Patrick Faller
A&E Reporter
Aspiring writers can get advice on how to get published when Humber faculty members Cynthia Good and Jennifer Murray present a workshop called The Insider’s Guide to Getting Published.
The event will be held on March 11, 18 and 25 at the Yonge and Eglinton branch of the Toronto Public Library.
“Our workshop teaches people how to make themselves stand out and to pitch themselves to a publisher or an agent,” said Murray, former director of marketing for Penguin Canada, who now teaches marketing in the creative publishing program.
“I teach students how to take control of their own careers and handle their own self-promotion. Cynthia Good covers the workings of a book publishing company, how to write a query letter, the role of agents and self-publishing.”
Good is head of the creative publishing program and also has a considerable background in business.
For 20 years, she was president and publisher of Penguin.
Natalie St. Pierre, assistant in the creative publishing program, said the workshop will give participants an inside view of the industry, regardless of their writing experience.
“We help those who don’t know where to start and don’t know how to get established,” she said.
“It helps lay the groundwork for these authors to understand the publishing world in Canada and have success in it.”
Evadne Macedo, author of The 29th Day: A Novel and publisher of the literary blog Evadne Macedo on Writing, attended the workshop last year and said it was very beneficial.
“The course taught me how to get my book published and stressed the importance of having an online presence,” she said.
“It gave me the impetus to move forward in my career.
“I feel very strongly that if I hadn’t gone to the workshop none of my success would have happened.”
[...] Patrick Faller’s interview regarding The Insider’s Guide to Getting Published at Humber College ran in the Humber Et Cetera on March 11, 2010. I was really honoured to be asked to participate in an interview! Until I heard Cynthia Good speak at Word on the Street, I had never thought of having a blog … what I learnt at her course about the value of publicity to a writer also helped me start the interview series. I have truly enjoyed running this author interview series and blogging about my writing projects. [...]
self publishing is one way of earning money specially if you got a best seller:~’