So! You have written your first book. You have rewritten it several times and are finally happy with the final draft. You are ready to publish. Now what? What are your options?

This is the subject Jerry will discuss at our Spring Conference, May 3, 2008, in La Crosse.

Jerry wrote a column for a small magazine for about six years when he decided that he might have the makings for a book. Two years later, he had his book. Then came the questions: Now what do I do? What are my options?

Find out who he contacted, and how he went about finding them, to help him learn about the publishing process. What did would-be-publishers tell him, and what did he learn about the self-publishing business? Learn what decision he made and why.

Jerry bills himself as an Outdoor Communicator. His reasoning is simple: he writes, photographs (he maintains a stock photo file), and presents workshops (teaches) on a variety of outdoor subjects. In other words, he communicates about the outdoors in many ways. You may remember him from the talk he gave a few years back about using photos to help sell your words.

Jerry writes for a variety of outdoor publications: Midwest Outdoors, Wisconsin Outdoor Journal, Wisconsin Outdoor News, and The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel, to name a few. He recently had a photo essay in Camping Life.

He teaches fly fishing and fly tying, February through September; occasionally, instructs classes in photography and snowshoe weaving; and he has put together a Power Point program about one of the DNR sturgeon rearing projects - all of these activities revolve around Riveredge Nature Center, at Newburg.

“Tales of The Peshtigo Putzer” is his first book. He and his wife, Diane, live in Grafton, but spend a great deal of their time at their three-season cottage on the Peshtigo River in Marinette County. (Now you know how the name came about.) They have two children and three grandchildren. The stories in his book involve all the members of this family, plus a few friends, and the many ways they enjoy the outdoors in all seasons.