A Special Message from MWSA President Bob Doerr

Great news on the membership front—paying less and getting more

Click here for more details

One of my main goals as your MWSA president has been to encourage growth in our membership rolls. One of the most effective ways to do this is by lowering the cost of membership.

Over the past six months, our membership and finance committees have been looking for ways to reduce our operating costs while also improving services to our members. As a result, we have been able to identify efficiencies in our operations and increased volunteer participation in our membership management area. These cost-cutting initiatives have led to a significant reduction in our annual expenses.

At the same time, we’ve introduced many new member benefits and programs to increase the value of your MWSA membership. Over the past several months, we’ve added author interviews, review-swap and writer’s forums, free online library listings (with expanded social media presence to help increase our members’ book sales), beta readers, member resource directory, to name just a few—and there’s much more to come.

I’m therefore very happy to announce that your MWSA board of directors has approved a reduction in annual dues from $75 to $50 per year. We’re also creating further opportunities for savings by introducing new membership options:

• 1-year membership @ $50 per year

• 2-year membership @ $45/year ($90 or 10% discount)

• 3-year membership @ $40/year ($120 or 20% discount)

We plan to implement these new membership options and pricing on July 1 this year.

As we iron out the technical details, we’ll be providing everyone with further information about how and when you’ll be able to take advantage of these new ways to save money as an MWSA member. We'll be posting these details on the membership page of our website (https://www.mwsadispatches.com/membership) in the coming days.

These are exciting times for MWSA. I'm optimistic about our future, and I think this new membership initiative will help set our organization on a path toward sustainable growth and ever-increasing value to our membership.

Bob Doerr
MWSA President

New Member Benefit: Beta Reader Forum

Click to go to the Beta Reader Forum page.

As a new service to our members, MWSA announces our Beta Reader Forum. The idea is to easily expand our authors’ pool of potential beta readers—an important part of our creative process for books nearing completion.

As with our review swap program, MWSA is only providing a venue to get authors and beta readers together. Once there, you might also agree to swap reviews once the book is published.

The page is available to members only (username and password required).

Here are the details (which are also posted at the top of the forum page):

PURPOSE

• Use this forum to line up beta readers for your book.

• This is a member-to-member program, MWSA will not monitor any individual agreements made via this system.

SUGGESTIONS

• Provide a short paragraph describing your book

  • Include title, author, genre, expected publication date

  • Keep your initial posting short--you can always share more details once another MWSA member responds to your request

• What format(s) you'll provide your beta readers

  • Paper copy: manuscript, proof, etc.

  • Digital format: Word document, PDF, eBook format (.mobi, .epub)

• How you'll collect feedback--i.e. via paper questionnaire, online form, email responses

• When you'll collect feedback--i.e. your expectation on how long beta readers have to read and provide feedback.

• Whether or not you'll be posting beta reader names into your book's acknowledgment section.

  • MWSA recommends that authors acknowledge beta readers... and that they allow the readers to opt in or out!

MWSA Review and Awards Book Submission Window Temporarily Closed

Based on an unexpected—and in fact, unprecedented—surge in demand, MWSA has temporarily closed our Review and Awards Book Submission window.

What happened?

By the end of yesterday (Feb. 20th) we had received our 40th book of the season. Last year, even though we opened our submission window on the same date (January 15th), we didn’t reach that 40-book milestone until the 4th of April!

The bottom line: we don’t have enough volunteer reviewers to comfortably meet the demand of our member-authors.

There are two silver linings to the temporary closure cloud:

1. The 2019 season is still young, and we have plenty of time to recover. Everyone who has already submitted their book WILL have it read, evaluated, reviewed, and considered for award by our announcement of finalists in mid-August.

2. The increased demand is a sign that more and more of you want our “product”… which might be seen as a harbinger of growth for our organization.

As soon as our backlog clears, we’ll open up the window again. We’re hoping to do this soon: in a few days, rather than a few weeks.

Is there anything you can do to help? You bet!

We can always use more reviewers. If you have time to complete our online reviewer training (takes about one hour) and are prepared to read and review a book or two during this season, we’d love to have you join us! If you’re interested, please click on the button below and then fill out the contact form to let us know!

MWSA Social Media News

MWSA members now have several new ways to interact and find out what’s going on with your organization.

A few days ago, we created two new social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter. These new accounts add to our existing presence on Goodreads and YouTube.

Please visit our new locations and help us spread the word about MWSA:

• Like us

• Friend us

• Retweet or share stories of interest with friends or on your own social media platforms

Each of the above actions helps increase MWSA’s online visibility… and that helps us find and attract new members.

You’ll find links to all MWSA social media connections at the bottom of every page of our main website. Just click on any of those links—or the ones below—to see what’s going on and to participate in the action.

Please remember that we’re a volunteer organization. If you can spare a few minutes each month to help us with these various social media platforms, please consider doing so. Let us know you have a question or comment—and especially if you’re interested in lending a hand—by clicking on the button at the end of this page.

How can you help?

You can…

• help us with content

  • share your research, writing, editing, publishing, and/or marketing tales of success… or your horror stories

  • ask a question

  • make a suggestion

• help us with management and oversight

  • Help us manage a particular page or platform

  • Find and let us know about unanswered questions or inappropriate posts or comments

• learn how some of these platforms work—even if you’re a “social media neophyte”—which will help in your own social media/marketing efforts

Just visit our Contact Page and click on the “Volunteer Form” button—we’ll try to answer as quickly as we can.

MWSA Goodreads page

Click on image to visit our MWSA page on Goodreads

In an effort to expand our MWSA "internet presence" and credibility--as well as get our members' books "out there"--we've created our own MWSA page on Goodreads.

We've just updated the page so that all books and reviews since 2017 are now posted.

Please visit our Goodreads page and become "friends!"

If anyone would be interested in helping maintain our Goodreads presence, please let us know. 

New Member Resource Directory

Click on image to go to our new Member Resources Directory page.

As a service to its members, MWSA has created new member resource directory page on our website. 

The page is meant to provide information and contact details for organizations offering services to writers and veterans.

We encourage all MWSA members to offer (or recommend) services to other members--whether their own services or those of other private or governmental organizations.  The page includes an easy-to-use online form to submit a new organization or company.

In order to list your own services, you must be an MWSA member in good standing. 

MWSA is offering this page as a service to our members.  We are not specifically endorsing any company or organization listed on that page.

New Member Programs

In order to provide more value to our members, MWSA has rolled out two new member benefits:

• Author Interviews Page
• Review Swap Program

Author Interview Program

Provides a members-only, online form for creating and publishing an author interview.  

• Create & customize your own interview
  • Write your interview questions and answers
  • Copy and paste your interview into our easy-to-use online form
  • Submit to MWSA
• MWSA will reformat--but not ed it--your interview and post it on our website
• Link to your interview on your own website to create buzz for your writing efforts

For more details, click on the button below.

---

Review Swap Program

Every author knows how important reviews are to their book marketing program.  They also know that--unless you already a well-established author or have an almost unlimited budget--actually getting reviews can be difficult and/or time-consuming.

MWSA has created a members-only blog on our allied website (the one hosted by Wild Apricot) where MWSA member-authors can volunteer to review each others' books.

For more details, click on the button below.