Welcome to TheNextBigWriter's Brown Bag Lunch Series
Ask Authors, Publishers, Agents, Publicists, and others the questions you want.
TheNextBigWriter is pleased to kick-off a new series to help writers learn more about the various areas of the publishing world. TheNextBigWriter's Brown Bag Lunch is a free program where we bring published writers, agents, publishers, lawyers, publicists, and others onto the site to answer your questions about writing, publishing, promoting, and more. We hope the answers they provide will bring you a step closer to reaching your writing goals.
Why call it Brown Bag Lunch? In the corporate world, brown bag lunch meetings are used to bring in guests during lunch who provide interesting insight on a particular topic. There's no lunch here but we hope the guests who graciously agree to answer your questions provide you with useful information and insight.
April 14. 2007
Erin Brown, Professional Editor
Erin Brown is a professional editor and has worked at several large New York publishing houses. She began her publishing career at HarperCollins Publishers, where she worked for over six years in virtually every genre, including mystery, romance, literary fiction, women’s commercial fiction and non-fiction. She was privileged to work with numerous bestselling authors including J.A. Jance, Bruce Feiler, Elizabeth Peters, Jerrilyn Farmer, Lawrence Block, Carolyn Hart, Mary Daheim, and many more. Most recently, she was part of the fabulous St. Martin’s Press team as an editor with the Thomas Dunne Books imprint. There, she enjoyed acquiring fabulous debut novels and editing such bestselling authors as Carole Matthews, Madeleine Wickham (a.k.a. Sophie Kinsella), Homer Hickam, Jincy Willett, Robin Pilcher, and many more.
After almost a decade in New York City, Erin and her husband recently returned to their hometown of Austin, Texas, where Erin has begun a thriving freelance editorial business with her website www.erinedits.com. Although she often misses the chaotic hustle and bustle of Manhattan, she is now free to concentrate on what she loves the most: working directly with aspiring authors to get their work into the best shape possible before submitting to agents and houses.
Erin is thrilled to aid in this endeavor by answering any and all of your burning questions about editing and/or publishing.
Nov 09. 2007
Tom Britt, Self Publishing Expert
Tom Britt an expert on self publishing and using the Internet to promote your book has graciously agreed to be our second guest on TheNextBigWriter's Brown Bag Lunch series. As the Internet continues to evolve, the question that many of us have is whether books will go the same way as music? Will more and more writers forego the traditional publishers and traditional publishing process and can this be a profitable way to bring a book to market? And how can the Internet help writers get the word out and cost effectively promote their book?
Tom is uniquely qualified to help us explore these questions. He serves as the Director of Author Development for Author Solutions, Inc, the largest self publisher in the world. The company owns iUniverse, Author House, and a newly launched self-publishing service called Wordclay. Britt owned a publishing company for nine years and started an Internet portal company in 1998 that was deemed the “TV Guide of the Internet”.
Tom is excited to answer your questions.
May 15. 2007
Kicking off our Brown Bag Lunch series with Author Deborah Jackson
We're happy to begin TheNextBigWriter's Brown Bag Lunch series with author Deborah Jackson. Deborah's debut novel Ice Tomb has been received with much critical acclaim, the Ottawa Citizen saying: "Ice Tomb is surprising not just for its entirely believable plot and well-crafted suspense, but because it has all the earmarks of a tale written by a sci-fi master." She is also the author of Time Meddlers the first in a series of time travel novels for children that explore history in a suspenseful, adventurous way. She worked for many years as an R.N. and dialysis technician before she began writing full time. She's a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and SF Canada.
Deborah is excited about answering your questions about her path from being a Registered Nurse to a critically acclaimed author. For more on Deborah Jackson or her novels, please visit her site.
How It Works
Post your questions in the Brown Bag Lunch thread located on the site's forum. We'll collect the questions and send them to the Guest. They'll respond with their answers and we'll post them to be read. You ask, they reply.
Become a Brown Bag Lunch Guest
If you have information that you'd like to share on TheNextBigWriter's Free Lunch please email us with a bit about yourself and your area of expertise.
