In a two-part interview with Career by Choice, a blog run by expat career coach Megan Fitzgerald in Rome, this week I talk about the lessons of Expat Harem in forging my expat writing life. Answering questions about personal branding and career success abroad, I explain how writing about my life overseas and editing Expat Harem connected me to a worldwide band of peers, and gave my career and conflicted expat mindset a new cultural context. Part one Part two
From The Mailbag: Writer Notes Expat Harem Offshoots Of Community & Education
Thanks for your message Monika Jones! "As a writer with experience in both project management and book publishing, I'm captivated with Expat Harem and the exciting offshoots of the book. What gorgeous intersection of literary works, community engagement, and education."
And thanks too, for your review of the book:
"After an intense experience living in Istanbul for three months, I sojourned back to the U.S. to catch up with family and friends. One afternoon on my way to a bookstore to buy a copy of Expat Harem (which I'd been meaning to read when I was in Turkey after meeting one of the editors) I met my cousin for coffee. Immediately, he handed me a book. The book: Expat Harem! I was thrilled. His mother-in-law had read it with her reading group and wanted me to have it. It was so serendipitous! I started reading and the stories spoke to my experiences as a foreign woman in Turkey - right down to the smells, awkward interactions with pseudo-relatives, and observations on popular culture. Since I've lent it to friends and family, and found it is a way to share my experiences with them in an accessible format. What I appreciated the most is the lyrical, lovely writing and honesty of the works."
Una antologista accidental
Spanish translation of "The Accidental Anthologist" courtesy of International PEN Women Writers’ Committee which published it in their trilingual newsletter, August 2008 [Boletín Trilingüe del Comité de Escritoras de PEN Internacional]
Turquía frecuentemente entra en las noticias por suprimir a sus autores. Irónicamente, como expatriada americana en Estambul encontré mi voz feminista -- y tropecé en editar un best-seller internacional sorpresa, creando un harén literario de mis pares expatriadas.
Cuando mi esposo turco y yo llegamos de Nueva York en 2003 planeé aislarme para escribir una memoria ensimismada de viaje. No a los días largos pasados en un laboratorio de lenguaje, tratando de encontrar mi equilibrio. Mi vida en Estambul sería acerca de mí, un retiro extendido para escribir. Esta visión había sido filtrando en mi mente desde cuando había sido expatriada anteriormente. Cinco años había pasado pudriéndome en las trópicas malasias como un Somerset Maugham, menos prolífico y más sobrio. La primera cosa para pudrir en el calor ecuatorial fue mi personalidad -- la esencia de mi voz literaria. Cuando expliqué a la gente que era escritora me respondieron, "¿Caballos?" También en Asia me confundieron con una mujer occidental muy diferente, como cuando un equipo de obreros quien trabajaban en mi casa se preguntaron cuándo yo iba a tomar cerveza y quitarme la camisa.
En vez de eso, la tos ferina me silenció a mí y también a mi ego. En el silencio de 6 meses, Turquía sugirió una metáfora para fortalecer mi expatriadismo -- y mis escritos: El Harén Expatriado. Esta reunión contemporánea de mujeres extrajeras podría ser un depósito de conocimiento y poder como lo era en los días del siglo XV bajo los sultanes otomanos.
"Instaladas aquí, somos destinadas a ser extranjeras," ideé en un correo electrónico a mi co-editora, mi colega, la también emigrada americana Jennifer Gokmen.
"Pero está bien -- el Harén Expatriado es un lugar de poder femenino," ella me respondió, conectándonos a un panorama feminista oriental poco conocido en el mundo occidental.
"¡Sí! Cárcel etnocéntrica o refugio de pares—a veces es difícil averiguar en qué sentido va la puerta de batiente," contesté, intoxicada con nuestra metáfora anacrónica. Como una contraseña secreta, las noticias extendieron cuando solicitamos colaboraciones. Mujeres fascinantes de catorce naciones depositaron una lluvia de sus historias en nuestro buzón. Muchas nunca habían publicado antes y todas eran voces de minorías en un país musulmán con una reputación de censura. Realidades alternativas me inundaron, representado una penetración en el país que nunca había imaginado que abrazara. Pero no importó. Si mis aventuras expatriadas anteriores me habían hecho reacia, El Harén Expatriado convirtió mi ferocidad personal en un beneficio: yo podría dar un foro a otras. Sus luchas para asimilarse también me animaron para resistir menos.
La colección premiada Tales from the Expat Harem dio la base para una vida másrica y un libro subsiguiente más perspicaz. La felicidad de trabajar con escritoras de todo el mundo desde la oficina en mi casa en el Bósforo clarificó unos aspectos contradictories de mi carácter -- como que yo pueda ser una introvertida espinosa y también una mujer quien anhela una conexión con personas y el planeta a la vez. Me parece que Turquía no solo me conectó con una banda internacional de mis pares, también alzó mi voz en la conversación cultural. También me ha puesto en contacto con escritoras a quienes admiro, como la novelista celebrada turca Elif Shafak, quien escribió el prólogo para los dos tirajes turcos de mi libro. Ahora mi carrera literaria y mi actitud ambivalente sobre la vida en el extranjero tiene un nuevo contexto cultural más prometedor.
Anastasia M. Ashman, nativa de Berkeley, California, es autora de la novela premiada de Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey la cual se estudia en siete universidades norteamericanas y ha sido recomendada por el Today Show de NBC TV, Nacional Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet Turkey, el Internacional Herald Tribune, y el Daily Telegraph.
Página de la autora: http://www.redroom.com/author/anastasia-m-ashman Sitio de Expat Harem: http://www.expatharem.com Versión completa de este ensayo: http://www.janera.com/janera_words.php?id=80
Taping The Joey Reynolds Radio Show
Pleased to appear on the Joey Reynolds Show this week when he was broadcasting live from Istanbul to the United States.
The WOR Radio Network show is heard on radio stations from New York to Hawaii and has more than 5 million listeners.
Jennifer Gokmen and I met with the veteran radio show host -- often called the father of "shock talk radio" -- and his producer Myra Chanin at the offices of Turkish national broadcaster TRT for an hour on-air to discuss Tales from the Expat Harem and life and work as American women in Turkey.
Expat Harem, The Book
Scroll down for images related to five years of book events...
FIND A COPY You can get this book as a Seal Press paperback through Amazon here
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MEDIA COVERAGE Since 2005 Anastasia Ashman, her coeditor Jennifer Eaton Gokmen and the Expat Harem anthology and contributors have been featured by more than 200 mainstream and independent media sources across the globe in news, travel, literature and culture. Includes New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, International Herald Tribune, NBC TV Today Show, Globe & Mail, Daily Telegraph, National Geographic Traveler, Lonely Planet, Frommer's, Rick Steves' Istanbul, Cosmopolitan (TR), Travel + Leisure (TR), Time Out Istanbul, Mediabistro, Expat Focus, Guardian Abroad and Voice of America Radio. See a list and links here.
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[18 months, 2 expat writers, one feminist travel anthology with three editions. Our first book! A bestseller. How'd we do it? Read the story of making Tales from the Expat Harem]
+"An excellent holiday read." – Lonely Planet Turkey (10th Edition)
+"Beautifully written, thought-provoking and inspiring. Be ready to book a flight to Istanbul afterwards." – Daily Telegraph (UK)
+"Insights from women who learn to read the cultural fine print... Valuable today as an antidote to bigotry, it will serve as an even more valuable corrective to the blinkered historians of tomorrow." – Cornucopia
+“Comic, romantic, and thought-provoking.” – Cosmopolitan (Turkey)
+“Not only aesthetically pleasing but instructive. A great read! Don’t miss it.” – Journal of Middle East Women's Studies
+“Rip-roarer of a guide to understanding Eastern and Western social values.” – The Gulf Today (United Arab Emirates)
+“Charming, warm-hearted and vivid…a definite must-read for everyone pondering the question of what it is we call 'home'.” – NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands)
- Tales from the Expat Harem (Seal Press, 2006)
This anthology "successfully transcends the cultural stereotypes so deeply-embedded in perceptions of the Eastern harem.” -- from the foreword by Elif Shafak (Turkish editions only) November 2010: Turkey’s most-read author Elif Shafak picks Expat Harem as one of her best five books on Turkey
+Edited by Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gökmen
As the Western world struggles to comprehend the paradoxes of modern Turkey, a country both European and Asian, forward-looking yet rooted in ancient empire, this critically-acclaimed collection invites you into the Turkey that thirty-two women from seven nations know.
ASSIMILATION STRUGGLES
Australian and Central American, North American and British, Dutch and Pakistani, our narrators demonstrate the evolutions Turkish culture has shepherded in their lives and the issues raised by assimilation into friendship, neighborhood, wifehood, motherhood.
[Hospitality] Delirious with influenza, a friendless Australian realizes the value of misafir perverlik, traditional Turkish hospitality, when she’s rescued from her freezing rental by unknown Anatolian neighbors bearing food and medicinal tea
[Family] A pregnant and introverted Irishwoman faces the challenge of finding her place in a large Black Sea clan
[Cultural Taboo] A Peace Corps volunteer in remote Eastern Turkey realizes how the taboos of her own culture color her perceptions about modesty and motherhood
[Femininity] A liberated New York single questions the gallant rules of engagement on the Istanbul dating scene, wondering whether being treated like a lady makes her less a feminist
AMBITIOUS STORYTELLERS
...from a Bryn Mawr archaeologist at Troy to the Christian missionary in Istanbul, clothing designers and scholars along the Aegean and the Mediterranean coastlines, a journalist at the Iraqi border, Expat Harem's writers revisit their professional assumptions.
SPANS COUNTRY + 40 YEARS
Humorous and poignant travelogue takes you to weddings and workplaces, down cobbled Byzantine streets, into boisterous bazaars along the Silk Road and deep into the feminine powerbases of steamy Ottoman hamam bathhouses. Subtext illuminates journeys of the soul.
ANACHRONISTIC TITLE = WESTERN STEREOTYPE + KINSHIP
Expat Harem notes the erroneous -- yet prevalent -- Western stereotypes about Asia Minor and the entire Muslim world, while declaring the writers are akin to foreign brides of the Seraglio, the 15th century seat of the Ottoman sultanate:
Expat Harem writers are wedded to the culture of the land, embedded in it, yet alien.
- Dogan Kitap 4th edition, with foreword by Elif Shafak
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From the introduction:
Threshold to worlds both East and West, Turkey is itself a unique metaphor for transition. Forming a geographic bridge between the continents of Europe and Asia and a philosophical link between the spheres of Occident and Orient, Turkey is neither one of the places it connects.
EXPAT HAREM WOMEN RECLASSIFY THEMSELVES
Foreign women on Turkish soil are neither what nor who they used to be, yet not fully transformed by their brush with Turkey. Aligned in their ever-shifting contexts, both Turkey and the expatriate share a bond of constant metamorphosis.
Expat Harem women are challenged to redefine their lives, definitions of spirituality, femininity, sensuality and self.
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One editor's story behind the book: THE ACCIDENTAL ANTHOLOGIST by Anastasia Ashman
+++++ HAREM GIRLS: THE MAKING OF EXPAT HAREM By ANASTASIA ASHMAN and JENNIFER EATON GÖKMEN
Eighteen months.Two expatriate American writers in Istanbul.We created a feminist travel anthology, landed a North American book deal and dual language editions from Turkey’s strongest publisher, while winning representation at one of New York’s oldest literary agencies.
How did we do it?
THE SHORT ANSWER:
- We recognized our project’s potential.
- We created a compelling brand.
- We requested counsel, material, and support from family, friends, business acquaintances and complete strangers.
- We refused to let doubts impede our trajectory, infecting naysayers with our enthusiasm.
- We shared every success with a growing contact list, sustaining a positive buzz.
- And we hunted unique marketing and publicity opportunities.
This is the story of Tales From The Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey.
RECOGNIZING OUR POTENTIAL
- editors speaking at Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Washington D.C.
Writing full-time since 2001, California-born Anastasia’s arts, culture and travel writing appeared in publications worldwide, from the Asian Wall Street Journal to the Village Voice. Soon after she moved from New York to Istanbul in 2003, she met Jennifer, a ten-year expat with a degree in literature and creative writing whose writing career had been on a slow burn since her move to Turkey. The Michigan native had been a staff writer for a popular expatriate humor magazine and contributed to other local magazines. To advance our professional aims we established a writing workshop in Fall 2003 with a handful of other American women writers.
Interaction during bi-weekly workshops revealed our compatibility and vision: within two months it was obvious that the writing group could spawn our first book-length project. Most pieces critiqued revolved around each woman’s Turkish experience and what it revealed about her personally.
By the 2004 Spring thaw we elicited the curiosity of a new Turkish/American publishing house in Istanbul. That was the trigger that launched us into high gear. Translating the small publisher’s casual interest into a writing exercise, we charged the group to fashion a book proposal, but our enthusiasm for the potential project quickly outstripped our group colleagues’ as we targeted what we knew could be a hit.
We had to act fast. World attention was increasingly focused on this much-maligned Muslim country as its new conservative religious party government enacted sweeping reforms to speed the country towards European Union membership. This was heat we could harness for our book.
Although Anastasia had worked in a New York literary agency and was somewhat familiar with the elements of a book proposal, we sought further guidance from published friends and writers’ online resources. Consumed with pushing the project forward, we covered ground swiftly, passing the ball when ideas slowed, inspired by each others’ fresh input.
BRANDING
- Expat Harem envisioned by expat designer Leslie Dann...the book has had at least 5 covers!
Since we didn’t have established literary reputations to lend recognizable names, the title of the anthology needed immediate appeal, palpable impact. Something born of the literary circumstance we would collect: atmospheric travelogue; tales of cultural contrast and discovery in the streets, at weddings and workplaces, hamams and bazaars; and journeys of assimilation into friendship, neighborhood, wifehood, motherhood, citizenship, business and property ownership.
To decide concept and brand, we spun favorite motifs of female culture in Turkey, snagging on the quaint rural tradition of marking one’s visit by weaving distinctly colored thread into a friend’s carpet. But the earnest New Thread on the Loom: Outsiders in Turkish Culture sounded too woolly, academic, unmarketable.
Not a title we ourselves would snatch off a shelf or cuddle up with in bed.
Instead, the theme had to elicit strong response with a tempting metaphor that could withstand scrutiny. We hit on a conspicuous and controversial tradition of the region, provocative enough to intrigue or enflame book buyers worldwide. We created the Expat Harem.
We were banking on the title ruffling feathers. Anachronistic. Titillating. Bound to provoke reaction. We decided to co-opt the word harem, with all its erroneous Western stereotypes about Asia Minor and the entire Muslim world.
Infusing ‘harem’ with new meaning, we declared our foreign-born contributors were modern reflections of the foreign brides of the Ottoman sultans: wedded to the culture of the land, embedded in it even, but forever alien. Adding to the title’s seduction, we mocked up a book cover with an iconic Orientalist painting by Ingres, a reclining nude looking over her shoulder.
THE FIRST SALE
- within 3 months, Expat Harem went to #1 at national bookseller Remzi
“We’d love to do this book!” said the owner of a new, young local publishing house, herself an American expat.
She bought the slim proposal composed in six weeks: a brief introduction to the Expat Harem concept, a list of chapters and proposed contents, editor bios, and an essay by Anastasia about a meet-the-parents trip to Istanbul which gave alarming Turkish connotation to her Russian name and urge to belly dance.
Despite the publisher’s limited resources and fledgling distribution network in Turkey and America, that overcast day in April 2004 we were thrilled to have our first book deal.
Undeterred that we bore the onus to propel the project to our envisioned heights, our adrenaline would compensate for all.
DOGGED PURSUIT
Between Anastasia's industry experience, drive, and efficiency and Jennifer's marketing background, local connections and knowledge of the Turkish language and culture, we complemented each other seamlessly.
Having a hands-off publisher was a blessing: it forced us to learn the ropes of book-making.
We called for submissions and publicized the project, set up a barebones website, posted flyers around Istanbul, and announced the book on bulletin boards and online communities of expatriates, writers, women writers, travelers, Turkey enthusiasts. We wrangled free listings in local city guidebooks. By July 2004 we convinced one of the top Turkish newspapers that the project was newsworthy and received a full page in the weekend lifestyle section, the first in a long line of local and international media coverage.
Responses began streaming in from the worldwide diaspora of eligible contributors. From West Africa to Southeast Asia to America’s Pacific Northwest, more than a hundred women sought to recount their sagas. We were overwhelmed with positive reactions to the project, and braced ourselves for darker interpretations. A few people chastised the title as unthinkably Orientalist while others were baited by our sexy cover.
“Wow, I wish I were an expat!” declared an airport security screener in New York.
ASKING FOR HELP
- Joe McCanta, creator of the Expat Harem martini 2007
We brainstormed all of our personal and professional contacts—people who might assist us. We approached friends who had published books for their advice on the agenting process and targeting publishers. We sought mentoring from corporate friends on image and branding, marketing strategies, potential blurbists, and press contacts. We requested aid from family members with expertise in promotions and press relations.
With a few ready essays we began sending requests for blurbs to prominent people who had a strong connection to Turkey, like the author of the international bestseller Harem: The World Behind the Veil, and a prominent news correspondent for Le Monde and The Wall Street Journal. Positive quotes spurred reviews from increasingly higher profile experts. In September 2004 an international design team began to construct a cover for the book as a personal favor, including the raves that were rolling in from experts in expatriatism, women’s studies, the Ottoman harem, and Turkish society.
By the Frankfurt International Book Fair in October 2004, it was obvious to more people than just us that Tales from the Expat Harem was a hot property. Our proposal had expanded to 28 pages with seven essays, including tales from an archaeologist at Troy, a Christian missionary in Istanbul, a pregnant artist in the capital of Ankara, and a penniless Australian stricken with influenza in the moonscape of a wintry Cappadocia.
Unfortunately the Istanbul publisher’s catalog for the German fair revealed that our hot property was not being handled the way we thought it deserved. Calling a meeting with the Istanbul publisher, our priorities and expectations didn’t jibe with theirs. Amicably, we decided to cancel our contract.
Meanwhile, we reached out to a literary agent who had been following Anastasia’s writing career, since it was clear the book could benefit from professional representation. Within a month, his top New York literary agency agreed to represent us.
- speaking at Population Action International, an NGO in D.C.
Suddenly several Turkish publishing houses approached us after reading about Expat Harem in the local media and we explored their interest even though we had already set our sights elsewhere. Freed from the limited resources of our first publisher, we aimed for the best Turkey had to offer: Dogan Kitap. The strongest publisher in the country, Dogan Kitap is part of the largest Turkish media conglomerate of television and radio stations, newspapers and magazine holdings and a nationwide chain of bookstores. But we didn’t approach the publisher first…
Instead, we contacted the owner of one of Dogan’s television stations who is known for her active involvement in promoting the image of women in Turkey, which dovetailed nicely with the theme of our project. Through professional connections we also requested aid from the head of Dogan’s magazine holdings. By the time Dogan’s book publishing branch received our request for an appointment, they had already heard about us through those two executives and had seen coverage of the book via three of their news outlets and at least two of their competitors. Our follow up call secured us a meeting with the publisher’s general manager in December 2004.
“You’ve come to the right address,” he declared. Then we didn’t hear from Dogan again.
THE SUBMISSION PROCESS
- Expat Harem signing for a Munich-based expat group 2007
The vast potential of the project began to dawn as our agent compared it to accessible personal stories of life in the Middle East, bestselling titles like Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Bookseller of Kabul. He began submitting the growing ms to U.S. publishers.
“What could be more timely than an insider’s view of women’s lives in the Middle East—as told by resident Westerners?”
We asked this in our November press release, generated in four languages and sent to foreign press correspondents in Istanbul, followed up with phone calls. Agence France Presse, one of the world’s largest news agencies, interviewed us before an important European Union vote on Turkey, while in February 2005 Newsweek International published our letter to the editor, exposing the upcoming anthology to more than a million readers across Europe.
Meanwhile, in New York, an editor at a publishing house known for its anthologies effusively praised the manuscript but her editorial board demurred.
Turkey was too small a subject they felt, suggesting we expand the book to other Muslim nations like Sudan, Kosovo, and Iran. We countered with a franchise series of Expat Harem books. Too large a project, they said. Editors at ten other New York houses also were split in their reactions, recognizing the appeal of the Muslim setting and the foreign female focus, yet unconvinced that a collection by unknown writers would draw major audiences. By February 2005 all the top New York houses had passed so we targeted more independent houses, university presses and those which had published our blurbists.
STAYING POSITIVE
During the excruciating winter months of ms submissions, sustaining enthusiasm wasn’t easy. Doubts began to multiply. We hadn’t heard back from Dogan Kitap, they weren’t answering our emails, and U.S. publishers weren’t biting. Taking inspiration from a chapter in our own book, one devoted to Turkey’s shamanistic roots and methods of banishing the envious evil eye, we created a ritual to cast off negative energy.
We wrote down fears we had discussed as well as those we would not openly admit to having: ‘We will not find a publisher. We will not finish the book. No one will read it. It will be embarrassing to promote…’
Then we burned the list – and not just anywhere. Since the Expat Harem co-opted the image of the Ottoman harem, we headed to the Topkapi Palace, visited the chambers of our namesakes, and asked their blessings. In an outside courtyard, we literally reduced our fears to ashes.
We also considered the mindset of our agent. It can’t be easy to break bad news to clients so we never expected our agent to be our cheerleader. We responded to his rejection emails with the successes we were achieving on our front.
We invested no energy in the negativity of others. Without rebutting critics, we would smile and say, ‘we’ll see’ as if we knew something they didn’t.
Naysayers couldn’t argue our continued success when they-- along with all our contacts-- received bubbly email announcements every time we appeared in the media, received a new blurb, or made another advance.
MARKETING
- the two Turkish editions discussed on a national literature TV program
We both have professional experience and a personal predilection for marketing and turned our attention to finding every opportunity to get the word out. Before we had one page of the manuscript, we had already perused John Kremer’s 1001 Ways To Market Your Books, were tracking academic conferences in which we might participate, researching comparable books, and compiling lists of audiences and organizations that might like to host us as speakers.
Even so, the book was rejected by fifteen publishers before we tackled the daunting official marketing plan. Most editors commented that they liked the idea but didn’t see the market. Was Turkey truly too far from the U.S.A. to matter to American audiences?
We needed to make our case and identify potential markets American publishers might not traditionally consider.
In January 2005 we defined our main audiences as having something in common with the contributors:
- travelers
- expatriates
- women writers
- travel writers
- those interested in women’s and Middle Eastern studies
- people whose lives were linked with Turkey
We noted the 1.2 million Americans who’ve traveled to Turkey in the past five years, the 87 Turkish American associations serving more than 88,000 Turkish nationals in America plus tens of thousands of Americans with Turkish heritages, women’s and Middle Eastern studies programs at hundreds of North American universities, and specific Turkophile populations like the alumni of the Peace Corps who served in Turkey. We also compiled more practical subsidiary audiences. Multinational corporations with operations in Turkey, embassies and tourism organizations might use the book as a cross-cultural training tool or a promotional vehicle.
We imagined the book developing a positive image of Turkey abroad, addressing the unvoiced but deep concern of many businesspeople, travelers and diplomats: will our women be safe?
SECOND AND THIRD SALES
- meeting of potential Expat Harem contributors 2004
Unsure how to interpret Dogan Kitap’s silence, we wondered if they had been serious about our book. After our visit in December, why didn’t they call? Why didn’t they answer our emails or those from our agent? Staying positive, we phoned until we secured follow-up appointments by the end of January, and at that meeting they acted as if the project were already theirs. Contrary to our gloomy speculation, their behemoth operation had slowed their response. Reluctant to misstep, they seemed hesitant to start negotiations until our agent sent them a draft contract in English. Though Dogan originally planned to publish only in Turkish, on the strength of our marketing plan we convinced them that the local English language market was large enough to warrant two editions. In February 2005, Dogan bought the Turkish world rights and the English rights for Turkey.
Success snowballed. On Valentine’s Day, the feminist imprint of Avalon Publishing Group, Seal Press, offered us a publishing contract for the North American rights! When Seal’s marketing department presented the book at a June 2005 presales conference to book distributors from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others, everyone was ‘flushed with amazement’ at our detailed marketing plan.
SPAWNING CONTINUED MARKETING OPPORTUNITIES
- Expat Harem panel, Istanbul Book Fair 2005
The marketing never ends! In April 2005 we produced at our own expense 5,000 promotional postcards with our book cover, photos, website address and reviews from scholars, journalists and diplomats, distributing them via our worldwide contributors. When the postcard found its way into the hands of the producer of Publishing Trends, an American book industry intelligence newsletter, Tales from the Expat Harem garnered nearly a page of coverage in the June 2005 issue, winning us the attention of a highly influential international publishing audience.
Our website consistently delivers a stream of queries from people identifying themselves as future book buyers while our web-tracking reveals the growing global audience we’ve created in the past year. Thirty-five hundred visitors from 90 countries have dropped by since we began tracking site activity. To tap into this ready-made market, our publishers set up pre-sales via internet bookstores, while our local speaking engagements have generated offers for additional receptions and book signings.
We kept the pressure on once the book was released in Turkey, using the printed books to seek new media coverage and fresh blurbs in September 2005. Stephen Kinzer, the former New York Times Istanbul bureau chief, offered us a quote for the cover of our Seal Press edition. We also turned our attention to the official launch party scheduled for November.
Since our publisher’s launch party budget didn’t cover our starry-eyed fantasy of an event at the Topkapı Palace harem, we looked for a sponsor.
Though we didn’t exactly end up with our fantasy, through fearless soliciting we did land a prominent hostess for our 200 person cocktail at a 5-star hotel—the owner of a Dogan television station who initially paved the way for our book deal. A woman concerned with Turkey’s image abroad, and in particular with the perception of women’s lives in Turkey, she invited her own A-list guests as well as our growing list of international press correspondents, blurbists, supporters, and many of the influential people we hope to cultivate.
The event was broadcast on television news for several days, and featured in newspapers, their glossy weekend supplements, and magazines.
HARD WORK PAYS OFF
At the Istanbul International Book Fair in October 2005, where we headed a panel discussion and had a book signing, our Turkish publisher promoted Türkçe Sevmek, the translation of Tales from the Expat Harem, on a 15 foot illuminated display alongside its translations of Umberto Eco and Julia Navarro.
After hitting the Turkish bookshelves, both Dogan editions sold out within six weeks, with the English edition debuting on the bestseller lists at several national bookstore chains and making its way to the number two spot – beating out two J.K. Rowlings, a Michael Connelly and three Dan Browns.
We have appeared on a handful of national television stations, including three different CNN-TURK shows which were simultaneously broadcast on CNN-TURK radio, and have been invited to appear on several other stations; we were featured in all the top national Turkish and English newspapers, with one providing three consecutive days of extensive coverage during one of the country’s highest circulation weeks; we are sitting for interviews with specialized media; we’re fielding requests for review copies from international culture journals; and, quite edifyingly, we are meeting readers as well as our expat peers in cities throughout Turkey on weekend book tours.
[This article first appeared in a slightly different form in ABSOLUTE WRITE, 2006]
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Shifting From Writing For Others To Writing For Myself, With Mediabistro's First Journalism Bootcamp
My Mediabistro alumni interview with Claire Zulkey for Mediabistro Toolbox. I took Mediabistro's first media program given by creator of the series, Victoria Rowan, in 2005.
What course did you take, how did you hear about the boot camp and why did you decide to take it?
I took Parris Island Journalism Boot Camp with Victoria Rowan, Fall 2001, eager to reinvigorate – and focus — my writing career after being laid off from a trade magazine editorship.
I wanted to make the shift from writing for others to writing for myself.
Also, like many writers who have not explicitly studied journalism or the business of writing, I knew I could benefit from a more professional approach to the craft.
Did it lead to any assignments, connections or jobs? What did you learn?
Yes. One week we interviewed newsworthy acquaintances and tried to sell the profiles. With that material I published a profile/book review/event announcement in the Village Voice — the managing editor’s hybrid idea when I emphasized the curating work my multimedia poet interviewee was doing at St. Mark’s Poetry Project, and an upcoming performance there of a new Brion Gysin book.
Thanks to Victoria’s pragmatic ‘so-what, why this audience, why now’ coaching, emphasizing these elements of my pitch set my subject at the helm of an upcoming event where avant garde artworld legends would be appearing. The right story for the right audience.
I also understood from Bootcamp that I had a time hook most appropriate for a weekly newspaper like the Voice. The editor’s suggestion entailed a lot more work but Bootcamp taught me that if an editor was gracious enough to tell me exactly what he could use all I needed to do was accept the challenge. As Victoria explained, “We’re here to eliminate the reasons an editor has to reject your work.”
MB’s Bootcamp offered operable information about writing and selling in seven genres (personal essays, travel, op-ed, business features, profiles and reviews and tone-dependent pieces like the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town).
The bootcamp also underscored the importance of astute portfolio building to get a writer where she wants to go.
I benefited most from Victoria’s deconstructive clarity about composing and selling nonfiction writing — and today it is appreciable how much I learned about piloting a writing career.
Launching Writer's Desk: A Web Tool To Organize The Writing Life
My software developer husband and I designed and built a new web-based writing tool. It was inspired by my experience as a freelance nonfiction writer. This online service provides a basic foundation for writers to get organized by recording revisions, tracking submissions, compiling market information and registering rights and income. For the past six months my husband and I have been designing and building a new web-based writer's tool. In this season of resolutions, we're happy to announce the launch of Writer's Desk, an online workspace to improve the way writers spend their time. We'd be honored if you pass the opportunity to colleagues and friends -- writers of all kinds -- who may have resolved to get organized this year.
SITUATION
Being a writer often sneaks up on a person. Not many train for the vocation nor start with all the equipment, contacts, long view. It's no wonder that eventually the snowball of success or dogged enthusiasm becomes an avalanche of produce - or expectation. Then buried writers inch along using outdated, poorly conceived systems to track work; repeatedly resolve to better keep writing in circulation; dream of one day expanding to new markets. SOLUTION
My computer scientist husband watched me -- a New York-based freelance writer -- function in this typical writerly way. But unlike sympathetic others in the writing trade, he found observing me in action unbearable. So we pooled my professional nightmare with his software developing expertise to construct a website that has revolutionized the way I work and is too useful not to share with the wider writing community.
If you can operate a web browser anywhere in the world you can use this online service to simplify the logistics of being an active writer. Subscription is less than USD20 per year and while the site is optimized for the U.S. market, feedback from international users will help make it a global service.
FREE SUBSCRIPTION
Register for a thirty day free trial at www.writers-desk.com to judge if Writer's Desk improves your current method to:
- Track writing objectives and submissions
- Compile editorial guidelines and publishing contacts
- Register rights granted, income earned
- Trace the development and history of work - and more!
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We just opened it to the public as a subscription service. You can find the creative and business workspace at www.writers-desk.com
Writers use tools to *write* and tools to *sell the work*. Writer's Desk is a bit of a cross between the two since it helps a writer envision her portfolio, both published and unpublished; encourages hierarchical thinking about projects and other writing ideas in order to more deeply develop material; offers a place to consolidate market contact information and notes; and helps track submissions, rights and income.
I can upload documents to the web service for retrieval on the fly -- and open and update my account from any computer with Internet access. So for me, logging on to Writer's Desk every day affords a quick overview of what I've done, what I must do today, what I plan to do and what I hope to do.
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A superb and versatile tool to manage song submissions and grant applications.
-- songwriter, Seattle, WA
Smart use of web technology. Finally I'm not tethered to my laptop.
-- journalist, New York, NY
Perfect for disorganized writers. Especially helps follow up with editors and agents!
-- novelist, Lawrence, KS
Portfolio overview is priceless. Great to develop new ideas, exploit material.
-- essayist, Des Moines, IA
Suits my purposes: developing scripts, tracking festival submissions.
-- screenwriter and director, San Francisco, CA
Figurehead Travel Model For The Sharing Economy
Acknowledging a tendency for certain students to be natural leaders in their social circles, Kerim Baran, principal of a figurehead travel service based in San Francisco, invites magnetic personalities to serve as unencumbered trip leaders while their classmates cement social and professional bonds in style.
“Imagine jetting off to an exotic locale with your favorite college crowd,” says Baran. “Without the buzz-killing responsibility of being in charge.”
Inspired by his own social travel peaks while in the academy, this Harvard MBA offers a short-cut to quality group travel in Turkey and beyond, absorbing intensive logistics and tailoring trips to culturally curious, active collegiates.
In its maiden season this past summer, Baran chartered Istanbul nightclub hopping and Aegean yachting tours for several assemblies of Harvard students.
Staging my destination wedding in Turkey last year was a first-hand lesson in the immense energy investment -- and memorable profit -- of group travel. Through social connections I have become acquainted with Mr. Baran and his travel philosophy.
I see it as a way to maximize college holidays: students with less cash to drop than shoulders to rub can benefit from the economy of scale offered by this new form of group trip. The figurehead model.
Invite To Beta Test A New Writer's Tool
As a writing friend or associate of mine, I’d like to cordially invite you to beta-test WRITER’S DESK. This new web-based writer's tool was designed by my computer scientist husband after unbearably observing me in action. Too useful not to share, we soon plan to launch it as an online subscription service. If you can operate a web browser, you can use this database software intended to simplify the logistics of being an active writer. An online centralized place to store and manage information to maximize your writing potential, WRITER’S DESK can help you:
TRACK SUBMISSIONS AND MONITOR PROGRESS
- Identify publications and presses where your work is currently under consideration
- Display a history of your submissions to a specific outlet
- Distinguish agents and editors you’ve followed up with and their reactions
- Map the exposure of different incarnations of your work
- Register the rights granted and income earned on each project
DEVELOP YOUR WRITING GOALS
- Brainstorm overarching project ideas
- Pinpoint specific directions to go with your material
- Note thematic patterns in your publication history to strengthen your portfolio or phase-out beats of little interest
- Log unpublished or unused material and make plans to capitalize on it
- Chart a publication path to your dream gigs
ORGANIZE YOUR RESOURCES
- Plan well-received approaches based on editorial and submission guidelines of your target presses, publications, and editors
- Compile, annotate and manage a database of publishing world contacts
- Upload document files for access on the fly
- Search your projects and files by keyword or word count
HOW TO BE A BETA TESTER
The beta test starts in October. During the test period, use the tool to its fullest extent to evaluate how it works for you. While using and in an exit questionnaire, share your impressions about any and all aspects of the tool. (If you lack sufficient time or motivation right now, but want to be kept abreast of WRITER’S DESK developments, let me know by email before October 1. I will be happy to notify you when we launch so you can enjoy the software at your own pace.)
In exchange for your active participation as a beta tester, I am pleased to offer the online service free for a year, with significantly discounted membership thereafter. A considerable additional benefit of being a beta tester is that later versions -- customized with your valuable feedback – may align not only with the way you truly work, but how you have always dreamed of working.
Interested beta testers, please email me by Tuesday, October 1 and let me know what computer system and version of IE or Netscape you plan to use. Soon you will receive a detailed email with a link to the tool and the start date of the test.
Thank you for taking a moment to consider assessing WRITER’S DESK beta version, I appreciate it!
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Welcome to the WRITER’S DESK beta test. Thank you for trying this new web service, your enthusiasm and sense of adventure are appreciated! Here are further details of the test -- which begins today -- and a link to the tool.
CONTROLLED BETA
The test you are about to participate in is a controlled beta test, which means that it is not open to users beyond those who are initially invited. Any new accounts registered after the beta group has enrolled will be blocked. Others will be able to try the system for free when we launch.
However, feel free to refer associates who might be interested in trying WRITER’S DESK in an expanded test.
SERVICE INTERRUPTIONS
Since this is a beta, we will regularly update the site, incorporating fixes and changes based on the results of testing and your feedback. An update takes about five minutes, but for now we ask you not use the site between 11:00 p.m. – 11:30 p.m. nightly. If or when the schedule changes, you will be notified by email. We will also alert you to longer updates.
SAFEGUARD DATA
Like all beta versions, the WRITER’S DESK software you are about to use is potentially unstable. While no data has been lost during development and alpha, we recommend you safeguard the information you enter in the tool by printing it out. Also make sure you keep a copy of any documents you upload from your personal computer. The database will be backed up daily and transferred to a remote machine, but not the documents you have uploaded.
CONFIDENTIALITY
By participating in this beta you agree that you will refrain from sharing details -- large and small -- about WRITER’S DESK with anyone from the start of the beta period until we publicly announce launch of the service. We apologize if this goes against your communal grain. When we launch we would be more than happy if you mention the web tool to others!
BEING A TESTER
During the beta period, use the tool as often as you can and to its fullest extent to best evaluate how it functions for you. But also test its limits: don’t fill in every field or only partially fill a field. Enter what you think might be bad data and see how the system reacts. DO ODD THINGS! If all goes as planned, you will know when the system fails when you end up on an error page, on which the path of the page that generated the error will be displayed. But any other odd behavior should be reported. Let us know what happens to you, and while you work, share what you’re thinking by jotting observations and questions in the feedback form. Which sections seem gratuitous, which are vital, what is missing?
EXIT QUESTIONNAIRE
When the beta ends, in an exit survey we will solicit your opinion on possible new features, based on our own plans for developing the service, and your feedback while testing it.
GET STARTED
Proceed to http://www.writers-desk.com. Register. Preview the Getting Started page, and you’re on your way!
We look forward to hearing what you think of WRITER’S DESK and thank you for your time.