Sunday, January 07, 2007

WebforAuthors - January 2007 Newsletter

Happy New Year and best wishes for a prosperous and successful 2007 from WebforAuthors!

The WebforAuthors Team is busy making plans for new features to add during 2007. On our agenda is adding a Guestbook, Press Kit and Clips pages to your websites. These features were planned for 2006, but our new Domain Registration (register domains without a WFA website subscription) feature has taken longer than expected. But they will definitely be out later this year. As always, these features will be added at no additional cost to you.

In addition, based on your input, we are working towards providing more flexibility to our system so that you can add additional pages, change page layouts and more. We’re calling this “WebforAuthors 2.0” and it will be a major upgrade to our system. This effort is still in the planning phase, so there is still a lot of work to do before our plans are finalized.

On The Air – January 9
I will be the guest on “Book Marketing with Fran” on Achiever Radio on Tuesday, January 9. Achiever Radio is a Web Talk Radio Station. You can find out more about Fran’s broadcasts at http://achieveradio.com/~fran/. The show is at 2PM EST, if you miss it you can listen to previous broadcasts by visiting her website.

Conferences and Sponsorships
We have not finalized conferences or sponsorships for 2007. If you would like for me to speak or if you would like WebforAuthors to be a sponsor of an event, please contact me.

Advertising
We run advertising in selected magazines and websites. We appreciate you telling writers and authors about our service and offer referral credit if you help bring additional subscribers on board. If you have ideas on how we can reach more authors, please tell us!

2006 Recap

New Features That Were Added in 2006

Processing and Handling Fees:
For those using our optional Shopping Cart, we added the ability for you to control additional fees (processing and handling) for orders.

Order Tracking:
For those using our optional Shopping Cart, we added the ability for you to easily send a shipping notice and tracking number to your customer.

New Designs:
We added five new website designs for you to choose from.

Domain Registration:
This was our major effort in 2006 – to add domain registration to our list of services. This allows authors (actually anyone) to buy a domain name without a website subscription. It also allows you to purchase additional domains that you may want. We launched the “front end” last fall – which allows you to purchase domains. We are finishing up the “back end” – i.e. the domain management tools – this month. Until then we handle changes via a support request (email or call). Our charge for one year domain registration is only $9.95!

Sponsorships, Conferences and Other Things of Note for WebforAuthors in 2006:
WriteStuff Writers Conference – Speaker
Yosemite Writers Conference – Speaker and Sponsor
San Francisco Writers Conference – Sponsor
Whidbey Island Writers Conference – Sponsor
Indianapolis Book Fest – Sponsor
Backspace Writers Conference – Sponsor
South Carolina Writers Workshop Writers Conference – Speaker and Sponsor
Book Expo America, African American Pavilion – Sponsor
Backspace – the writer’s place – Article published (http://www.bksp.org/secondarypages/articles/authors/MTurner.htm)

I wish to thank all of you for using and supporting WebforAuthors. If we may be of assistance in any way, please contact me.

Note: As always, this newsletter is sent using the WebforAuthors Newsletter feature that is included in your WFA Account Manager. Use it to keep in touch with your fans and readers!

Best wishes,
Marshall