The Web 2.0 Bootcamp: Get Fans, Build Your Name, and Sell Your Books

(WSP 156)

In today’s publishing world, debut authors have to write well, but they also have to help sell their own work. Many agents and editors are looking for writers who bring an existing audience to the table. In this workshop, the instructors will teach you the tools and techniques they used to build large networks of followers, fans, and eager readers. The methods include utilizing social networking, new media, and serializing novels as free audiobooks. Bring your laptop and start on the process they used to make cheap, highly effective advertising that landed book contracts with major publishing houses. The concept is simple: do you want a small number of busy, harried agents and editors to decide your fate? Or do you want to build an audience that proves your work will sell? When you bring the audience, that changes the whole game.

Seth Harwood, Lecturer in Continuing Studies

Seth Harwood received an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa, UMass Boston, and the City College of San Francisco, and his fiction has appeared in more than a dozen literary and crime/noir journals. His first novel, Jack Wakes Up, which he first serialized as a free audiobook, was published by Three Rivers Press (Random House) and reached #1 in Crime/Mystery and #45 overall in books on Amazon.com on the first day of its print release.

Scott Sigler, Lecturer in Continuing Studies

Scott Sigler is a New York Times bestselling novelist and author of Infected and Contagious, hardcover thrillers from Crown Publishing. Infected is in production as a major motion picture by Rogue Pictures. Before he was published, Sigler built a large online following by giving away his self-recorded audiobooks as free, serialized podcasts. His loyal fans have downloaded more than seven million individual episodes.