Last night about thirty writers attended a panel discussion on the Pleasures and Perils of Indie Publishing  presented by the Publishers Association of Los Angeles at this month's general meeting in the  Veterans Memorial Building in Culver City. 

The panelists were:

Robin Quinn, lead writer and editor at Quinn's Word for Word, was an excellent moderator.

A few memorable quotes:

I didn't find the evening as informative as I'd hoped and it lagged a bit at times, but I'd go hear Maggie Marr again any time, and I won a book in a raffle, my first ARC (advance reading copy).

~Report filed by Cindy Cotter.

Mary Terzian's most recent book, Politically Homeless: A Five Year Odyssey across Three Continents, has just been reviewed by Kirkus. 
 

Kirkus is book review service. They put out a magazine of reviews and provide a number of services to authors, including objective reviews for a fee. Is a Kirkus review is worth the money? It may lend credibility to a book, but will it boost sales? If Kirkus particularly likes your book, they can promote it on their site, but there's no guarantee that will happen. You buy the review; you have to earn the marketing.

Their own site, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/, will give you the argument in favor of a review. For a contrarian view, try... 
http://www.msauret.com/kirkus-reviews-wasted-money/
or
http://www.selfpublishingadvice.org/publishing-is-a-kirkus-review-worth-the-price/

What do you think?