Publish Central!

Well hello again folks. Here is the newest update for PC. Its 6/24/09 and we are a little over three weeks old now I think. The membership continues to rise, I think we are like 8 or 9 on the groups ranking, and Ning and the PC websites are starting to get used more. Vamplit has been keeping up with everyone and we have a good writing editor joined up on PC. You should check him out. Also Vamplit is asking our assistance to check out one of their authors who is writing a twitter novel. You can check it out here at http://twitter.com/thecouriernovel I am continuing to seek out more agents and publishers as well and I will hopefully have some new additions soon.

I have gotten a couple comments along the lines of; this group/website isn't doing anything for me! My response to this is twofold. First remember that we just started three weeks ago and we have been focusing on getting everything up and running. The massive amount of work Midnight has done alone getting this going is impressive everything looks as good as it does because of her. As far as I go, most of what I have been doing has been behind the scenes but now that we are more stable I will be able to focus on networking more and getting the word out. Secondly, remember that this project will only be as good as we make it. Feel free to contact publishers and agents. Particularly let them know they can come to us if they are looking for a specific style. If you get turned down or don't get a response don't worry about it. I have many times.

I am not scolding anyone though because the vast amount of comments and suggestions I have gotten have been positive so if this sounds confusing disregard. I have been just doing Google searches for independent publishers, freelance jobs postings, and up and coming literary agents and trying to contact them. We have gotten a good response and what I am hearing is that we came up with a pretty good idea here. So let's help each other out and get our group and site out there! Also I appreciate all those who are doing just that, you guys are awesome.

Midnight created a new contest so go on there and check it out. The winner is going to be featured on PC and the Ning! So bonus right?! Also I have been kicking around and idea with a PC contest where we would accept chapter submissions periodically and then everyone would vote on the best chapter and that would become Ch. 1 then for Ch. 2 we could do the same thing, so that in theory we would end up with a short collaborative book. If it was really good we could submit it to an indie and the writers who won the respective chapter entries could reap the benefits. Let me know what you all think. If nothing else it would be something fun to do.

Hopefully next week I will be able to get back into regular updates at the beginning of the week. Also I am almost caught up with reviews so you can keep em? coming if you like. Hope everyone is doing good and enjoying the summer.

Talk to you soon.

- C. M.

There have been, in case it was not obvious when you signed in, some minor adjustments to the sidebar.

• There is now a "Sign In" bar located at the very top of the screen on the homepage. Hopefully this will make things much easier for our returning members and the people who want to spend more time talking than signing in, like me.
• You can share this site with your friends (feel free to). Also, help us out by telling more people! You'll get extra brownie points on my side (although they are invisible, so I can't be held responsible if you can't see them).
• There's a little "Donate" button at the very bottom. The money in here goes towards funding contests and keeping this site afloat.

http://publishcentral.ning.com/

Look at it. Memorize it. Love it. Got it? Great.

Now do me and everyone a favor, and join it [if you haven't already]! This will, hopefully, become the place for all of the members to go. Here you can do everything that you can't do here.

Some features include:

• Chat
• Pictures (which can be taken from your Flickr)
• Videos
• Groups
• And more!

This is our members place. Thanks to the Ning, you can do everything you want me to add to this site that Webs.com doesn't have.

Hello everyone, this is an update for 6/9/09. I apologize for the length this post is likely to be but I want to get everyone up to speed on where we are at and how we are going to approach both the Publish Central (PC) site and the Writers Café (WC) Group. So below is going to be a list of goals and plans. Think of it sort of as the business plan of how we are going to get things going.

First let me say that there are essentially 3 aspects, areas, or phases that will be utilized in the process of getting you all from idea to publication. I will preface all of this by mentioning that it is critical the group helps itself. What I mean by this is that us as creators and you as moderators will serve to facilitate the PC process, but the advocacy of the group and the exposure of what we are trying to accomplish will necessarily depend on the efforts of the members. So here we go.

1.) The WC group, ?Publish Central?, will act as the starting point for new and current writers. This is where the ?inspiration? tire will meet the ?writing? road. Here you can get ideas and start to put together pieces for review. Now, many people use WC to simply post their writings in a casual manner. A take it or leave it approach. I have no problem with that and there are certainly groups that are dedicated to that on WC. However, I would encourage your WC ?Publish Central? Postings to be tailored for two things. First, use the group to get help with things like composition, writing style, visualization, vocabulary, creativity, fluidity, etc. Second, use ?us? as PC members to assess the publishing viability of the piece. Think of this as a kind of audience pre-screening, a test run to see if readers will be drawn to this type of piece. Many of our members are scholars, agents, and editors use their expertise to you advantage!

Here is where the members come in. I ask you as PC members to be honest and constructively critical in this area. Often writers have a good bit of intuition as to what a reader may be interested in. On the other side of this coin that intuition may be compromised by a members preference for a particular style. So I ask you that in reviewing writing to keep you mind open. Perhaps you might not like a particular style, but would it be successfully publishable? Do you have a friend that would love it? Or conversely, is it an over saturated area of the market, perhaps requiring that the writer to be informed that they may need to stretch their style or genre?

Finally, as far as the featured writers go we are going to set up a calendar so that if you are an upcoming scheduled feature writer you can let people know and prepare pieces and then notify me of which piece you want featured. For those days that we don't have anyone scheduled we will just do random posts. We are then going to be using the contests to generate winners who will then be featured for an extended period on PC & Ning (1 week or so). The idea behind this is that if a piece gets a lot of buzz on WC we feel it then earns the right to get more than the daily exposure created by the WC feature. This will also allows the winning piece or pieces to be advertised to the A's and Pub's on PC & Ning. We will also implement cash prizes if and when we receive any and donations. But again don't feel pressured to donate just for that purpose.

2.) The ?Publish Central? site will be the next step. Here we will begin to assemble a sort of one-stop-shopping feature for writers, agents(A?s), and publishers (Pubs.) The site will soon actually have separate links for the member/authors, A?s and Pubs. (i.e. ?Shop for Writers?, ?Shop for Publishers?, ?Shop for Agents?). I say ?shop? but there will be no fee for anything. At this stage the writer should have some buzz on the piece or buzz on themselves as a writer. The purpose behind this is that the A?s and Pubs. will use this site to ?shop? for you! Think of it as kind of a billboard. This intent here is for A?s and Pubs. to review writers and pieces that have already been battle harder by the WC review process. Bright, tight, and brief. The will allows the A?s and Pubs. to get more effectively filtered pieces to review. Then if they are interested in more they can check out you profile on WC. So I would suggest the member name on PC is at least somewhat close to the name on WC.

That?s basically how ii benefits A?s and Pub?s. How it benefits ?us? is, we will be able to peruse the A?s and Pub?s posted on the site. The idea behind this is for the A?s and Pub?s to post what type of writing they are looking for. Here is where we hope to really blow open the genres and styles. We want A?s and Pub?s to be looking for all the writing WC provides and well as things like writing for travel, game design, business, law, instruction, scholarship, cooking, and list can go on. The reason that I mention this is that many of you that have a knack for stringing a sentence together may be able to supplement your true calling with these side jobs. I am not suggesting you ?sell out?, whatever that means, but we should be pragmatic about our careers as writers. PC will be the professional business side of the project.

3.) The Ning. Sounds freaky but this will help supplement the site and will really act as more of the social networking and fun/casual side of the project. Think of this as myspace/facebook meets publish central. Here we can announce items as well as schedule events and a whole host of other features. I would kind of liken this to the private club of PC. Mainly this is here to have fun with this.

So that basically the general idea. But, this is going to require a lot of effort on the member?s part. We need you to be zealous advocates for the cause. Contact A?s and Pub?s with a short professional inquiry into our little project let them know what we are doing and how the project can benefit them. In addition contact magazines as well as alternative publishing sources and let them know what we are doing. Just be polite, courteous, and professional and it will pay off. Don?t be surprised if you run into a good deal of dead ends. The way I see it with the advent of technology these types of projects will be on the forefront of publishing in the years to come. I know that may seem a lofty ambition but, look at the effect of the internet on the newspaper industry right now. Contact other writer?s and interested parties too. Think outside the box, or inside the box if it gets us more exposure. Be creative ?we? will be our best voice.

Keep up the suggestions and thanks again,

- C.M.

Hey everybody!

This is the first official member update and I will be trying to get these out on a weekly or so basis. This marks the digital christening so to speak of the site and its companion group on Writer's Cafe.org. Everyone has been great and we have a lot of buzz going. For those who may be new to the site I encourage you to log onto Writers Cafe (WC) and join Publish Central! (PC) as well as add yourself as a member on the site. You can get the basic philosophy behind the group and site by reading the introductions but to sum it up we are here to 1.) assist and share experiences and advice among fellow writers regarding publishing and getting published and 2.) Get agents and publishers, both large and small in contact with the kind of writers they are looking for. That's it really.

The group and site are both entirely inclusive and we are open to all writers and style. There are no real rules so if you are a member we just ask that you be helpful, supportive, and criticize as constructively as you can. There of no off-topic areas even though we focus on publishing. So if you want to talk about other areas of writing feel free, just do your best to keep the posts in the among threads. But again we aren't going to freak out if you don't. We are hoping this going to be highly collaborative.

I will be posting updates primarlly using this blog but also be sure to check out the forums. I hope they serve to be the spring board for the agents and publishers to contact writers. Also a small caveat, I have been contacted by agents and publishers but they are not exactly Penguin, Random House, or Harper Collins (at least not yet) so with that in mind we are also interested in getting independant publishers known and on the rise. No better way of getting the attention of the big dogs than helping the small guys take a bigger bite out of the market share. We are not trying to thwart any one's efforts or anything but we are small guys ourselves so we want to support others with similar interests.

That's it for now but check back soon for updates and news

Thanks Again!

- C.M.

Hello one, hello all! Proudly we open the site for Publish Central. Hopefully this will create a far more organized way to keep up with our fast growing WC group. It's amazing! We have gained 170 members in under 48 hours, and we are still counting. So feel free to tell your friends, family, and the crazy bum down the street (don't worry, he'll figure out the computer access issue later). The more the merrier.

Also, seeing as this is a relatively new site / group / thingy,  feel free to send in your comments and suggestions!