September Meeting

Sep 15 2012

10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

A Discussion of the Business of Book Publishing with Shanna Kelly

Book publishing is a complex business. Writers are usually forced to learn it as they go, but understanding what motivates editors, agents, and publicists, is an invaluable tool in navigating a difficult industry. In this discussion, I will give an overview of how the business works, and provide some tips on writing a good query letter and finding an agent. I will leave plenty of time for questions, but please be forewarned that self-publishing is not my area of expertise. Shana Kelly relocated to Denver after 10 years working in the Literary Department of the William Morris Agency (now William Morris Endeavor) in New York, where she was a literary agent. She began in the foreign rights area, selling translation rights for hundreds of well-known authors represented by the agency. She worked out of the London office for two years, selling the British rights for all the agency’s writers. Shana was the signing agent for many successful authors, including New York Times bestseller Curtis Sittenfeld, author of PREP.

Shana graduated from the University of Denver’s Publishing Institute in 1998, and is currently on the faculty at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. She now works as a freelance editor and writer on book proposals and full-length manuscripts, including novels, memoirs, and straightforward non-fiction.