Could anyone give me some seed questions for what you might ask at a panel like this? What questions do you think you'd have (and at what stage? Newbie? Traditionally published author? Author currently seeking agent representation? Would your questions be different?)

Here's two:
Would you advise hiring a professional to edit your novel?

As to coming by, It sounds very interesting and fun but way too far on the other side of the country. A few years ago I didn't even make to the comic con where I might have been on a panel. And that was at least in the same state.

I take it you are talking specifically about how to market, right?

Here are a few questions that I can think of.

1. How do you get book bloggers and professional reviewers to review a self-published book?

2. How can you effectivily use social media to promote your book without being annoying to your friends and family?

3. How do you make a professional looking website and lure potential readers to your site?

4. Is there anyway to get your book into libraries? Do libraries even support e-books or do you need a hard copy?

5. Is there anyway to network with other self-publishing authors?

6. Is there anyway to specifically target book clubs?

Just a few off the top of my head. I really know nothing about this, and it probably shows by my questions, but I hope it helps.

I missed the marketing theme. Great questions!

@Kayti,

Can you tell us more how your writing group is hosting a panel discussion? Is it at a library? A convention? How are you attracting visitors? Sounds interesting.

It ended up being a much higher-level discussion, we didn't get into the meat of those awesome questions, MAP, but I think we should have some of that conversation here (in this thread or a new one, whatever works.)

We talked about how we make time to write, how we create marketing plans (mine is still mostly just in my head, and a big part of my marketing plan is "write the next book" as so many folks recommend.) I definitely had a unique perspective, as nobody else in the group had gone down the epub kindle/bn.com route, even though all the other authors were self-published or with very small presses.

It was very interesting to me, the primary thing I heard from many of them was a hand-sell kind of approach. For me it's just not practical (school-aged kids at home, I'm not able to travel to festivals and events, plus the whole part where I don't yet have a physical book to sell - just an ebook.) I've heard Konrath rail against the hand-sell so often that I'm also kind of drinking his kool-aid and thinking that my best bet is to write more books, and collect good amazon/bn.com reviews that will help my books and stories bubble up to the top.

But it was a great experience. Very small group but we're far out in the 'burbs, I didn't have big expectations. (To answer another question - the guy who leads our group put out a press release to local papers, plus each of our groups promoted it to our group members. We had about 6 of us on the panel and 8 in the audience. Small group, but good discussion.)