*ONLINE*
One Day Writing Workshop with Mya Spalter
The Deal: A Workshop on the Mechanics of Book Publishing
Date: Saturday, May 15th
Time: 1:00-4:00PM EST
Location: online via Zoom
Fee: $100
The process of transforming a finished draft into a published book can be long and too often cloaked in mystery. In this workshop we’ll discuss the process of querying agents, what an agent does/can do for you, how publishing deals and auctions work, what an advance is and how it’s structured, what royalties are, and under what circumstances they are paid and what your copyrights entail, and some strategies for how one may want to conduct their business as an author. We’ll also discuss the lifecycle of a book as it undergoes the editorial process with a publisher and how this process may differ depending on both the book and publisher. In short, this workshop will aim to address any questions about the mechanics of book publishing that most writing programs can’t or don’t provide.
Participants will be encouraged to submit in advance any questions or suggested areas of the book publishing process that they would like to discuss or demystify. The facilitator will do their best to provide competent answers to these questions.
Mya Spalter is an author of editorial experience. She has worked for many years as one of the 1% of editors in the publishing industry who are Black, and is now among the 5% of published authors who are Black. She is realizing how terrifically small a group of people that is and how relevant her experience might be to others. Her nonfiction book Enchantments: A Modern Witch’s Guide to Self Possession was published by Random House/Lenny Books in 2018. She’s mostly a poet. She’s writing a novel anyway.
