This Saturday I am Sisters in Crime NorCal Chapter’s guest speaker.  My topic is the 21st Century Author, essentially looking at the challenges and opportunities facing the modern day writer.  With all the changes in the publishing world, today’s author has to be a little different to his/her predecessor.  The writer has to be a little savvier than before if he/she wants to survive and thrive in this volatile industry.  For anyone who has attended one of my 21st Century Author workshops in the past, this is a new presentation that goes beyond what I’ve discussed before.  The areas I’ll be covering this time are:

• Traditional contracts–clauses to worry and think about before signing and to go back and things to check in preexisting contracts of old.  Changes in technology can have long term impacts to the author
• Understanding your intellectual property
• Rights management
• The importance secondary and foreign rights
• What to consider when self publishing
• What to consider when traditional publishing
• New industry opportunities
• The ‘Hybrid Author’—what it is and whether it works for you

Whether you’re an author with a long history in publishing or in the hunt to get your first book published, I hope you’ll come along.  I think it’ll be worth your time.  If you’d like to come along, it’s free and will be held at BookShop West Portal, San Francisco from noon-2pm, September 5th.