Marla Miller.jpg

Marla Miller

Hooking Readers

Editorial read & critique and social media strategies and discussion

Monday - Friday
1:00-3:30 PM
Terrace I

Aimed at all levels, fiction & non-fiction, this workshop cross-pollinates editorial work with marketing and social media strategies, to expand author platforms. Both are needed in the 21st century publishing reality. In all sessions, leader and participants will listen for reader hook-ability and social media rooted platform building ideas and strategies. Workshop attendees are to bring openings, 5–7 pages (fiction or narrative nonfiction) and book proposals – overview, introduction and sample chapter. Query letters for critiquing also welcomed. 

Message to Students

Bring Passion for your work and ability to hear constructively delivered critiques. If it’s your first time at SBWC, my advice is: Enjoy! For 16 years, Marla Miller wrote for OC Register magazine before becoming founding editor-in-chief of an O.C. lifestyle magazine. In 1999, Simon and Schuster published her first book, All American Girls, the authorized biography of the World Cup/Gold Medal winning U.S Women’s National Soccer Team. Until 2003, her sports columns appeared on Oxygen.com. In 2003, Miller’s experience in traditional publishing inspired her to launch MarketingtheMuse Workshop at SBWC. Though indie publishing wasn’t much of a thought back then, association with a big house taught her that many traditionally published authors receive very little help from marketing departments. So now she works with writers on the road to publication. Miller’s experience in the entrepreneurial (indie) author movement includes several co-author and/or with author books, an e-novel and an e-short story. In 2016, a small New York press published one of Miller’s clients, a writer she met in her 2013 SBWC workshop. Though she appreciates the options writers now have, Miller’s point of view remains the same: first, write the best dang story you know how to write. Miller may be contacted via her website.

Writing Tip I Live By

Writing is rewriting.

Recommended Authors

Ray Carver, Anne Sexton, Suzanna Moore, Barnaby Conrad, James Ellroy, and Ann Lamott for inspiration.

MarlaMiller.com