MBPR Information

Recap of November 2024 Event: Chicago Manual of Style 18th Edition

January 3, 2025

This event was presented in partnership with the Professional Editors Network (PEN), www.pensite.org.

MBPR and PEN welcomed Russell Harper, principal reviser of The Chicago Manual of Style, for a discussion of the 18th edition! Harper detailed decisions behind some of the more significant changes in the new edition. This in-person event also included a Q&A opportunity.

Russell Harper has served as principal reviser of the last three editions of The Chicago Manual of Style, including the 18th, published in 2024. He is also the editor of The Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A and the CMOS Shop Talk blog and contributed to the 8th and 9th editions of Kate L. Turabian’s A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Before working on The Chicago Manual of Style, Russell was a manuscript editor in the Books Division at the University of Chicago Press; before that, he worked in printing and typesetting.

Members can listen to the full discussion in the Resources area on the MBPR website.

Recap of September 2024 Event: BookTok

January 3, 2025

Should I be leveraging BookTok in my marketing strategy?

The simple answer is yes. At MBPR, this amazing panel discussed this very question. They provided new insights and answered these questions:

What is BookTok? How do I get a book BookTokked? What difference could BookTok make in my marketing?

Panelist Bios

A.S. Green (previously writing as Anne Greenwood Brown) began writing YA paranormal romance (Delacorte Press), then moved to YA contemporary (Albert Whitman Co.), then NA contemporary (Entangled Publishing), then adult contemporary romance (Harlequin). In 2019, she delved into independent publishing with adult paranormal romance series and has become a USA Today bestselling author. She has published over 30 novels, both traditionally and independently, co-authored Author in Progress (Writers Digest), and written numerous posts for the award-winning writers’ website, Writer Unboxed. You can find her on most social platforms at @asgreenbooks.

Megan Ciskowski (she/her) is the publicist for Lerner Publishing Group, one of North America’s largest independent book publishers for children and young adults based in Minneapolis. An advocate for books and literacy, she has taught writing seminars at elementary schools, worked for university writing centers, and managed publications for Truman State University Press. In January 2020, she earned her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. At Lerner she and a dedicated team of professionals promote and market the work of incredible authors such as Ada Limón, Monique Gray Smith, Chris Monroe, and many more.

Karlyn Coleman is an award-winning writer, teacher, and creative collaborator based in Minneapolis. She works as the Classroom Marketing Manager at Lerner Publishing Group. Karlyn has also been a bookseller at Wild Rumpus Books, a teaching artist at The Loft, and is the author of the wintertime picture book Where are all the Minnesotans? illustrated by Carrie Hartman.

Madelyn Pearson is a Partnership Development Representative at Capstone Publishing, a local publishing company with global outreach that supports children in being life-long learners. She has been dabbling in the world of Booktok for around 6 months and has seen the positive effect this platform has had on new authors, books, and more.

Moderator:

Kristin F. Johnson is a marketer by day and writer by night. She has written nine books for children through Lerner Publishing and ABDO. For two years, she was a producer and interviewer for KFAI’s Write On! Radio. In 2022, she self-published the middle grade novel Fearless, which was named a finalist for a 2023 MiPA award. In the summer of 2024, Fearless was selected for the Brainerd-area “Battle of the Books.” Forthcoming, fall of 2024, Johnson wrote and illustrated pickles and paradise: poems for pickleballers. Follow her on instagram: @kfjbooks.

Members can listen to the full panel discussion in the Resources area on the MBPR website.

Recap of May 2022 Event: Webinar: Working with Illustrators: Creative Brief to Final Illustration

July 20, 2022

As part of MBPR’s last webinar of the 2021-2022 season, Working with Illustrators: From Creative Brief to Final Illustration, MBPR Board member, Paul Nylander led a lively conversation with our panel of talented publishing professionals to discuss illustration form the perspective of an illustrator, agent, and art director.

Sawyer Cloud is a freelance artist from Madagascar. Her passion for kids’ literature turned into a living when she couldn’t imagine any occupation other than creating pictures for children. She learned about the publishing industry through books and the internet. Through many independent projects, she built a career as an illustrator, securing representation with Advocate Art in 2020, and has illustrated titles with major kids’ publishers. Sawyer loves sunny days and music. She dreams of owning a small cottage and traveling the world. She lives in Madagascar with her family and her two pets, Arya the dog and Potter the cat.

Three years ago, Atlanta Japp joined the Advocate Art team at its New York City location. Since then, she has ventured across the country to open the company’s first office in Los Angeles, where she manages all West Coast clients, overseeing more than a million dollars in illustration sales. Although she specializes in children’s publishing, she also works with many licensing, product design, and advertising clients. Japp works closely with her artists to support them in consistently creating strong new work. Offering the best available and relevant talent to her clients, she helps her artists climb the charts of many bestseller lists. When she is not searching for new talent, Atlanta can be found enjoying the tasty tacos and beautiful beaches that California has to offer.

Danielle Carnito is the Sr. Trade Art Director for Lerner Publishing Group in Minneapolis, where she art directs a wide variety of books in several imprints—picture books through novels, kindergarten through young adult, fiction and nonfiction. She started her career in advertising, then moved north, changed careers to book publishing, and has now spent quite a few happy years collaborating closely with illustrators, editors, designers, agents, and authors to create beautiful and award-winning books. Danielle has had the honor to hire and work with many talented illustrators, including Floyd Cooper, Victo Ngai, Greg Christie, and Selina Alko.

Members can listen to the full panel discussion in the Resources area on MBPR website. 

Recap of March 2022 Event: Webinar: Accessibility in Ebooks and Other Digital Products

April 19, 2022

For our March 2022 event, the Minnesota Book Publishers Roundtable hosted Laura Brady, an accessibility expert with 25 years of trade publishing experience. Laura covered the basics of accessibility in eBooks and other digital products.

Laura began by saying, “In an era of thinking inclusively, paying close, thoughtful attention to accessibility in how we publish content is a natural extension of work on diverse voices.” But she cautioned that, “Accessibility is like ice cream—the longer you ignore it, the messier it can get.” She discussed the market, the law, and the principles of accessible design, as well as how to incorporate such design into publishing and how to be an advocate. After her presentation, Laura answered questions about off-the-shelf products for making manuscripts accessible, how to involve people early in the process to produce born-accessible content, the costs of both born-accessible content and making existing materials accessible, and raising consumer and industry awareness.

In the resources area of the MBPR website, members can access the event in a variety of ways: listening to the audio, watching the video, reading the script, and/or viewing Laura’s presentation slides.

Recap of January 2022 Event: Hard Work and a Dream: Publisher Startup Success

March 8, 2022

For our January 2022 event, the Minnesota Book Publishers Roundtable hosted a panel of Midwestern indie publishers. We talked with the founders of  young, thriving organizations about what it takes to start and grow a new publishing business.

The panel included Mary Taris, teacher-turned-publisher and founder of Strive Publishing, a social enterprise that centers, values, and empowers Black narratives in literature for equity and social justice; Jennifer Baum, founder of Scribe Publishing Company, a traditional small press with national distribution by IPG, and also the executive director of the Midwest Independent Publishers Association; and Sam Van Cook, founder of Button Poetry, the premiere online distributor of performance poetry media worldwide. Moderating the discussion was MBPR board member Paul Nylander.

The three panelists spoke about how small publishers need to constantly reinvent themselves to serve writers and readers—being an engine of innovation or a gateway to underrepresented voices instead of just gatekeepers of content. They also voiced the importance of building a strong team that fits a publishing program’s needs. 

When addressing the challenging early road, all of the publishers agreed that the best way to start in publishing is to dive in. By starting with the goal of finding authors that know how to engage with their audience, a new publisher can begin building a list. Then focusing on building a share of the marketing and engaging the right audience helps a new business grow. Other startup tips: start with print-on-demand to help manage cash flow and consider partnering with a nonprofit organization as a fiscal sponsor to have access to grants.

Members can listen to the full panel discussion exploring the ups and downs of building a successful publishing startup on the resources tab of the MBPR webpage.

Recap of September 2021 Event: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Publishing Workplace

October 25, 2021

Minnesota Book Publishers Roundtable started the 2021–2022 season with a keynote speaker addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). As many of us well know, the publishing industry has long struggled to accurately reflect the diversity of the world and failed to provide a welcoming place for all. Keynote speaker Jennifer Baker, senior editor at Amistad Books, provided a frank reflection of her personal experiences in the industry as well as the efforts of DEI practices as a whole.

In addition to providing a response to unsuccessful band-aid “solutions,” Jennifer offered several steps forward as well as a list of valuable resources, included below.

A Brief History of Diversity Trainings (Fast Company)

The Major Built-in Bias of the Publishing World (Zora)

Diversity Baseline Survey 2.0 (Lee & Low)

Pamela Newkirk Diversity Inc. Conversation (Politics & Prose)

Man Enough podcast w/ guest Alok Vaid Menon

Discussing Barriers of Querying & Pitching for Neurodivergent Writers

New Yorker Editor Finds “Passive Racism” in Archives