Jen & Kerry

Awhile back I mentioned that two local nonfiction writers are running a series on how to get your books published. The one I'm attending started this month and continues for one evening a month through June. Their names are Jennifer Worick and Kerry Colburn and you can find out more about them at http://bizofbooks.wordpress.com/about/. Between them they have penned over 40 books and they also used to work in the publishing business, so they have lots of good tips on what will catch a publisher's eye.

Once again they spoke on NPR this afternoon and took questions from callers. An interesting query I heard was from a woman who had just finished her memoir. She wanted to keep the surprise ending of her life story a secret from her future publisher as well as from her perspective readers, but Jen and Kerry reminded her that her book will first need to get past a number of people (publisher, agent, marketing, etc.) before it is ever seen by a reader, and that it's necessary to spill the beans in her proposal, however loath to do it she may feel.

In the first evening's class I attended earlier this month, Jen & Kerry gave us a lot of tips on looking for the right publisher. We should find a book whose topic, voice, style, format, etc. is similar to what we'd like for our own work, and see who published it. They advised us to think big and imagine other formats that might spin off of our books. An interesting example that stuck with me is having a deck of cards follow up the printed book. (Jen's was of scenic walks in Vancouver, each of which fit on a single double-faced card.) Both Jen and Kerry do a fair amount of humorous writing, which lends itself well to these more unusual formats.

They offer a few different series, including "The Proposal Series" and "The Publishing Series" which are seminars with about 100 attendees, while their workshops are more hands-on and limited to 15 participants. Tickets can be obtained at Brown Paper Tickets.