How to Get Your First (Great) Book Deal:
Fiction/Nonfiction (Virtual) FULL--Wait List Only
Dates: 2 Tuesdays, May 5th and 12th
Time: 7 - 9 pm
Instructor: Laura Mazer
Ages: Adult
Genre: Publishing
Price: $150
Do you have a great idea for a book but don’t know how to go about writing and selling it? Or have you written a book but are stalled trying to get the attention of agents and publishers? Whether you’re just starting to develop your project or have already written a complete manuscript, this online workshop (conducted on the user-friendly platform Zoom) will give you all the tools you need to get your book polished, sold, published, and on the shelves in bookstores.
We’ll cover the roles of agents, editors, and publishers; the function of book proposals; the secrets to crafting a strong query letter; and the smartest strategies to shepherd a project from “spark of an idea” to “magnum opus.” Ideal for authors of adult fiction and nonfiction.
Laura Mazer is a literary agent with the Wendy Sherman Associates agency in New York City. Before joining WSA, Laura was the executive editor of Seal Press, a boutique imprint of the Hachette Book Group, where she edited bold voices in adult nonfiction.
Laura's New York Times bestselling books include So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo and From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars by Virginia Grohl. Previously, Laura was the managing editor of Counterpoint and executive editor of its imprint Soft Skull Press, where she edited literary and contemporary fiction and narrative nonfiction.
Before joining the book-publishing industry, Laura oversaw editorial operations for Creators Syndicate, a global news agency representing some of the most influential opinion writers and editorial cartoonists of the day, including Hillary Clinton, Arianna Huffington, Molly Ivins, Ann Landers, and Mike Luckovich. Laura was also a senior editor at Brill's Content magazine and the special sections editor at the Los Angeles Times. She lives in Oakland, California.