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.

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.

This lively panel discussion focused on list building and acquisitions. Three Minnesota-based publishing professionals gave us a peek behind the curtain into how their companies decide what to publish. The panel explored the role data plays in publishers’ strategies, answering questions like: Is data king, or is it more of a suggestion? How is data most helpful in driving acquisitions? And where does data fall short or even lead us astray?

Panelists:

Erika Stevens is the editorial director at Coffee House Press, where she has served in various editorial capacities for a decade. Erika currently acquires poetry, nonfiction, and fiction for Coffee House. Erika was previously in acquisitions at the University of Georgia Press and the University Press of Florida; she started her career in publishing at Duke University Press and UNC Press. She taught in the graduate program in book publishing at Portland State University and in the Sierra Nevada College MFA program. She dabbles in German-to-English translation and has freelanced widely for authors, presses, and nonprofit organizations.

Josh Leventhal is the director of the Minnesota Historical Society Press. He began his career as an editor at Timber Press in Portland, Oregon, in the mid-1990s, and after moving to Minnesota in 2000, he worked for MBI Publishing, Voyageur Press, and an imprint of the Quarto Publishing Group before joining MNHS Press as an acquisitions editor in 2014. Working at large commercial publishers, nonprofit publishers, and small niche publishers in a range of subject areas, Josh has navigated a variety of markets and publishing business models. He is also the author of more than 15 books.

Jenny Krueger is senior publishing director for Lerner Publications in Minneapolis. She has worked in publishing and product development for 15 years, with extensive experience in educational publishing, particularly for the school library and classroom markets. Jenny has developed series, single titles, and database products that serve K–12 learners, including most recently Read WokeTM Books with Cicely Lewis and publishing partnerships with Crayola and Sesame Street.

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

In a world with a growing number of channels for book distribution, metadata is hugely influential, but it can also be confusing. MBPR’s March webinar explored metadata with someone who literally wrote the book on the subject. Margaret Harrison, co-author of Metadata Essentials, spoke on the importance of using metadata to increase discovery and conversion in an online retail environment. Harrison’s practical advice provided further insight on the best ways to optimize titles for online sale. She covered tips for consistent titling and author information, creating book descriptions designed for online retailers, and getting the most out of BISAC codes and keywords.

Check out our member resource area of the website for an audio/video presentation of the event.

January’s webinar featured a conversation about digital content and digital marketing in publishing. While the days of paper-only publishing are long behind most of us, the digital world is not a static space: there are always new challenges and opportunities to explore, especially as technology continues to change. This series of presentations covered how the digital shift has affected publishing strategies and practices, both before and during the pandemic, at every stage of the publishing process. Kristie Thoenen, director of digital products, and Beth Brezenoff, associate publisher, from Capstone Publishing shared their company’s history with digital products, how they have developed and marketed those products, and their response to the pandemic. Then Christine Trant, the founder of Asterism and Co., a company specializing in content marketing for book publishers, explained how publishers can use the digital tools of content marketing to build and retain a community for their product lines.

The webinar recording is available to members in the Resources area. Remember that the process for accessing recordings has changed. If you are a member and have not yet created your individual account for our new website, follow the directions on the Member Resources page to create one and get access to the recordings. If you have questions, please contact us at information@publishersroundable.org.

Our September event looked at ways to improve diversity in the publishing industry. In November, we shifted our scope to the content itself, examining obstacles to publishing more diverse content, strategies for elevating unheard voices, and reaching readers and buyers underserved by mainstream publishing lists. Our panelists were Duchess Harris, author and professor of American studies at Macalester College; Tasha Nins, Ramsey County librarian, and Kathleen T. Horning, director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center. The panel discussed the topics on which more books are needed (and topics that are oversaturated), the ways that those books get into readers’ hands, and trends in diversity of content and authorship over time.

The webinar recording is available to members in the Resources area. Remember that the process for accessing recordings has changed. If you are a member and have not yet created your individual account for our new website, follow the directions on the Member Resources page to create one and get access to the recordings. If you have questions, please contact us at information@publishersroundable.org.