AGT Monthly Meeting for November 2025 

The Authors Guild of Tennessee held their monthly meeting on Thursday, November 6, 2025, at the Faith Lutheran Church, Farragut, from 10:30 until noon.

The following members were present:

Bill Barbour, Gary Butler, Steven Cornelius, Gayle Curtin, Laura Derr, Danita Dotson, Barbara Dunn, Carmen Flores, John Forcum, Leoma Gilley, Jim Hartsell, Wes Hibbert, David Johnston, Sean Mitchell, Cheryl Peyton, Nancy Pressley, Ron Pressley, Chuck Roseberry, Brenda Sellers, Art Stewart, Becky Tucker, Jeri Weems, Victoria Winifred, and Curt Young. 

Guests: JoAnn Cornelius

Welcome – Cheryl reported that Kaye George couldn’t be here as she can’t bend her knee enough to get into the front seat of a car. She hopes to be back next month. Other members are traveling.  This is Sean Mitchell’s last meeting, as he has to drive too far for meetings and events.

New Books:

Bill Barbour has recently released his book on Christianity titled Barriers –To a Christian Life. It addresses the reasons former churchgoers no longer attend church, and why they should consider returning.

Jim Hartsell’s new book is Hidden Worlds, the second book in a trilogy written for middle-grade children. The first book is Atlas.

Barb Dunn donated her father-in-law’s book Willis Avenue to our library.  He was a Marine from the Bronx who wrote about the characters and situations he encountered there.

Treasurer’s report for Oct. 25 – Bill
Beginning Cash Balance	$          3,241
Ending Cash Balance	$          2,954
Less:	$           (822)	Writing Competition
	$             (94)	Outstanding checks
Net Cash Available	$          2,038
Income
Trade show booths	$              286
Book Sales	$                52
Expenses
Trade Show Fees	$            470
Author payments	$              43
Speaker lunch	$              19
Storage Rental (Prime Storage)	$              92

If you need equipment for a show, arrange with Nancy to go to our new storage facility off Campbell Station, just past the Interstate, after our meeting. Cheryl and Nancy have the keys. Nancy lives close by if you need to go at another time.

Committee Chairs.

Fairs and Festivals – Nancy reports eight people will go to the Christmas Festival for three days. It’s a great location.

Peaceful Side of the Smokies in Townsend. There are no openings.

In 2026: Several want to go to the Strawberry Festival in Rhea County if we can apply. Appalachia WordFest (formerly Rose Glen) starts in February, and is an individual application.

Some local events are very productive, like one at Tellico Village yesterday. Cheryl, Bobbi, and Bill sold a lot of books there.

Officers for 2026

President. Let Cheryl know if you’re interested.

Gene will stay as Vice-President

Leoma will stay as Secretary

Bill will remain as Treasurer

Gayle will continue as Asst. Treasurer

Jeri will stay on the Board as an at-large member.

We need Committee heads for the Library and Programs.

Nancy will continue on Fairs and Festivals

Art and Jerry will continue on the Writing Contest

There is an opening on the Board, member-at-large. This involves one meeting per year and voting on issues as they arise.

The Board will meet next Thursday to discuss any issues for next year. Let Chery know of any concerns that should be discussed.

Program

Open Forum was held for members to share their least and most effective methods of formatting, designing covers, publishing, marketing, and selling books.

Beginning a new book: The first day you sit down to write a book, set up a book file. Cheryl has a step-by-step program that she can send that will set you up for self-publishing. This includes putting the document into book size with margins and font from the beginning. She will send this to everyone.

Sales from online platforms, retail locations, and fairs/festivals.

• Kroger offers an opportunity for $75/year through Authors in Grocery Stores. You set your days, hours, etc., and you receive 62% of the sales. They won’t accept books with violence and controversial issues. Other factors may limit your participation. Direct sales offer a chance to get to know the person and for them to know you.
• Find out what the demographic of your readership is. Different events attract different types of people. You need an educated person to appreciate poetry, for example. Nancy can include the question, “What genre of books did you sell?” on her response questionnaire.
• Victoria started a newsletter that sells books. Newsletter swaps (Story Origin and Book Funnel). About 10% of newsletter recipients will buy your book.
• Publicity sources – newspaper or online sources. The local paper in Tellico Village has promoted local authors. Getting covered in the news often depends on who you know. Reach out to reporters as they are looking for news. If you are speaking somewhere or doing a book signing, a reporter may interview you for a local interest story. Donating books and letting newspapers know about the event can be helpful.

Chapter 16 is an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. They asked Danita for an e-copy of her book to evaluate. This was followed by an online interview and then articles in Knoxville and Chattanooga papers.

When reviewing, don’t just recap the story. Tell what you like or do not like about the book. That is most helpful. We all need to be reviewing each other’s books. The numbers of reviews matter.

Pricing strategies –$15 is standard for a paperback book. Middle-grade books are $12, and lower-grade school books are $10.  They may need to be slightly higher to break even. Free is a magic word. People buy what you ask them to buy. So, offer 3 books for the price of 2, for example.

Writing contests. Book Award Pro vets award programs and offers suggestions for Amazon reviews as well as editorial reviews. It has a free version and a paid version to help you find legitimate contests and editorial reviews.

Book cover design There are multiple free or reasonable sources. Cheryl has paid for an AGT account with Canva that each of us can use. Get Covers.com is good and reasonably priced ($10-20). You also get the license for the images. Shutterstock.com offers free pictures.

Reviews: It is difficult to get reviews from readers. Pubby.com is a successful way to get reviews, but you must review other people’s books. Once you get enough points, then you can ask for a review. You don’t have to read the whole book. There is a fee for the service, and you need to buy the ebooks ($1.99-4.99). If ebooks cost more, the author provides a free PDF or ebook copy for reviewers.

If you have more than 50 reviews on Amazon, you have a better chance of your book coming up more frequently on the algorithm.

At the end of your book, ask readers to go to Amazon to add a review. And on an ebook, they can go straight to the link.

We need to support each other by liking each other’s posts on FB and newsletters.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:25.

Respectfully submitted,

Leoma Gilley, Secretary