Where Writers Win: From the Shark's mouth
[FONT="]Hi folks... trying to weigh in between hellish deadlines. Yes, spent first 20 years of my career as a professional pool player, but ha, never world champ - inducted into the Women's Pro Billiard Assoc. Hall of Fame for my part in creating/promoting their tour, negotiating ESPN, establishing Billiard Education Foundation, etc. In short, helping provide income opportunities for pro and future pro players. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Today, full disclosure, I still co-own P&B Mag, now celebrating 33 years as the sport's oldest monthly. Retired from playing and promoting in ‘04, though tour calls me out of retirement once or twice a year to do onsite PR for an event. Fun, but after moving from Chicago to Charleston in '98, I was having MORE fun in the writing community.
So yes, SMC does still exist, though now only for non-writing clients like WPBA. Some day I'll find time to revise that site... sigh. But a few years back, when deciding to veer more towards authors, I put together a "team" - so that each of the members would retain their autonomy, yet we'd pool our considerable experience to work with authors, with fees way below corporate client pricing AND what others were charging authors, because look, I’ve written books and know what REAL royalties amount to in this very narrow-margin business.
Fast forward to 2012 when we decided to make it official AND more useful, and formed Where Writers Win (to lose the pool/shark/water references entirely). Beginning May 1, 2012 the new site launched with every-other-day blogs. On May 1, 2013 the new
Winner Circle launched... It's still somewhat in its "beta" phase and so yes, an error here and there and we're quick to respond to them, and also making it available to folks half price (that's actually $29.95 Jacquie!) while we grow and refine the offerings. [/FONT]
[FONT="]Our goal: to "shrink" this overwhelming space so authors can find what is truly useful to market themselves, whether that be vetted review sites by genre, book clubs open to viewing new work, indie book stores, finding upcoming festivals or conferences to attend as a panelist, etc. And admit to a bit of “hate motivation” too because originally was intrigued with blog tours, ‘til I saw the outrageous prices and the worthless blogs folks were being put on…Not saying there’s not good tours – but there are more bad, unfortunately. [/FONT][FONT="][FONT="]So instead we began working towards something authors could DIY.[/FONT] [/FONT][FONT="]
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[FONT="]As for website pricing, well, wish they could all be free (and that someone would just give me a new Macbook Pro, too, lol). But really, many man hours go into each site, working with the author not only on initial concept and design, but design according to their audience, content development, training (most of our folks are very new to this space) and meticulous follow up. [/FONT]
[FONT="]I can offer up this: 1. We don't stop working 'til we over-deliver, and long after that clients know they can –and do– ask for help. 2. Discounts include $75 off for being a Winner Circle member; 5% off if coming through one of our publishing partners; 5% off for anyone attending any class/panel/workshop/festival we attend, etc. 3. We purposely charge less than others offering author sites and deliver more [/FONT][FONT="][FONT="](happy to provide many comps as proof),[/FONT] including knowing how form must meet function for an author's site to actually establish traffic and reach his/her readers. 4. If an author has a site that's working for them, we don't try to fix what ain’t broke. Likewise if they have the ability to DIY it, we encourage that, too.[/FONT][FONT="]
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[FONT="]Sorry so long, thanks for indulging... If you want to read some of the things folks say about us visit
http://writerswin.com/testimonials/ They're all available as references, too. And please, shout out with Qs, here or to me,
[email protected].[/FONT]