The Book Shepherd’s Advisory Board
Judith Briles works with and interacts with a variety of publishing experts for updated insights and ahas in what’s trending and changing in publishing. Her goal is always to envision and implement strategies that will directly benefit her clients and audiences she speaks to yearly. Her Advisory Board includes:
Daniel Hall
Daniel Hall is a bestselling author, speaker, publisher, nurse, attorney and sometimes blogger. He is also the creator of the highly popular “Real Fast” brand of training products. He left law practice 8 years ago to build his publishing business and has never looked back. Daniel is a true serial entrepreneur and his list of URLs is longer than a piece of paper, so you can check out Daniel’s hub at Daniel Hall Presents.
John Kremer
– As the acknowledged expert on book publishing and marketing, John Kremer is the owner of Open Horizons, his own publishing company based in Taos, New Mexico. He’s been the editor of the Book Marketing Update newsletter for more than 20 years as well as editor of the Kremer 100 PR newsletter. John’s website is at Book Market.
John is also the author of a number of books on publishing and marketing, including 1001 Ways to Market Your Books: For Authors and Publishers (6th Edition), The Complete Direct Marketing Sourcebook, High Impact Marketing on a Low Impact Budget and Celebrate Today.
He consults in the areas of book marketing, book sales, book promotion, publicity, direct marketing, pricing, book titles, book covers, book marketing plans, book proposals, rights sales, and general planning for book publishers of all sizes as well as for individual authors. While most of John’s consulting is done over the phone, he also provides on-site consulting services.
Kathy Meis
Kathy Meis is the founder and CEO of Bublish, the world’s first complete publishing platform with integrated brand-building, marketing, and discoverability features. With more than 25 years of experience in the media and publishing industries, she has served in a wide variety of editorial and management positions at some of the industry’s leading media companies, including CBS and Forbes, Inc. She is a professional writer, editor, and ghostwriter. Kathy speaks and blogs regularly on the subject of book promotion, author branding, social marketing, and discoverability.
Mara Purl
An award-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction, her Milford-Haven Novels have won fifteen literary awards, including the Benjamin Franklin, Indie Excellence, USA Book News, and ForeWord Book of the Year, and have made her a spokesperson for Women’s Fiction.
Mara has a multi-faceted career. As a writer, she has written eight published books, and was a journalist for Rolling Stone, the Financial Times of London and the Associated Press, to name a few. She has written or co-written several screenplays, teleplays, radioplays, and is a published essayist. As an actress, Mara is best known for her continuing role on NBC’s Days of Our Lives, and her one-woman show (co-written with Sydney Swire) won a Peak Award. And as a producer, she created Milford-Haven U.S.A., an ongoing drama that enjoyed a listenership of 4.5 million on BBC Radio. She currently produces audio books of her own and other authors’ works, several of which have won audio awards.
As an author, Mara created her branded author tea events. She has been a speaker and panelist at numerous book festivals, has addressed scores of service organizations, is a past president of the Colorado Independent Publishers Association, a board member of Women Writing the West, and a member of the Author’s Guild. Her website is Mara Purl and she can be reached at MaraPurl@aol.com.
Mitchell Levy
Mitchell is the CEO and Thought Leader Architect at THiNKaha and the Chief Aha Instigator at the Aha Amplifier. He and his team are democratizing thought leadership and make it easy for corporations to easily create compelling content that help turn their experts into recognized thought leaders. Mitchell is an Amazon bestselling author with forty business books, contributor at Entrepreneur Magazine, has provided strategic consulting to over one hundred companies, has advised over five hundred CEOs on critical business issues through the CEO networking groups he’s run, and has been chairman of the board of a NASDAQ-listed company. His publishing companies have published over 250 physical and over 400 eBooks.
Nick Zelinger 
Nick Zelinger is the principal in NZ Graphics and a multi-award book and cover designer. He is also the author of Another Nightmare Gig from Hell, a compilation of stories from musicians across the country about funny, quirky, spooky recollections of gigs gone wrong. On weekends, you’ll find him in his role as lead singer for the Thin Ice Band. His website is NZ Graphics.
Richard Rieman
Audiobook Narrator Richard Rieman of Audiobook Revolution Productions (AudiobookRevolution.com) is the author of “The Author’s Guide to AudioBook Creation,” a 2016 Global EBook Awards Gold Medal Winner. Richard is an audiobook self-publishing expert and Audible Approved Narrator, an honor given to the top 10% of Audible narrators. Richard also produces audiobooks for authors voicing their own audiobooks and consults authors and independent book publishers on audiobook production.
Before his audiobook adventures, Richard was a news anchor and reporter at the RKO Radio Networks in New York, WTOP in Washington DC, and ABC and NBC Radio in Chicago.
Susan RoAne
leads a double life: as an author and a professional speaker and has written seven books in over 12 countries including an a
udio-book and one of the first eBooks. Her first book, the landmark best-seller, How To Work a Room®, has sold over a million worldwide and is still on virtual and brick and mortar bookshelves for over 22 years.
Susan’s advice has appeared in such diverse venues as Cooking Light (she doesn’t cook light or otherwise), New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan magazine, Chicago Tribune, Fast Company and Maxim Men’s Magazines. Because of her experience and publishing network, Susan has coached would be authors and helped place several books with New York houses. Susan RoAne is the only author asked to teach a content program-based on her books-at NYU’s prestigious Summer Publishing Institute for over ten years.
An early adopter, Susan RoAne has been a blogger for over six years and a tweeter for 2 1/2 years so she writes daily…even if it’s only 140 characters! she and her blog can be found at Susan Roane.