Make It Pop!

Are you an academically-inclined writer with a great idea for a book but aren't sure how to write a trade book proposal that sells, or whether your idea is ready for primetime, or how to think about things like "market" and "platform" in this age of new media? Sign up NOW for my fall bloginar,"Making It Pop: Translating Your Ideas for Trade" which consists of six Tuesday evening conference calls (8-9:15 PM ET) beginning Nov. 6 and an accompanying online forum.

Read more about MAKING IT POP (and its instructor) in Women's eNews and the New York Times. And see what past participants are saying about the course here.

Next week is the last week to register! I'm jazzed about the format this time. The online component is going to be a private group blog, where participants post as we go, and I will comment. Participants will also "meet" with my by phone (aka weekly group conference calls), during which I'll interview editors, agents, academics-turned-journalists, and publicists and then open it up for Q&A. To whet your appetite, here are bios for just a few of our fabulous interviewees:

Tracy Brown is President of the Tracy Brown Literary Agency. Tracy held senior editorial and executive positions in book publishing for 25 years before becoming a literary agent in 2003. He was Editor in Chief of Book-of-the-Month-Club, Editorial Director of Back Bay/Little, Brown, Editorial Director of Quality Paperback Book Club, Executive Editor at Holt, and Senior Editor at Ballantine. As an editor he acquired such New York Times bestsellers as Real Boys by William Pollack, and The Six Day War by Michael Oren. He worked with such esteemed writers as Larry Brown, Rikki Ducornet, Barry Gifford, Greil Marcus, Stewart O’Nan, Salman Rushdie, Jeff Shaara, and Alison Weir. In 2003 Brown began his career as an agent in association with Wendy Sherman Associates. His clients include Esther Perel (MATING IN CAPTIVITY/sold to HarperCollins), Courtney E. Martin (PERFECT GIRLS, STARVING DAUGHTERS/sold to Free Press), Deborah Siegel and Daphne Uviller (ONLY CHILD/sold to Harmony), Clifton Leaf (WHY WE’RE LOSING THE WAR ON CANCER/sold to Knopf), Joie Jager-Hyman (FAT ENVELOPE FRENZY/sold to HarperCollins), and Jessica Valenti (FULL FRONTAL FEMINISM/sold to Seal Press). In January 2007 he opened his own agency: Tracy Brown Literary Agency (TBLA).

Jean Casella is a freelance book editor who offers a full range of editorial services to authors, publishers, and non-profit organizations, from project development and "book doctoring" through line editing and copy editing. Previously she worked in independent publishing for more the twenty years, most recently as publisher and editorial director of the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, a publisher of international women's literature, U.S. literary classics, and nonfiction for the trade and academic markets, where she oversaw acquisition, editing, production, and marketing of twenty new titles annually and backlist of 250 titles. Jean is co-editor of two anthologies, Almost Touching the Skies: Women's Coming of Age Stories and Cast a Cold Eye: American Opinion Writing, and is currently collaborating with journalist James Ridgeway on a book about the political fallout of Hurricane Katrina.

Laura Mazer is the managing editor of Seal Press, a trade imprint of Perseus Books. Previously, Laura edited Op-Ed columns for nationally syndicated writers, including Tony Snow, Molly Ivins, Arianna Huffington, and Hillary Clinton, and lifestyle columns by writers such as Ann Landers. She was a senior editor at Brill's Content magazine and the special sections editor for the Los Angeles Times. She also managed the bestselling Rick Steves series of travel books.

To register, shoot me an email at deborahsiege@gmail.com and we'll take it from there.