As writers, we are increasingly told that writers must now be marketers, too, that even after winning that hard fought book deal (or deciding to put the book out on your own) that successfully launching a book requires us to get out into the world and advocate for our own work. But what does that really mean, and how much might it cost? This session is meant to give practical guidance to anyone about to launch a book, or hoping to do so in the not too distant future, around the vast world of "book marketing": what works, what doesn't, what you can do for little to no cost versus options that might require small to larger investments. We'll look at an extensive list of activities and resources including PR firms, author websites, bookstore signings, social media, book giveaways, using your personal network, and more. The teacher will share levels of investments (time & money) in various outlets and outcomes from her novel launched in October of 2016, as well as data from a recent survey of over 40 published authors about the outcomes they realized and their level of satisfaction with those results.
Boston By Foot presents this healthy and edifying alternative to the boozy Lit Lounge: a 45-minute walking tour of Boston, leaving at 5:30PM from the steps of the Park Plaza Hotel! Free for the first 45 Muse attendees who sign up in advance. Meet at the front entrance at 5:30PM to walk over to the start point. NOTE: this is a time change from the original description.
This literary tour highlights the homes and haunts of such prominent Victorians as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Charles Dickens, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Individually, they were writers and poets without peer. Collectively, they made Boston the epicenter of American Letters. This confluence of great minds gave rise to philosophical discussions that greatly influenced not only their own literary work but also 19th-century society at large and even our culture today.
What brick building went from being an apothecary's shop to the headquarters of literary Boston? What was the Saturday Club and where did they meet? For answers to these questions and more, join your guide for a stroll through the vibrant literary history of Victorian Boston.
GrubStreet, the Boston Literary District, and The Mayor’s Office of Resilience and Equity are joining forces to host "Who Are We When We’re At Home: the Black Experience in Boston.” Boston Globe Associate Editor and Op-ed columnist Renee Graham will be moderating a conversation about the experience of code/switching that's common to African Americans nationally but also particularly in greater Boston, a city with its own very complicated and contradictory racial history. She’ll be joined on stage by the Poet Charles Coe, Historian Kerri Greenidge, and Boston’s Chief Resiliency Officer, Dr. Atyia Martin. This event is open to the public. No pre-registration necessary, though seating is limited.
Pulizer-Prize winning author Isabelle Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns, addresses the conference.
Though most people will be reading ideas for full-length books, you may also read an idea for a feature story or article to assess its viability with the panel of experts.
New this year, we have designated the books by our Muse Fellows as all-conference reads. We encourage all conference participants to read Randa Jarrar’s Him Me Muhammad Ali (fiction) and Amy Jo Burns’s Cinderland (nonfiction), both of which are available in paperback.
In this session, Randa Jarrar and Lidia Yuknavitch will discuss Him Me Muhammad Ali from the writer’s perspective -- structure, inspiration, process. Named one of Electric Literature's Best Short Story Collections of 2016, Him Me Muhammad Ali grapples with love, loss, displacement, and survival in a collection that moves seamlessly between realism and fable, history and the present. With humor, irony, and boundless imagination, Jarrar brings to life a memorable cast of characters, many of them "accidental transients"—a term for migratory birds who have gone astray—seeking their circuitous routes back home.
While we strongly encourage reading Him Me Muhammad Ali ahead of time, we are confident that the conversation will be illuminating and meaningful whether or not you've gotten to it yet.
NOTE: The first five attendees to sign up for this session will receive complimentary copies of the book.
Boston By Foot presents this healthy and edifying alternative to the boozy Lit Lounge: a 45-minute walking tour of Boston, leaving at 5:30PM from the steps of the Park Plaza Hotel! Free for the first 45 Muse attendees who sign up in advance. Meet at the front entrance at 5:30PM to walk over to the start point. NOTE: this is a time change from the original description.
After the likes of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Louisa May Alcott in the 19thcentury, another literary scene evolved on Beacon Hill in the 20th century. But, how did it compare to the Victorian "flowering of New England"? Come explore a sampling of what some later writers with Beacon Hill connections brought to American literature. See where these literary lights lived, wrote, and worked on the Hill. Discover how their colorful, if not always happy, lives and their highly personal style differed from their repressed and proper (or properly repressed) predecessors.
GrubStreet was founded twenty years ago, and we are taking tonight to celebrate that important milestone. "Grub Turns Twenty: Forever Young" features short but revealing “Mortified”-style readings by Celeste Ng, Mario Zambrano, Lidia Yuknavitch, Christopher Castellani, and Carter Sickels, complimentary appetizers and desserts, a champagne toast, a cash bar, music, dancing, and other surprises. This event will also be open to the public and take place at ICON Nightclub, located at 100 Warrenton St, Boston, MA 02116. All Muse registrations include a complimentary ticket to this party.
You’ve put so much hard work into telling your story. But to get it the attention it deserves, you’ll now need to tell your story’s story in the form of of media pitches, email announcements, Facebook posts, tweets, requests for readings and much more. What does this different form of storytelling look like? How should an email differ from a Facebook post or newsletter item, who exactly should you be connecting with, and when?
An experienced PR pro and writer will walk you through you everything you need to know to share news about your book with the outside world and generate visibility with readers, the media and your tribe.
Again this year, The Muse and the Marketplace closes in dramatic fashion with our Marketplace Keynote, when the entire conference gathers in the Grand Ballroom for an interactive conference-wide presentation called, “The Strategic Writer.” Hosted by Publishing Perspectives’ Porter Anderson, the event will feature brief multi-media presentations by three authors with new books being published in the year after the conference. On the stage sits a group of experts in the field of book promotion and publicity, social media, marketing, and bookselling who, together with the audience and the authors, discuss practical strategies for authors at every stage of development. It is never too early to build your platform as a writer, to develop a mission-driven plan for yourself and your book(s), and to apply a logical framework to your efforts that maximizes your time and money.