Kat McKenna has worked in the children's publishing industry for ten years, with almost 15 years experience across publishing and bookselling - amounting to a specialist knowledge of the children's books market, its brands and growth. Kat is currently Senior Marketing Manager at Macmillan Children's Books, and runs the marketing for bestselling brands and authors such as Frances Hardinge, Andy Griffiths, Chris Riddell, Rainbow Rowell, and more. Alongside these household names, Kat has also helped launch debuts and emerging talent in the children's book world. Kat runs the strategy for YA platform MyKindaBook and its social media channels. You can follow her on Twitter at @katmckenna_. 

Expert Q&As are only available to Lounge author members. Membership cost £10 per month and you can cancel at any time. Find out more here.

If you'd like to receive the FREE Lounge Marketing newsletter with practical book marketing, publicity and creative tips, sign up here.

Find out from Sam how to plan your marketing campaign, how to budget and how to measure along the way.

Sam Missingham has worked in marketing for 20 years running circulation, subscription, email and social strategies for magazines, events, awards and books. She was head of audience development at HarperCollins for 4 years and won several book marketing awards. She speaks at events around the world on marketing and publishing strategies and creative thinking. 

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Will is one of the best audience, social, marketing person in the whole industry. He runs audience marketing at Waterstones including the YouTube channel. Previous to this he ran Vintage Books community - his Twitter feed was THE BEST in the whole industry. Get your questions ready for him on creative thinking, audience, marketing, social, video and general marketing inspiration. Looking forward to this one.

Expert Q&As are only available to Lounge author members. Membership cost £10 per month and you can cancel at any time. Find out more here.

If you'd like to receive the FREE Lounge Marketing newsletter with practical book marketing, publicity and creative tips, sign up here.

Clare Painter is well-known in the world of publishing rights, spending much of her time focussed on publishing contracts, licences and permissions.

Her digital licensing agency helps publishers to license ebooks into libraries and specialist digital platforms. Rights research projects involve searching for copyright holders so that digital images, articles etc can be republished in ebooks, online publications and e-learning programmes.

She works primarily with publishers and corporates, acting as copyright and permissions consultant at Oxford University Press Journals, and on rights projects for publishers such as Taylor & Francis, and Swiss business school IMD. Clare writes regularly on the ‘how to’ aspects of rights and copyright, both through her own email newsletter (at www.clarepainterassociates.com) and for Jinfo, a service for information professionals.

Expert Q&As are only available to Lounge author members. Membership cost £10 per month and you can cancel at any time. Find out more here.

If you'd like to receive the FREE Lounge Marketing newsletter with practical book marketing, publicity and creative tips, sign up here.

Keith is a member of The Prime Writers, a collective of authors who published their first book over the age of 40. He has written three children’s novels for Quercus and scripted several shows for ITV. He hopes to be able to announce his latest book by Wednesday – it’s tantalisingly close but contract negotiations remain ongoing.

He is also a publisher, having most recently been an editor for science books at Oxford University Press; Mansfield was previously computing publisher for Pearson and the book editor for the British Film Institute. He is in the process of setting up Herschel Books, a new publishing house with a mission to accelerate humanity’s transition to becoming a multiplanetary species by publishing inspirational science and science fiction titles.

A mathematical physicist by education, he lives in London, though most people think he’s on another planet. 

Join Keith at 8pm on Wednesday to find out how author collectives work and how to get the most out of collaborating with other authors.

Expert Q&As are only available to Lounge author members. Membership cost £10 per month and you can cancel at any time. Find out more here.

If you'd like to receive the FREE Lounge Marketing newsletter with practical book marketing, publicity and creative tips, sign up here.

Find out from Sam how to build your followers and more importantly how to find the most valuable tweeters and engage with them.

Sam has 26,000 followers and has used Twitter to build a community around the book industry. She maintains it is her number one professional tool. Find out how to use it effectively.

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Bec Evans is co-founder of Prolifiko a digital writing coach that helps you to start writing, build a habit, and achieve your writing goals.

Bec has worked with writers and in publishing her whole career. She was centre director for Arvon’s residential writing courses at Ted Hughes’s former home in Yorkshire, and was head of innovation at Emerald Publishing.

She’s obsessed with figuring out how writers can be productive – and happy – and writes, speaks and runs workshops that share research-backed approaches. Follow her on Twitter @Eva_Bec and @beprolifiko

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These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Have you wondered how the agent/author relationship works? Get your questions ready for Anna.

Anna Davis is Managing Director of the Curtis Brown Creative writing school. Anna was a Curtis Brown literary agent for over a decade before founding the creative writing school in 2011. She's also the author of five novels, published around the world in 20 languages, and is a former Guardian columnist and former lecturer on Manchester University's MA in Novel-Writing. 

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Mark Ecob is Art Director of award-winning agency Mecob Design Ltd. The company has worked with a whole range of leading publishers on individual titles through to author rebrands. Clients have included Amazon Publishing, Penguin Random House and Faber & Faber.

Mark also has extensive experience in designing book covers for self-publishing clients, and is Associate Art Director for crowd-sourced publisher Unbound. When he’s not designing books, he’s teaching at Bath Spa University.

Find out what he considers the elements of effective book covers.

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These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Not sure where to start with your marketing campaign? Get your questions ready for Matt.

Matt Haslum spent 8 years building an award-winning digital creative agency working with big brands, helping them focus on engaging customers online. He joined Faber & Faber as Marketing Director in 2012, building a list-focussed consumer-facing marketing team along side an award-winning website and Members programme. Since leaving Faber in 2017, he has been been consulting for publishers and creative agencies on a broad range of topics - from digital development, to list & campaign planning, to marketing and publishing strategy. Follow Matt on Twitter here.

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Unsure how to pitch yourself to literary agents? Here's you chance to ask Anna.

Anna Davis is Managing Director of the Curtis Brown Creative writing school. Anna was a Curtis Brown literary agent for over a decade before founding the creative writing school in 2011. She's also the author of five novels, published around the world in 20 languages, and is a former Guardian columnist and former lecturer on Manchester University's MA in Novel-Writing. 

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Sam Missingham has worked in marketing for 20+ years, many of those in consumer and business magazines in charge of circulation and subscriptions strategies, running conferences, awards and devising new revenue streams.

She has implemented the email marketing strategy at The Bookseller magazine and at HarperCollins, where she launched their UK ebook deals newsletter, BookPerk. She launched Lounge Books, a community for book-lovers and runs a successful newsletter. She has sold 1500 books during a 9 month period from a standing start.

She is a great believer in the power and opportunity of effective email marketing.

Join her at 4pm on Saturday and ask her any questions.

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These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Find out from Linda the best ways to work with book bloggers.

Linda is an award-winning book blogger, extremely active and passionate sharer of books. Here's her wonderful blog - Linda's Book Bag. Find her on Facebook and Twitter

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Delighted that the very talented Kit de Waal will be joining us on the 8th of March. Kit, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the 60's and 70's.

Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, long-listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017.

Kit is also editing an anthology of working class writers, Common People being published by Unbound.

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Find out from Tim how social selling works and how authors can take advantage of it.

Tim Hughes is universally recognised as one of the world’s leading pioneers and exponents of Social Selling and he is currently ranked Number 1 as the most influential social selling person in the world.

http://www.social-experts.net

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Truda Spruyt, who has been at cultural PR agency Four Colman Getty since 2000, has twenty-five years’ experience in publicising arts, literary and cultural projects. She began her career in academic and visual arts publishing at Routledge and Reaktion Books and was Marketing and Publicity Manager at Phaidon Press.  Truda heads up the culture PR  team at Four.  Accounts that she leads include the Man Booker International Prize, the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction and the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation.

Join Truda on Wednesday and ask your questions on the best ways to get press coverage.

Ask Scott your questions about the best way to engage with your readers.

Scott Gould is the author of The Shape of Engagement, speaker and business advisor on the subject of engagement. He has helped some of the world’s most well known brand with how they build enduring connections with their customers, employees and communities.

Connect with Scott here and here.

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Mel is our February author, she has a huge amount of experience; self-publishing initially and then going the traditional route. She's sold over a million books, so she has lots of valuable insight to share. Get your questions ready. 

Mel Sherratt writes psychological thrillers, police procedurals and women's fiction ‘with a punch’. After twelve years of rejection, she self-published Taunting the Dead in 2012 which hit the kindle top ten within five weeks, staying there for over four months. Shortlisted for the prestigious CWA (Crime Writer's Association) Dagger in Library Award 2014, her inspiration comes from authors such as Martina Cole, Lynda la Plante and C L Taylor.

Since 2012, she has sold over one million books. All eleven crime novels have been bestsellers, each one climbing into the kindle UK top 100 and she's had several number ones. She also has numerous Kindle All-star awards, for best read author and best titles. See more at http://melsherratt.co.uk/ or on Twitter @writermels.

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

How to build an audience with Sarah Thrift senior marketing exec at Puffin Books & previously HarperCollins. 

Sarah works in Audience Development for Penguin Random House, harnessing the power of the Puffin and Ladybird brands to encourage children to read books of all kinds. Having worked across politics, cookery, crime and children’s titles, she is used to putting a huge variety of audiences at the heart of what she does, and helping to develop the important understanding that any book is worth reading.

Follow Sarah on Twitter  @sethrift

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

I will do a Facebook live chat every month so I can find out from you what the hot topics are, questions you have and make sure Lounge Marketing is giving you what you want & need.

Sam Missingham is the founder of Lounge Marketing & Lounge Books, she is committed to supporting authors sell more books and understand the publishing landscape. 

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.

Find out from Simon what he considers the essential elements to every author’s website. 

Simon is founder of Bookswarm, a digital agency that produces Wordpress website for authors and publishers. Each website is unique and tailored to the exact needs of the author.

These live Q&As are only available to Lounge Author Members. Find out about membership here.