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Winter Institute to Feature First-Ever Publisher Consultations
- By Liz Button
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Fourteen publishers participating in the 2017 Winter Institute, many for the first time this year, will also be the first to take advantage of the American Booksellers Association’s brand-new “publisher consultation” level sponsorship, featuring face-to-face conversations with booksellers.
The publishers offering consultations are, with a few exceptions, mostly small- to mid-sized companies: AdventureKEEN, City Lights, Coach House Books, Dundurn, Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts, Independent Publishers Group (IPG), Pegasus Books, Phaidon, The Quarto Group, Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari, Second Story Press, Shadow Mountain Publishing, Verso, and the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Each consultation level sponsorship includes the opportunity to have one staff member available on Monday, January 30, from 2:15 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., to chat informally with booksellers about their company’s publishing program.
“The participants will have a few hours of facetime with booksellers,” said ABA Development Officer Mark Nichols. “We wanted to set this new level of sponsorship so we could accommodate a number of publishers who wanted to participate in the institute but whose marketing budgets prohibited other levels of sponsorship.”
Booksellers will have access, on a walk-in basis, to publisher representatives who will be seated at separate tables in a designated area of the Great Lakes Ballroom at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, this year’s Winter Institute host hotel. Publishers can bring copies of their books to support their presentations, with additional copies for giveaway.
“The event takes place in a large ballroom and the tables are spread out in a huge space, so booksellers and publishers will be able to have discreet conversations,” said Nichols.” Some of the publishers will also be hosting an author or illustrator at the institute’s closing reception on Monday evening.
Publisher representatives at the consultation level of sponsorship may attend all institute special events, including breakfasts, luncheons, and evening receptions, and may also audit most education sessions.
Winter Institute is made possible by the support of Ingram Content Group, the event’s lead sponsor, with additional support from more than 85 publishers.