Small Press Story #19: Placing Writing for Wellness in Churches

"We are calling about four churches a day to see if they would be interested in starting Writing for Wellness classes," says publisher Tom Blaschko of Idyll Arbor. "Most say yes. We follow up with emails: one from Dawn at Idyll Arbor (including a description of how a church could implement the program) and one from the author, Julie Davey. Dawn follows up a week later with a phone call."

Idyll Arbor's website for this book is http://writingforwellness.net

"If anyone reading about the program wants to get more information about starting one, they can contact Dawn at Dawn@IdyllArbor.com or call us at 360-825-7797," added Blaschko. "We think that these classes really help and are always looking for people with time, energy, and the desire to help others."

Sample Letter from author Julie Davey:

Hello, I'm Julie Davey, author of the book Writing for Wellness: A Prescription for Healing.

Dawn Craft at Idyll Arbor Publishers gave me your email addresses after you all asked for information about possibly teaching a Writing for Wellness class. Some of you may have also asked about one-on-one help for members of your church through in-home ministries.

I offer here some advice and counsel. Having been a volunteer writing teacher for more than eight years, I can tell you for sure that the process works. People need to write about what they are going through or have gone through and have never discussed.

Given the right setting and opportunity, they will.

You may be in a better position to help people than I often am. Most of the time I do not know the participants in my classes at City of Hope until they arrive at the classroom door. I must, in just a few minutes make them feel welcome and safe and willing to write about what they are going through. I have methods I have developed. I feed them, I hug them and I tell them I have found that we all have stories to tell, especially when we have been through a great deal. I promise them they won't have to read aloud and that I will help them learn some techniques they will find to be easy.

Here is my "pep" talk to you. Since I can't feed or hug you, here is my advice:

As you establish Writing for Wellness classes in your church, follow your beliefs, follow your heart. There are people who need your support and that of your church members. They need to write about how they feel and to do so in a safe and comforting environment. Your church is that place.

You may discover, as I did, that the religious beliefs of participants as they face extreme challenges in their lives are sometimes tested. What they believed before their child got cancer or they lost a friend to it may come into question. When they suffer great losses or have family separations, they need to write and talk about these upheavals in their lives.

Unlike in my classes which have been offered in a secular setting, City of Hope National Cancer Center, yours can bring spirituality and faith to the forefront.You may choose to refer people to the minister/pastor for Biblical explanation. You may choose to open and close your classes with prayer.

In my 33 years as a public high school teacher and college professor, I learned to avoid revealing my own religious beliefs in classroom settings. Had I been free to express those, as you are in your own church setting, I would have had much to say. My "mixed-faith" background of Methodist (mother), Catholic (father), Lutheran (husband) makes me more ecumenical than some, perhaps, but my belief in God has brought me through cancer twice and, I believe, has placed me in the classroom at City of Hope for more than eight years as I try to show, by example, that we are indeed, our brothers' keepers.

Acknowledge Your Help

When writing his Haiku for Coffee Lovers (and other Haiku for… books), David Ash said he asks several guest editors to give feedback on his books, then includes their names on the acknowledgments page. They turn out to be his best customers. So you may want to lengthen your acknowledgments page to accommodate those who helped on your book.

This is part of a series of articles provided by Nancy Burkhalter and Jack McKee following the February meeting on ways publishers can work together. Click on member suggestions in labels to see these articles and any follow-up.

Working With Printing Companies

There are sales reps from printing companies that will help. People mentioned those from Malloy (http://www.malloy.com), Thompson Shore (http://www.tshore.com), United Graphics (http://www.unitedgraphicsinc.com), and Friesens in Canada (http://www.friesens.com), all of whom are quite helpful. Don’t feel shy about calling them.

Be sure to go shopping and quote exactly the same thing to each one. If you go with a print broker, get 30 quotes.

Printing a book with a CD in the back is more difficult to publish because you have to coordinate the production of the CDs as well as their delivery to the publisher on time and with sufficient numbers of them. If there aren’t enough CDs to accommodate the print run, the printer may not alert you and print several copies without the CD.

Get sample sheets to see what the book will look like on that paper

This is part of a series of articles provided by Nancy Burkhalter and Jack McKee following the February meeting on ways publishers can work together. Click on member suggestions in labels to see these articles and any follow-up.

Print Brokers

Print brokers are a clearinghouse to help decide which printer to use. You can find a printer on your own, but it’s time consuming. If you do it on your own, you have to make a lot of decisions, such as whether it’s a hard back or a case book, what paper and finish and weight to use, whether it’s color or b/w, etc. You need to know about all these options to do it on your own.

The broker pays the printer and takes cut. A sales rep gets a fee too but it’s built into the salary, which ends up being comparable to a print broker. Brokers will find the most low-cost company, but the choices are not as broad as you can find on your own.

PMA has a list of printers to choose from that are not necessarily good – just choices. Dan Poynter, How to Self Publish, has lots of information. Also see John Kramer’s 1001 Ways to Market Your Book.

This is part of a series of articles provided by Nancy Burkhalter and Jack McKee following the February meeting on ways publishers can work together. Click on member suggestions in labels to see these articles and any follow-up.

Article Directories by Jack McKee

Article Directories are internet sites where there are 1000's of articles that can be republished (with proper credit given) or just read by anyone for pleasure. There are lots of them and some are interconnected, I think. Articledashboard.com, artipot.com, goarticles.com, isnare.com, articleally.com, and articlecentral.com are a few. There are specialty sites like edarticles.com and probably sites for dog articles or airplane articles. Some have a stats page so you can see how many times your article has been read or downloaded.

I've used them for no cost nonfiction book promotion. It only has been a month, so it is a bit early to tell but here is what I did and what seems to be happening: I wrote several one page articles, taken from my books, added a couple more articles that were loosely related, and a couple more that didn't make the cut for the book. Six or seven one-page articles all totaled and submitted them to six or eight directories.

Here is one reference. I shortened up the introduction from my book: Woodworking at Articledashboard.com

This article is about how I stumbled across the idea for Builder Boards (the title to my first book): Builder Boards at Articledashboard.com

At the end of each article you get to put an about the article and, of course, I mentioned the two books I wrote.

There has been no incredible spike in sales or website hits. Maybe a slight increase in sales of one book. But when I google my titles those articles are popping up so there are many more references to my books. We'll see if there will be a more long term effect.

If anyone else has anything to add, or more long term experience, I would like to hear about it.

This is part of a series of articles provided by Nancy Burkhalter and Jack McKee following the February meeting on ways publishers can work together. Click on member suggestions in labels to see these articles and any follow-up.