Next Tuesday night, one of mediabistro.com’s most popular course instructors, Susan Shapiro* will moderate a panel on “The Secrets Behind Book Publishing” that features Amistad editorial director Dawn Davis, Knopf/Pantheon editor Deborah Garrison, recently retired Random House editor Dan Menaker, literary agents Gail Hochman and Henry Dunow, and NYT Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus. According to the press release, you can “find out the most common mistakes new authors make; how many pages you need to approach an agent; if it ever makes sense to go directly to editors or to self-publish; what determines the advance, buzz, and publicity campaign behind a book; and what you can do to enhance book sales, good publicity and positive reviews.” It costs $30 to attend, but absolute beginners in the book writing racket might want to give it a whirl to see what they can pick up.