|
M.E.Wood |
writer |
| Home | Poet | Reviewer | Artist | Blogger |
|
|
|
|
Milli Thornton
Please join me in a big Word Museum and PromoBeats welcome to Milli Thornton. Moe: Please tell us what name(s) you write under, the name of your book(s), the genre of your book(s), and the formats.
Moe: What do you do to promote your book(s)? Milli Thornton: My most visible and enduring promotion is my website. I also taught myself how to be a workshop presenter so I could see my writing exercises in action. As a result of my first workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico in March 2001, the first Fertile Material writing circle was born. Back then, the Santa Fe writing circle met weekly to use the exercises. Soon, I started writing circles in two other towns: Albuquerque and Taos. The writing circles are a good way to sell my book direct to new members and to see the material in my book being used consistently over time. The Santa Fe writing circle now meets monthly – I’ve been doing the exercises in person with that group for several years now. That particular writing circle also caused me to realize I needed to produce a sequel. A sequel is a good way to bring in more readers; particularly in this case, where the readers of my first book get to star in the second book. Moe: What method or methods of promotion have you used that works well? Milli Thornton: Moe: What method or methods of promotion have you used that have not worked well? Milli Thornton: Moe: Where did you learn how to promote your books? Is there a special place or places where you find good promotion information? Milli Thornton: I was inspired to become a workshop presenter by watching Bobbie Christensen of American Self-Publishers Association. I attended her seminar Marketing Your Book on a Shoestring Budget in Albuquerque in November 2000. After that experience set me on fire, I became self-taught. I love to develop my own ways to promote my book/website. Moe: Do you like to promote? Or do you find it frustrating? Milli Thornton: When my book was released in 2000, I was an extremely shy person. It took me quite a while to really get going with promotion. When I decided to hold my first workshop, I went to Toastmasters to get myself some public speaking experience and that was very helpful. I enjoy being a workshop presenter, but I don’t always enjoy the masses of promotion you have to do to fill the room – mainly because it’s so much work for one person and I get burnt out. If you have someone to help you it can make all the difference. My husband has the opportunity to retire for a year and he is going to act as my manager. I can’t wait to have someone help me with promotion! I have burnt myself out on it too many times. Also, there are certain tasks that I can’t seem to stay on top of – such as maintaining my mailing list – which effects my enthusiasm for doing email promos, etc. The parts I most enjoy involve designing something new, such as a flyer for a new workshop or a new feature for my website. I also enjoy writing articles to help promote my book/website and wish I had more time to concentrate on that angle of free promotion. Moe: Have you been interviewed as an author? By which mediums? Milli Thornton: I’ve been interviewed by eZines – which is great because you can think about your answers and eliminate the typos! I’ve been interviewed (and sometimes grilled) in chatrooms, which is fun too but you really have to think on your feet (and typos happen, haha). I‘ve been interviewed twice on the radio - which worked very well once I got in front of the microphone. But I hate doing The Approach: the part where you have to sell yourself to the manager of the station to snag a five or ten minute spot. I’m looking forward to having a manager to set up appointments for me. Then I can be one of those authors I’ve heard about who simply picks up the telephone (still dressed in her pajamas) to do an interview with a radio station five or six states away. Moe: Do you have any good promotion tips for your fellow authors that you would like to share? Milli Thornton: Don’t try to cover every promotion angle. It’s tempting to try to use all the cool promotional methods you’ve read about, but it can burn you out. Experiment until you find your niche and then become the best you can at the kind of promotion you really like to do. Moe: Please add anything else here you'd like to say. Milli Thornton: Learning to promote my book has taken me from a shy, stay-at-home person to one who can handle fronting a writing workshop or talking on the radio. It has also pushed me to learn web design (because my husband didn’t have time to update my website) and to learn a myriad of other skills, such as: how to produce a monthly eZine; how to run a chatroom; how to produce an e-book; how to self-produce flyers and press releases to promote my workshops; how to design and launch an online writing course; how to design a book cover, format my book and upload it to my publisher. Without the necessity to promote my book, I would have missed developing a whole area of my potential I didn’t realize existed. Moe: Please add a short bio, your personal website url, and your publisher(s) url for your book's page(s). Writing workshop presenter Milli Thornton was born in Wallace, Idaho in 1960 and has suffered from fear of writing for most of her life. She migrated to Australia with her family at age twelve, where she discovered that “blue” means redhead and “billy” is a tin you brew bush tea in. She sampled a variety of home bases, including Coffs Harbour, Sydney, Darwin, Melbourne, Airlie Beach on the Barrier Reef, and the Blue Mountains. After 25 years in her beloved Australia, Milli returned to the United States to reunite with her scattered family. She lived for five years in the mountains of New Mexico with her husband and two cats, where she ate chimichangas and sopapillas instead of prawns, snags, and pavlova. She went bush (returned Down Under) in 2003, where she’s savoring Vegemite, boxing with the ’roos, and giving that famous Aussie salute - swatting bush flies! Visit the photo gallery at Milli’s website to follow her Aussie writing and bushwalking adventures. The gallery and journal records her two-week stint working on the sequel at Varuna Writers’ House in the gorgeous Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Admission to the gallery is free: Visit Fear of Writing website. 03/04 |
Milli
Thornton: I write under my real name, Milli Thornton.
The name of my first book is Fear of Writing: a book for writers
and closet writers using fun exercises, known as Fertile Material,
to unleash creativity and promote instant story writing. Fear
of Writing also features stories about fictional characters
who suffer from fear of writing but experience a creative
breakthrough. The sequel, Son of Fear of Writing (release
date 2004), will feature stories and vignettes written by
readers and workshop participants using the Fertile Material.
Fear of Writing is available in paperback and e-book. The
genre is Creativity/Writing Skills.
|
|