If you think you’ve written the next best-seller, we invite you to enter your manuscript in SLPA's Get Ready/Get Published Contest.
The winning author will see his manuscript transformed into a saleable book. The grand prize, valued at $8,900, includes editing, proofing, design and other production services, ten copies of the printed book, and promotional resources to help the author get his book into the hands of thousands of readers.
Click "Special Events" to Find Out How to Enter! |
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“We want to encourage more authors to get their work into print. It’s very, very hard to get picked up by a big publishing house. The St. Louis Publishers Association can provide writers with the tools that they need to become successful independent publishers.”
– SLPA president Lynnette Schuepbach
Entry deadline is January 20, 2010 |
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Find out more – click here! |
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July 8 Monthly Meeting: OWNING YOUR NICHE
If you want to build a successful publishing company, thinking small could net you big results. Niche publishers focus on one market, and St. Louis’ Jeff Fister, founder and owner of Virginia Publishing, has carved out a comfortable spot by releasing three to five books a year on local history and interest. Come learn about Fister’s business model and how this independent publisher has become quite the “big fish in a little pond.” Join us Wednesday evening, July 8, at the Lodge at Des Peres. Doors open for networking at 6:30 p.m.; meeting begins at 7:00 p.m. The formal meeting concludes around 8:30 p.m. with networking continuing until 9:00 p.m.¬
Featured Speaker
Jeff Fister is a St. Louis native and a graduate of Chaminade High School and St. Louis University. After working as a reporter and editor for the Suburban Journals of St. Louis and later as a spokesman for the old McDonnell Douglas Corporation, his family bought the West End Word newspaper in 1989. The paper currently is published every other week and has been serving the city’s central corridor for 37 years.
Fister’s firm, Virginia Publishing Company, specializes in books that focus on St. Louis' unique history, people and places. With titles covering everything from ghost stories and lost caves to high school memories and the 1904 World's Fair, Virginia Publishing promotes local books by local authors.
Fister recently authored his first book, Counting Chickens: Tales of Raising 8 Kids (and 4 hens) in the City of St. Louis, which is drawn from his nearly 20 years of writing a column in the West End Word. Fister parallels his experience in raising children in a century-old house in the Central West End with keeping hens in the backyard. The book’s “chicken journal” recounts everything from buying $1.50 chicks at Soulard Market to building a “chicken condo” for his brood of hens, “oops” home improvement projects, and lots of other “city living” topics familiar to St. Louisans. |
How to Get to the Monthly Meetings
We meet on the second Wednesday of every month at:
The Lodge at Des Peres
1050 Des Peres Road
Des Peres, Mo 63131
314-835-6150
For driving directions, visit: www.desperesmo.org
