Getting the word out about your work

For those who are looking for ways to get the word out about your work, here's an example of the fairly simple tool I use. Every so often--about four times a year--I send out a one-page newsletter by email. The format's not terribly complicated, but it's inviting, it includes graphics to catch reader's eye, and it's short. Most important, it's something I can do myself in an hour or two and I get tons of positive responses. (I write this in a word-processing program, using a couple of my favorite fonts and a simple design which I can't reproduce here, and send it as a PDF via email by just "printing" it to PDF. Check the print command of your word-processor for this option.)

News from Sus[an] * Jan. '09 Eleventh in an irregular series

It's a New Year and I've got some good news! No, I haven't fixed either the economy or global climate change, but I am excited about what's happening in the country today. As for me personally, here's what's up:

WALKING NATURE HOME, my memoir, is coming out in March. It's a tale of what silence and sagebrush, bird bones and sheep dogs, comets, death, gardens, and one crazy Englishman have to teach us about love and life. Here's what others have said about it:
Walking Nature Home offers the reader a constellation of healing stories. Replete with Tweit’s powerful articulations of the human heart and overlaid with the stories of the natural world in all its wonder, this book joins the ranks of the great testimonies of our time. —Denise Chávez, A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food, and Culture
Susan Tweit has written a glorious love story—to her Rocky Mountain sage meadows, to her husband Richard, and finally, painfully, to her own unreliable body. I read this book long into the night, lifted by the beauty of the story, braced by its hard-muscled prose, strengthened by its wisdom. —Kathleen Dean Moore, The Pine Island Paradox

AND I NEED YOUR HELP: University of Texas Press produced a gorgeous book, complete with illustrations by artist Sherrie York, but doesn't have resources to finance a tour for Walking Nature Home. So I'm asking for your suggestions, recommendations, and leads for promotion. (Opportunities to earn something to defray travel expenses are especially welcome.) Do you know of a lecture series that needs me as a speaker? A radio show that could use an interesting guest? A class I could visit? A book group that would love this memoir? An event in search of a charming and inspirational speaker? A bookstore that should carry this book? A blog I should visit on my blog book tour?

Events already arranged: March 26, 7:00 p.m. "Bringing Wildness Home," Bonfils-Stanton Lectures (I'm speaking in the same series as Terry Tempest Williams!), Denver Botanic Garden, Denver
April 19, noon to 3:00 p.m., "Meet the Faces Behind the Books," Englewood Library.

BEGIN AS YOU INTEND TO CONTINUE: My New Year's resolution is "write with my heart outstretched as if it were my hand." (I'm paraphrasing a line in a Mary Chapin Carpenter song.) So I'm focusing on inspiring others to live what I call a good life—green, simple, generous, intellectually and spiritually rich. Please visit my new web site (susanjtweit.com) and listen in to my new weekly commentary, "Green & Generous," and join the conversation on my blog, Community of the Land. (I'm working on a new blog that's more closely tied to the rest of my public "face" but I've run into technical difficulties. Stay tuned!) Blessings to you all, Susan J. Tweit

I make sure to use links, so readers can just click on the linked phrase to go to my blog, my publisher's site, etc. I include graphics to make it more appealing. And I always keep it to one page because I want it to be short enough to be read.

Let me know what you think! Susan J. Tweit
susanjtweit.com