am trying to find the best day/time for all/most of us to be able to meet. We SHOULD have our first one this next month. I will do my best with this.

Special Member Opportunity

Our arrangement with the Urban Emporium in downtown Mobile is up and running! Here are the details: Members in good standing will be able to sell their books through the MWG at Urban Emporium, a retail shop on Dauphin Street in their Mobile Makers section. Urban Emporium will take 25% of the sale price, and 2.5% for credit card transactions. If the organization sells less than $100/month, the fee MWG pays per month is $7.50. If we sell over $100, the fee is $15. They are open 6 days a week, plus during special events.

This is a stupendous opportunity to showcase members’ books.To participate, you must be a current member, and pay an additional fee of $15/year. If you are interested, please bring up to five copies of your book(s) to the meeting and your checkbook. We will also need an electronic copy of your author bio and photo–please send to [email protected].

Member News:

Joyce Scarbrough has released a short story titled Code Blue: A Short Story. It will be free on Amazon Kindle through the end of the month. Her novel Shades of Blue is available for pre-order and will official go on sale October 5th. The paperback edition will follow a week later.

Craig A. Price Jr has released a short story titledDiamonds Under a Hickory Tree. It is available on Amazon Kindle. He has also published his first short story The Mage and the Freckled Frog early in the summer. It is available on Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and many other retailers.

Aleta Davis released her book The Protector this summer on Amazon.

Caren Rich released a collection of short stories Tales ofChristmas in the South on Amazon.

Angela Quarles had her third novel Must Love Chainmailcame out this summer on Amazon and received a starred review in LibraryJournal.

CJ Petterson released Choosing Carter last month through Crimson Romance. It is available on Amazon.

(That is a LOT of great member news, congratulations on the publications everybody!)

We will have a box of writing magazines by the back table that were donated to us, feel free to grab any that interest you.

We hope to see everybody there, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone once again.

Remember to bring snacks for the group if you can, we will have snacks in the back.

Bring copies of your books as well to put on our display table – who knows, you may sell a copy.

Join us at:
West Regional Library
5555 Grelot Rd,
Mobile, AL 36609
(251) 340-8555

6-8 PM in the meeting room on October 1st.

See you there!

Sincerely,
Craig A. Price Jr.
President
Mobile Writers Guild
2015-2016

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