EVENT DETAILS

Industry experts will explore issues vital to agents, publishers, authors, and other rights-holders in the age of digital publishing. Questions to be addressed include:

• What do authors need to know to survive and thrive in the digital marketplace?
• Is giving content away for free always a benefit to the author?
• How has digital changed the relationship between author and agent?
• Will self-publishing continue to grow as a business model? Is it having a significant impact on traditional book publishers?
• Has digital changed the way authors conceive of and write books?
• Do authors play a role in publishers’ decisions about the business of digital publishing, from pricing and distribution to marketing and promotion? 

Moderator

Louise Quayle is a consultant who advises agents, publishers, and organizations engaged in the business of book publishing about rights licensing and business development.  She has worked in trade book publishing for twenty years, most recently as the director of domestic subsidiary rights at The Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. Prior to Doubleday she was an agent and foreign rights manager at the Ellen Levine Literary Agency (now part of Trident Media) where she worked with authors such as Russell Banks, Cristina Garcia, Garrison Keillor, and Michael Ondaatje.

Panelists

Ginger Clark
Agent, Curtis Brown LTD
Ginger Clark is a literary agent with Curtis Brown LTD who represents science fiction, fantasy, paranormal romance, literary horror, and young adult and middle grade fiction. In addition to representing her own clients, she also represents British rights for the agency’s children’s list. Previously, she worked at Writers House for six years as an assistant literary agent. Her first job in publishing was as an editorial assistant at Tor Books. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and a member of the Contracts Committee of the AAR. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband.

Christina Baker Kline
Author
Kline is the author of four novels published by HarperCollins: Bird in Hand, The Way Life Should Be, Desire Lines, and Sweet Water.   Her nonfiction books have been published by Hyperion, St. Martin’s Press, Seal Press, and Bantam. She is Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University, an editor for the social networking site SheWrites, and is adapting her blog, “A Writing Life: Notes on Craft & the Creative Process” into a book (http://christinabakerkline.wordpress.com).

John Oakes
Co-founder, OR Books
John Oakes is the co-founder of OR Books (www.orbooks.com), an alternative publishing company that embraces e-books and other new technologies. OR published Going Rouge, a collection of essays about Sarah Palin’s political rise. Oakes started in publishing with Barney Rosset’s legendary Grove Press and co-founded Four Walls Eight Windows in 1987. Among the authors he has published are Andrei Codrescu, Sue Coe, R. Crumb, Cory Doctorow, Andrea Dworkin, Abbie Hoffman, Gordon Lish, Harvey Pekar, Rudy Rucker, John Waters and Edmund White. Oakes is a member of P.E.N.’s board of trustees and has written for the Review of Contemporary Fiction, the Associated Press, the International Herald Tribune, and most recently The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-oakes/what-is-to-be-done_b_323018.html).

Debbie Stier
SVP, Associate Publisher, HarperStudio; Director of Digital Marketing, HarperCollins
Debbie Stier began her career working for a literary agent and worked in publicity for many years.  Her duties at HarperStudio range from assessing and acquiring projects, to devising and executing marketing plans.  In her role as Director of Digital Marketing for HarperCollins, she is responsible for educating and evangelizing digital trends throughout the company.

Free for WNBA members; $10 for nonmembers.

RSVP to: programs@wnba-nyc.org