SPEAKERS

Mary Agnes Antonopoulos is a well known social media strategist with 25+ years as a freelance writer. She’s designed 50+successful social media / branding campaigns for a variety of clients, including many authors: Jack Canfield, Libby Gill, Christine Comaford, Shela Dean, Andrea Goeglein, Monica Garaycoechea, Catherine Palmiere, Kelli Richards, plus a long list of entrepreneurs and corporations. She is a sought after writer, Youtube Coach and BlogTalkRadio Producer. Mary Agnes also led the coaching team at Christine Comaford’s 2010 Business Summit and believes that social media will be the core to a new American economy.

Ilene Barth is Creative Director of Red Rock Press whose lifestyle and arts books have won design commendations. Red Rock Press also publishes illustrated children's books under its Red Pebble imprint. Before starting Red Rock Press a decade ago, Ms. Barth was a Senior Editor of Newsday, responsible for the editorial, news content and design of several section. She also was a Newsday columnist and book critic.

In the 1990s, Ilene served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle; in the 2000s, she was on the board of PMA, now the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Jon Brewster has spent most of his career starting new businesses for HP in both consumer and commercial products. For the last many years these have including various digital publishing efforts, experiences, and incubations in Books, Magazines, and Newspapers for Home, Retail, and Commercial settings. Since HP is both an IT company and a printer company, it makes digital publishing quite a fun endeavor for him.

Jon's first job for HP was customer support for calculators in 1977. This time taught Jon to listen to customer needs and build solutions that matter. Jon has driven hardware and software products, including full end to end eService driven solutions. These days, Jon spends time as both Director and Architect taking either role as needed. Currently Jon is operating as Chief Architect for the Retail Book Printing on Demand solution recently being piloted by HP.

Bethany Brown is the President of Cadence Marketing Group, a company dedicated to helping publishers and small presses maximize exposure in the marketplace. She started her publishing career in 2001 at Adams Media. She then served as the Senior Editor and Editorial Manager at Sourcebooks, Inc. in charge of Sourcebooks Jabberwocky, the Sourcebooks’ bestselling parenting book program and several other branding and publishing initiatives. Bethany now manages The Cadence Group’s award-winning packaging programs, consults with small presses on list development and management and manages the talented marketing team at The Cadence Marketing Group.

Eric Burger began with Barnes & Noble 16 years ago, fresh out of college, and has since served the company in a number of different job positions: 4 years in the stores, 2 years as Administrative Assistant in the Small Press Dept., 5 years as an Account Manager in Co-op Advertising & Promotions, and 5 years as a Regional Buyer. He began working in his current position as Vendor Manager in January of 2011.

Roy M. Carlisle is Acquisitions Director for scholarly books at the Independent Institute. Mr. Carlisle has been Senior Editor at HarperOne, West Coast Senior Editor at The Crossroad Publishing Company, Editorial Director at Circulus Publishing Group. He has also served as Chairman of the Board at New College Berkeley and is the Founder of the Academy of Christian Editors. Mr. Carlisle holds a B.A. in philosophy from Whitman College and M.A. in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary, and taught publishing courses at the University of California at Berkeley. Currently, he serves on the national Board of Directors of the Independent Book Publishing Association (IBPA).

Judy Galbraith is founder and president of Free Spirit Publishing, the home of the award-winning Self-Help for Kids® and Self-Help for Teens® books and learning materials. In addition to being one of the country’s leading independent publishers, Galbraith is a nationally recognized speaker and the author of The Gifted Kids' Survival Guide: For Ages 10 & Under and When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers.

In 2004, Galbraith was named the Midwest Publisher of the Year and recently also named a “Fast Track Publisher” by Publishers Weekly magazine. She has been featured on Oprah and CNN and in Family Circle and Family Life, as well as numerous other magazines, newspapers, and broadcast and electronic media. She is a member of the Association of Booksellers for Children, the Midwest Independent Publishers Association, and the National Association for Gifted Children.

Galbraith grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, received a degree in education from the University of Wisconsin at Steven’s Point, and holds a master’s degree in guidance and counseling of the gifted from Norwich University, Vermont. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Michael Healy has worked in the book industry for more than 25 years and has spent most of that time in senior editorial, sales and distribution roles in digital publishing. For much of his career, he has been closely involved in the development of standards for the international book trade, and is particularly associated with standards for metadata, product information and electronic commerce. Michael has led many international standards groups. He has been Chairman of the International ISBN Agency, a Director of the International DOI Foundation, and led the international ISO committee that developed ISBN-13.

Until October 2009 Michael was the Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), a New York-based non-profit membership body dedicated to improving the efficiency and the effectiveness of the U.S. book industry through the development and maintenance of standards, research, education and information.

In March 2009, it was announced that Michael Healy would become the first Executive Director of The Book Rights Registry (BRR). The BRR, established by the Google Book Settlement, will be the lead body in the administration of the Settlement’s benefits and will represent authors and publishers in the management of their digital assets. Michael began work full-time on the preparations for the establishment of the BRR in October 2009.

Neil Levin is the president and founder of EverPub LLC. He was formerly Senior VP at National Book Network. Prior to that he held senior sales, marketing, publishing, and operations positions at Time Life, Grolier, Chilton, Chelsea House and his own company, Publisher Marketing Group. His current company, EverPub, provides website strategy and development for publishers. EverPub's websites include all of today's powerful marketing tools—Direct Marketing, SEO, and Social Media—within one easy-to-use package. EverPub websites also include unique cost-saving features such as author access to their own book pages and instant additions or edits of new titles and most of the webpages. In addition to managing EverPub, he continues to offer sales, marketing and operations consulting to a wide range of publishers.

Joshua Blake Mettee is the owner and CEO of American West Books, a wholesaler specializing in regional and niche titles. In 1993, the summer after he graduated from high school, he took over a then defunct book company by the same name. That same year he began work on a marketing degree at California State University, Fresno, immediately applying the lessons he learned from his studies to the business. During spring and summer breaks, Mettee would hit the road selling books to museums, gift shops, tourist locations, and other retailers. Many nights were spent in the back of his Blazer camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains or on California’s coast since campsites were cheaper than hotel rooms. Today, American West Books continues to sell to accounts in Central and Northern California, but it also sells a wide range of titles nationally to the major wholesale clubs and the national bookstore chains.

Skip Prichard is President & Chief Executive Officer of Ingram Content Group Company, Inc. Ingram Content Group provides books, music and media content to over 35,000 retailers, libraries, schools and distribution partners in over 200 countries. More than 21,000 publishers use Ingram’s fully integrated physical and digital solutions and programs to realize the full business potential of books. Under his leadership, Ingram Content Group has improved its financial position, expanded its international locations to continental Europe and Australia, strengthened its digital offerings and integrated its multiple companies and acquisitions into a unified service offering.

Mr. Prichard’s perspective as the leader of Ingram Content Group—the center hub between publishers, retailers and libraries—offers a unique view on the future of books and publishing. His views have been featured in print and online publications and broadcast media, including the BBC, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, Harvard Business Review, Information Today, The Bookseller, Publishers Weekly, Christian Retailing, Library Journal and others. He has spoken on this topic at conferences, including O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing, BookExpo America, PubWest, and the ECPA’s Executive Leadership Summit.

Prior to his appointment at Ingram Content Group, Mr. Prichard was President and Chief Executive Officer of ProQuest Information & Learning where he led ProQuest through a successful financial turnaround, achieving double-digit growth and returning the company to profitability. Earlier in his career, Mr. Prichard held a number of executive positions with LexisNexis, where as Vice President of corporate and federal markets he provided business information and risk management solutions to the largest global corporations.

Tony Proe is a veteran salesman with broad expertise in bringing books to market. With roots in general retail and college stores, he has special strengths with the small and medium publishers.  Proe formed the commissioned sales group Proe & Proe Associates in 1991 to cover the traditional trade, but transformed his organization into a multichannel sales force bringing the smaller presses onto the same playing field as the larger houses in the non traditional accounts.

In addition to the trade, he has expertise in selling special markets, mass merchandisers, grocery, drug store and airport chains. Proe's true talent is in recognizing the core value in a product and in knowing where that connects in the marketplace.

Florrie Binford Kichler is president of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), the largest trade organization of independent publishers in the United States. She also serves as President of Patria Press, Inc., the publisher of the award-winning Young Patriots Series for children.

Florrie is a member of the Children’s Book Council, serves on the boards of the Indiana University Women’s MBA Advisory Board and the ACLU of Indiana. She also sits on the board of the Book Industry Study Group and the Indianapolis Public Library Foundation. She earned BA and MBA degrees from Indiana University, and is an alumna of the Stanford Professional Publishing Course.  Florrie lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.