Meet Our Experts

Joel Friedlander

Joel Friedlander is an award-winning book designer and one of the Internet’s leading experts on self-publishing. Joel runs the popular blog at TheBookDesigner.com where he’s helped thousands of authors create books that readers really want to buy. Joel’s articles appear widely in online and print publications. He is also the author of A Self-Publisher’s Companion, the Self-Publisher's Ultimate Resource Guide, and a sought-after speaker who inspires authors to get their books into the marketplace. Joel is also the founder of The Self-Publishing Roadmap online video training course for authors who plan to take control of their publishing career.

Tracy Atkins

Tracy R. Atkins is a technical expert with over twenty years of experience building end-user technology platforms. He holds numerous industry certifications, and is a Microsoft Certified Professional. He excels in simplifying complex technological solutions into easy-to-use tools for the average Joe. Tracy is also a successful self-published author, and co-founder of Book Design Templates, who is intimately familiar with the many issues that independent authors encounter on their road to publication. This powerful combination of technology and self-publishing experience makes Tracy the go-to guy for building great tools that help authors succeed.

Joan Stewart

Publicity expert Joan Stewart, also known as The Publicity Hound, is a PR coach and mentor who works with small business owners who want to use free publicity to promote their expertise and tell their story to the world. She's a former newspaper editor who has taught thousands of CEOs, nonprofit executives, authors, speakers and experts how to get media attention. And she has helped her clients pitch themselves and get onto the "Today" show and onto the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Joan is the author of five eBooks on publicity and is quoted in more than 60 books on marketing, public relations and small business. Follow her on Twitter at @PublicityHound.

Kimberley Grabas

Kimberley Grabas is a Canadian writer and the founder of YourWriterPlatform.com – a site where she provides writers with the resources, tools and inspiration they need to build their platforms, engage their fans and sell more books. With degrees in both Business and Psychology, as well as over 14 years in sales and marketing, Kimberley uses her unique mix of skills and experience to help writers promote their work, build community engagement and develop an online presence in a genuine and meaningful way.

Nina Amir

Nina Amir, is an eight-time Amazon bestselling author of such books as How to Blog a Book and The Author Training Manual. A speaker and blogger, she is known as the Inspiration to Creation Coach because helps creative people combine their passion and purpose so they move from idea to inspired action and positively and meaningfully impact the world as writers, bloggers, authorpreneurs, and blogpreneurs. She provides author, book, blog-to-book, and high-performance coaching services to her clients, some of whom have sold 300,000+ copies of their books, landed deals with major publishing houses and created thriving businesses around their books. She is the founder of National Nonfiction Writing Month, National Book Blogging Month, and the Nonfiction Writers’ University. As a hybrid author she has published 16 books and had as many as four books on the Amazon Top 100 list at the same time.

Michael Larsen

Michael Larsen is a literary agent and consultant to non-fiction writers. He and his partner Elizabeth Pomada are co-directors of the San Francisco Writers Conference and the San Francisco Writing for Change Conference. He is the author of the new fourth edition of How to Write a Book Proposal and and the third edition of How to Get a Literary Agent. Mike is coauthor of the second edition of Guerrilla Marketing for Writers: 100 Weapons for Selling Your Work. He is also a frequent speaker and a consultant to authors.

Jennie Nash

Jennie Nash is the author of four novels, including Perfect Red, The Threadbare Heart, The Only True Genius in the Family and The Last Beach Bungalow. She is the author of three memoirs, including The Victoria’s Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming and Other Lessons I Learned From Breast Cancer, which has more than 100,000 copies in print. She has been an instructor at the UCLA Extension Writing Program for ten years and is the founder and Chief Creative Office of AuthorAccelerator.com, an online program to help writers get from inspiration to publication with affordable weekly coaching. Jennie was on staff at Random House and New York Woman magazine. Her essays and articles have appeared in publications including The New York Times, Glamour, GQ, Ladies Home Journal, Readers’ Digest and Us. She has written for popular writing blogs including Writer Unboxed, The Write Life, The Write Practice, SheWrites, Write to Done, This Craft Called Writing and Jane Friedman. Jennie runs a private book coaching business. Her clients regularly land top New York agents, and had books published by Scribner, Simon & Schuster, Norton, Ten Speed and Hazeldon. She lives in Los Angeles.

Helen Sedwick

I am a business lawyer with 30 years of experience assisting clients in setting up and running their businesses, legally and successfully. My clients include entrepreneurs such as wineries, green toy makers, software engineers, and writers. I do not go to court, and no one is ever going to produce a movie about the exciting life of a business attorney. But I get a great deal of satisfaction from keeping my clients out of trouble and out of court, so they can focus on their businesses, their creative projects, and their lives.

Frances Caballo

A veteran of the communications field, as the industry evolved I naturally changed with it. When I became a social media strategist, I already understood the importance of finding ways to reach your exact audience without wasting time or money. My clients include Indie authors, traditionally published writers, and writers conferences. I am the author of three books on social media, a blogger (of course), a podcaster, and a regular speaker at writers conferences. Follow me on Twitter at @CaballoFrances.