Details of our previous meetings

January 14, 2012 — Taxpertise for Self-Publishers

Minimize the Tax Bite; Bite Back!

Taxpertise author, Bonnie Lee will share how to stay in the good graces of the IRS. She is an Enrolled Agent and author. Her book, The Complete Book of Dirty Little Secrets and Tax Deductions for Small Businesses the IRS Doesn’t Want You to Know is filled with humor and tips for authors and publishers.

Check out her web site, taxpertise.com.

Bonnie is a regular columnist for the  Sonoma Sun,host of her own radio show which you can catch on-air live, or stream a past show to hear her in-action. You will be informed and entertained. Who knew that Taxes could be so interesting?

 Bonnie Lee offers her Taxpertise every month for Entrepreneur.com. Check out the articles here. 

This meeting is a must for self-publishers, consultants, anyone who has to pay taxes and is self-employed.

 

December 10, 2011 Meeting —  Beyond Print Publishing 

With Adobe InDesign CS5.5 

Join Patti Sokol, Adobe Solutions Consultant, as she demonstrates how Adobe’s digital publishing solutions help publishers enter the digital market. Explore the advantages of using InDesign CS5.5 to publish to ePub or to create interactive publications for tablets with Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite. 

Export open-standard ePub documents that provide an improved reading experience with embedded audio and video, improved typography, and images that resize automatically.

See how you can use InDesign CS5.5 and the new Digital Publishing Suite from Adobe to add media-rich content and interactivity to a publication and then distribute it to tablets.

Patti D. Sokol brings over 15 years of enthusiasm and experience in teaching Adobe products to her role as an Adobe Solutions Consultant. Her in-depth knowledge and facility for clear and concise explanations enable her to show clients how to solve problems using Adobe tools and products. A dynamic and interactive instructor and presenter, Patti is a Certified Technical Trainer and an Adobe Certified Instructor for Acrobat, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, and Photoshop.

November 12, 2011, Meeting — The Author’s Guide to Financing & Planning Your Own Book Tour 

Patricia V. Davis, our November speaker, will lead us on The Author’s Guide to Financing and Planning Your Own Book Tour. Both an author and a publisher, she’s taken two successful national book tours of her own. Her new book The Diva Doctrine: 16 Universal Principles Every Woman Needs to Know (Bonneville Press, 2011) is a manifesto for our times. The bestselling Harlot’s Sauce: A Memoir of Food, Family, Love, Loss, and Greece was published in 2009 by Harper Davis.

Patricia will share with us everything an author or independent small publisher needs to know about getting bookings in brick and mortar shops and other venues, how a small publisher needs to compete with larger legacy publishers when dealing with retail outlets, and when it’s better for an author not to organize a book tour. If time allows, she will discuss the best ways to market book events for a successful tour.

Patricia is a member of California Writers, Women’s National Book Association, Left Coast Writers, Litquake Committee Member, Hot Mommas, Writing Mamas, and ABOW. 

See her on YouTube, www.youtube.com/patriciavdavis

Patricia will have copies of her books for sale after the presentation.

October 8, 2011 Meeting — Money & Time Management

 for Writers, Publishers, and Small Business Creatives; or, How to Create More of Both

We are delighted to welcome Albert Flynn DeSilver as our October speaker.

Discover a new definition for time and money, and how to leverage more of both as a creative professional!

Albert Flynn DeSilver has the curious distinction of being both a poet AND an entrepreneur.  Poets are sometimes known for their poverty more than for their poetry.  And Albert won’t claim to have made millions from his poetry.

What he has managed to do is create a fulfilling and even “successful” creative life as a writer, publisher, and speaker, while making a good living.  In the past three years, Albert served as Poet Laureate of Marin County, created a major public poetry program, wrote a 300-page memoir and two chapbooks, and grew a million-dollar home care business in one of the worst recessions since the Great Depression.  He also managed to make time for reading, staying fit and healthy, and married!  

He will teach us about:

• Learning new definitions for both time and money. 
• Acting on  our new understanding.
• Practicing some simple techniques for new thinking.
• Engaging in community.
• Leveraging our resources.
• Learning to love discipline and developing new habits.

September 10, 2011 Meeting — How to Turn a Blogger into an Author

Pressing the “import” button is not enough!  Find out what it “really” takes to turn a blog into a book.

Speakers: Sallie Goetsch and Sandy Shepard

Even though authors need to blog, and popular bloggers get book deals, there’s a big difference between a blog and a book. Automated “blog-slurping” tools like Blurb’s BookSmart are fine if you want to produce an attractive printout of your blog, but that’s all they give you: a blog in book form.

If you actually want to convert your blog into a book, you’ll need to develop an outline and collect, arrange, and consolidate your posts into a book template. You’ll revise, make cuts and additions. You’ll hire professionals like editors, book designers, and proofreaders.

A blog can be a great way to write the first draft of a book. You can organize your posts by setting up your categories and tags to match chapter titles and major topics. A blog lets you build up reader interest and establish a platform before you complete your manuscript. Also, reader feedback can help you improve the book along the way.  

Learn how Sallie Goetsch, The Author-izer,   www.author-izer.com, helped her client Sandy Shepard turn her blog into a book, then built Sandy a new blog and podcast site to market the completed book. Sandy will be available to sign copies of her book — Empowerment: How to Unleash Your Inner Bond Girl — after the presentation. 

August 13, 2011 – Tapping the Spanish Market: Publishing Your Book in Spanish

Speaker: Sumant Pendharkar

Should you publish your book in Spanish?  Well…with the Latino population in the U.S. at 50.5 million (according to the 2010 U.S. Census), the answer would appear to be a resounding YES!  Longtime BAIPA member Sumant Pendharkar is the author of nine books, eight of which were published by traditional publishers.  He shares with us his experiences in self-publishing his award-winning book for teens, Raising Yourself: Making the Right Choices in both English and Spanish. 

Sumant will talk about:

• Identifying the Spanish market
• Planning your project
• Costs of translating, editing, and proofing your manuscript
• Finding resources for evaluating the translation
• Pre- and post-publication reviews
• Distribution tips
• Applying the same steps to publishing books in other languages and other  non-U.S. markets

You can browse both the English and Spanish versions of Raising Yourself: Making the Right Choices at www.hillviewbooks.com .

– Linda Jay Gelden 

July 2011 - Cynthia Sue Larson – Social Media Savvy for Authors

Video production by
Judy Baker
Completely Creative
www.creative1.com