Event Description

Online PanelWebinar:
Getting Ready to Publish Your Book

Wednesday, May 19, 2021 
7:00 – 9:00 p.m. Pacific
IWOSC members – free
Non-members – $15
Via Zoom

Great info!
Please keep doing zoom meetings or record a video if you go back to live presentations
~MS

This was a great class!
It was full of knowledge, and I really appreciated it.
~JS

Please do convey thanks to Gerald and Ina for a very entertaining and informative evening.
~RT

Extremely useful webinar, and the handout is terrific.  I look forward to joining IWOSC.
~MDV

Getting ready to take your book out to the world? Wonderful! Got questions about how to go about getting published? Such as whether to publish yourself or try for a traditional publisher, and what the steps are for each? Our experts will talk about these questions and more, and provide a number of handouts to help you take concrete steps to get your unique voice heard.

Specifics include:

• Why the first thing on the to-do list is review your manuscript. Key elements to check to make sure it’s ready to go to the next step.
• Why use beta readers? And at what stage of pre-publishing does an author use them?
• When do you need a professional editor?
• About choosing a traditional publisher or independent (self-publishing), what are the pros and cons of each? And what are hybrid publishers? Pros/Cons?
• Do you need an agent? When yes, when no, and key points about finding an agent.
• Do you need a book proposal? When? What’s entailed?
• Query letters – when/why are these needed? Tips on creating/targeting.
• When do you need to plan social media, platform building, PR?

Our expert speakers are:

Gerald Everett Jones

Gerald Everett Jones is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Monica, California.

He often works a ghostwriter and developmental editor on fiction and nonfiction manuscripts and proposals.

He won six book awards in 2020, including four for mystery-thrillers, one for literary fiction, and one for business.

Harry Harambee’s Kenyan Sundowner is his eleventh novel, to be released June 29.

He is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Dramatists Guild, Women’s National Book Association, and Film Independent (FIND), as well as a director of the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC).

He holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the College of Letters, Wesleyan University, where he studied under novelists Peter Boynton (Stone Island), F.D. Reeve (The Red Machines), and Jerzy Kosinski (The Painted Bird, Being There).

Learn more at GeraldEverettJones.com.

Ina Hillebrandt

Ina Hillebrandt – Pivoting from Fortune 500 consulting, Ina became a bestselling author, publisher, and speaker.

Ina enjoys working as a writing coach, editor, and trainer with individuals and groups, specializing in memoir, fiction and humor.

Clients have included published authors, the Jane Goodall Institute and other public and private sector organizations.

A board member of Independent Writers of Southern California, she is also a member of the Book Publicists of Southern California and the Women’s National Book Association. 

Author of Amazon bestseller Pawprints and How To Write Your Memoirs (Second, Expanded Edition coming soon), Ina also wrote You Are Who You Eat, winner of the 2016 IRWIN Award for Most Provocative Book of the Year, now in OSU’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

She’s currently working on her first novel, Micecapades. Her cat is excited.

Learn more about Ina at InaTheMemoirCoach.com and InasPawprints.com.