Last month, I joined the International Thriller Writers as a debut author. Right away, I was surprised by the amount of attention the organization pays to new members and, most importantly, new authors. After joining the debut authors program, Ian Walkley, an Australian writer, contacted me to conduct an online interview. I really appreciated his questions. They allowed me to speak both about the book and my own journey to becoming a fiction writer. The interview is live now.
In the words of Cory Doctorow, the biggest problem for a new author is anonymity. Just because my book was published doesn’t mean that anyone is going to read it. That’s true even for those books published by the five big publishers. So we writers have to build our own platform using social media and other ways to get our name out there.
ITW recognizes that and offers many means to support its members. The Debut Author program is just one of them.
Hey Michael, found you on the IWT-Website and saw, that you are a native German author, which makes me contact you. I joined IWT a few weeks ago and coming from a longer reading-tour, I just started to look around there. Like you I’m overwhelmed by the possibilities, IWT gives to their members! Now I will go on, wandering around, being stunned – and thinking about creating a completely new scedule for my long-ago planned visit in USA in August 2014.
In my network we say: We will be reading each other! Hope so.
Greetings, Kathrin Lange