Support The Empowered Author WRITER Support Program
Welcome! I’m hoping some of you may know me already from Twitter, or perhaps our paths have crossed while I was at HarperCollins or The Bookseller. I have been running The Empowered Author, formerly Lounge Marketing, for about 18 months. I launched it to offer authors marketing, publicity and design advice and to help demystify publishing a little too.
There is a lot to admire and feel positive about across the book industry, not least that we entertain, educated and inform people with the amazing books we publish. However, I do think there are many areas of publishing that need to improve and change - we need to call out poor pay for booksellers, the pay gap, how London-centric the business is, how overwhelmingly white and middle-class it is, challenge snobbery, and strive to make the industry more accessible for marginalised communities and writers.
This is something I feel very passionate about and try to support any way I can; by speaking at writer events, at universities, sharing and supporting initiatives and mentoring writers and publishing folk who can directly benefit from my support. I try my hardest to be a force for good in the industry.
About me
A little bit about my background - I am a working class Bristolian from a family of shopkeepers (florists and fruit & veg), I was brought up by my Mum on her own, and had a few difficult times as a young child. My Mum, through hard work, gave me and my three siblings a very good life, all funded by her flower shop. Not quite sure how, but I turned out to be quite a swot and and weirdly good at Maths!! And was the first woman in the family to go to university where I got a degree in Maths & Russian. Obviously a natural career choice was publishing! I started working in magazines 25 years ago mostly running marketing and circulation departments and about 10 years ago, I moved into books and haven’t looked back.
I talk very openly about my mental health struggles too, which I hope plays a part in removing the stigma around it. All of my life experiences make me appreciate and understand how incredibly hard life can be. I am very aware that many people start much further back with many closed doors ahead of them. If I get a chance to open a door for anyone then I try my hardest to do so. I realise that I am now in a position of influence with a lot of connections - so use that privileged position for good.
The Empowered Author Writer Support Program
That is why I am launching this new writer support program and I am hoping you might consider supporting it. I am offering 20 writers a free membership to The Empowered Author for a year (worth £100) - this will be open to writers with disabilities, chronic illnesses, carers, from working class background and writers on low income. If you would like to support this initiative and help me to continue to support the writing community through my webinars, blog and newsletter, I would massively appreciate it. (The writer support program will officially launch in early May, if I can fund it. If you are a writer and would like to be part of this program, complete the form below and I will let you know when I launch).
As you can see, I have set up 3 different sponsorship levels - £50, £100 or £200.
I can add your name/logo to my sponsorship page and/or if you are a supplier to the industry I can add you to my supplier & services directory.
I am always very happy to hear from you if you’d like to share experiences with me, work with me in anyway or have ideas and projects you’d like me to support.
With my huge thanks,
Sam x