• Challenges of writing about real locations in rural areas
• Character development — deciding who deserves a repeat appearance and who is a one-book wonder
• Plotting versus characterization.  Each book has been different for me.
• Other mysteries worth reading that feature the rural upper Midwest.
• The pros and cons of small, regional publishing houses.
• Marketing

• Historical romances vs. contemporary romances
• Research methods
• Historical characters
• Images
• Names
• Character development
• Historical dialog
• Historical costumes
• Historical transportation

Donna has lived all of her life in states bordering on the Great Lakes. Her familiarity and fascination with these remarkable inland waters and her residence in the heart of Great Lakes Country in Upper Michigan, make her the perfect candidate for writing Great Lakes Romances®.

• What made you decide to write a local history book?
• What makes your book stand out from other local history books?
• How did you arrange the book and decide what to leave out and what to include?
• What was the most difficult part of the research and writing process?
• Beyond the writing, what other decisions had to be made, such as in acquiring photographs or the layout of the book?
• What have you done to market the book?
• What kind of response have you received so far

Tyler is the regular guest host of Authors Access Internet Radio and the President of the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association. He is the owner of Marquette Fiction and Superior Book Promotions, a professional book review, editing, and proofreading service. Besides writing about Upper Michigan, he is interested in the Arthurian legend and recently published King Arthur’s Children, a study of treatments of King Arthur’s children in literature from medieval times to twenty-first century novels. Tyler lives in Marquette, Michigan where the roar of Lake Superior, mountains of snow, and sandstone architecture inspire his writing.

• A system for selling in the back of the room
• Three ideas that will lead to moving more products in the back of the room
• How this approach changes your business model
• How to promote and grow your speaking business

• The importance of website presence,
• Making the site about your visitor (not you),
• Designing your site to fit a specific purpose and pattern of interaction, and
• Tailoring your site to improve response to specific Myers-Briggs typed personas.

It was only after she had worked with a traditional publisher and gone through all the phases of working with an editor and a co-author that the concept for Crafting the Travel Guidebook was formed. Although there are several books about travel writing on the market, they all concentrate on selling to magazine, newspaper and internet editors. Why not, she thought, create something geared to travel book publishing? Barbara’s experience as an author for a traditional publisher, as a self-publisher and as a freelance writer positions her as a unique expert in all of these fields.