"Indie Publishing: What's the Big Deal?" will be the topic of conversation at this month's meeting of the Tri-Valley Writers Chapter of the California Writers Club.

Jim Azevedo, corporate communications manager for Draft2Digital, is set to serve as the keynote speaker for the March 18 event at Las Positas College in Livermore. Azevedo worked for more than a decade for Smashwords before the company was acquired by Draft2Digital last year.

"In the last 15 years, the book publishing industry witnessed not one, but two sea change events," club officials said. "The first was the democratization of the industry, circa 2008. The second was the merger of the two largest self-publishing platforms, Draft2Digital and Smashwords, in March 2022."

Azevedo's presentation "will explain how the union of D2D and Smashwords created a self-publishing juggernaut overnight, legitimized the indie author movement, and ensured that even more writers will achieve their dreams of becoming published, globally distributed authors," club officials said.

Open to club members and the general public, the presentation is set to begin at 2 p.m. March 18 in Room 2470 at Las Positas College at 3000 Campus Hill Drive in Livermore. The event comes one week after national Read an Ebook Week, which runs from March 5-11.

The registration deadline is March 16. Prospective attendees must email treasurer@trivalleywriters.org and then register with full ticket payment via www.trivalleywriters.org.