Chapter News
Here’s what the WNBA-NYC has been up to recently. While the adage goes that past performance is not an indication of future results, we claim otherwise at the WNBA. More of this great programming is coming up. Click here to see upcoming events.
Networking & Social Activities | Educational Programming
Networking & Social Activities
Networking Party
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
We had a terrific turnout at our annual networking party in the Willa Cather Room at the Jefferson Market Library, which was near capacity on the evening of September 23rd! This month, we’re featuring a report from Linda Epstein—one our newest members—from the perspective of someone attending her first WNBA event.
Recently I joined the WNBA to meet some other people in the book industry. I’m a writer and I’m looking for a job in publishing to support my writing addiction. Both writing and job hunting can be lonely and isolating, sitting alone at my desk, just my computer, my fictional characters and me. As I wound my way up the circular staircase of the Jefferson Market Library to find the Willa Cather Room, I was a little bit nervous. Who would I meet? Was it going to be a bunch of high-powered scary publishing ladies in suits? Should I have worn something a little bit nicer?
 Jefferson Market Library, scene of season launch, 2009
I was warmly greeted and welcomed to the party by Membership Chair Gail Marshall, Valerie Tomaselli, President and Karen Livecchia, Vice President. They directed me to the table where I got my free copy of the New York Times bestseller, Epilogue, by Anne Roiphe. I love free books! Then I spent an hour and a half casually getting to know other women just like me. If they happened to be high-powered ladies, they sure weren’t scary and there weren’t many suits. I chatted with a bunch of other writers, too. Writers seem to be drawn to each other like magnets. I didn’t ever make it over to the table with the food or beverages because I was way too busy meeting and talking to this lovely bunch of women.
By the end of the evening, I found myself volunteering to help out on a couple of committees. The WNBA is up to some really interesting and fun stuff. And by the way, I was dressed just right.
LINDA EPSTEIN joined WNBA-NYC in April. She is currently working on her first novel, Of a Feather. You can also check out her blog fiction site, Letters from the 70s, which will be online in early November. Linda lives on Long Island with her three children, two dogs, and one husband.
Educational Programming
Transcripts of this and other programs are available to members. To join, click here. If you are already a member, click here.
An audience member asks a question at the WNBA’s standing-room-only panel on March 18, 2009, about online book marketing. Speakers, from left to right, are Peter Costanzo, Director of Online Marketing, The Perseus Books Group; Fauzia Burke, President, FSB Associates; Ron Hogan, Founder, Beatrice.com and Senior Editor, GalleyCat; Abby Stokes, Author of Is This Thing On?: A Late Bloomer's Computer Handbook; Kelly Leonard, Executive Director, Online Marketing at Hachette Book Group USA; and moderator, Susannah Greenberg, Susannah Greenburg Public Relations.
Book Marketing on the Web: Publicity, Web Site Development, and Advertising
Wednesday, March 18
Susannah Greenberg of Susannah Greenberg Public Relations and publicity advisor to both national and the New York chapter of WNBA reports that there was extraordinary enthusiasm for the NYC chapter panel she organized on March 18, 2009, "Book Marketing on the Web." Panelists included online marketers Kelly Leonard of Hachette Book Group USA who managed to both tweet and videotape with a flip camera while participating in the panel. Also on the panel was Peter Costanzo of Perseus Books who was brave enough to pass his Kindle around the room for show and tell. Blogger Ron Hogan of Beatrice.com and GalleyCat on MediaBistro, Fauzia Burke of FSB Associates, and author Abby Stokes, who specializes in helping technophobes, rounded out the panel.
Greenberg says she received e-mails from all over the country and even some from other countries asking about the panel as well as a flood of e-mails and tweets and posts afterwards. Topics covered by the panel included publicity, web sites, and social media including blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, and digital publishing including Kindle. Attendees were encouraged to tweet live. Tweets came in from across the country during the panel. There were also tweeters in the room tweeting on various mobile devices, blackberries, and laptops. Reporting on the event was thus simultaneous and interactive to the event happening itself.
If you wish to follow the stream of tweets, use hashtag #wnba318 on Twitter. The panel was tweeted, videotaped, and digitally photographed. It was blogged in PRWEEK and The Book Publicity Blog. It was also in a newspaper which reaches 4 million readers monthly, online and in print, written up by WNBA member Martha Randolph Carr. Journalists from Publishers Weekly and Glamour were in attendance as well.
WNBA-NYC immediately got itself onto Twitter following the panel, seeing the possibilities for outreach for WNBA on social media so vividly demonstrated by the evening's success.
Greenberg prepared a handout for the evening, a CHEAT SHEET BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO ONLINE BOOK MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA, just two pages, and will e-mail it to anyone in WNBA who would like a copy.
And she encourages you to join the WNBA group on LinkedIn as well.
Says Greenberg, "Organizing this panel and putting myself out there on social media has put me in touch with old friends and new, within and without WNBA. This was one of the great rewards of putting together the evening for WNBA and investing time in reaching out to the book publishing community and the social media community through social media for the event. I'm excited at the prospects of how social media will enhance and transform what I do in public relations for books and it was good to be able to share and discuss with others."
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