EMERGING LEADER 2019

This brand new track is being designed with the emerging publishing leader in mind.

If you’ve been in Christian publishing (or publishing at all!) for fewer than five years, our goal is to help you find others in your same stage, to train you to be on mission in our industry, and to encourage you for the bright future ahead. Industry veterans will share their wisdom and experience to help you and your team develop the skills and vision necessary to lead in the industry!

These six short sessions (just 20-25 minutes each) are cross-departmental and all on the first day. They’ll be shorter talks and we’ll move fast! So you can then rejoin your specific expertise-area track on Day 2. Or mix-and-match as you see fit.

Randall Payleitner

Associate Publisher, Moody Publishers

Session 1A

8 Types of Books Every Publishing Person Should Read. The Genres We Most Often Forget About—and Why That is a Huge Mistake

If you work in publishing you’re probably a reader. And you’ve probably been stuck in a reading rut at some point in your life. In this session you’ll be challenged to make the next eight books you read be from the eight different genres presented. You may hate some of them. You may tolerate most of them. No matter what, though, you’ll gain a new appreciation for the larger world of reading/publishing that is out there. You’ll stretch yourself personally and professionally as we talk about how to maximize your time actually reading. As a publishing professional you might make a few new book friends and the worlds of genre, style, syntax, and purpose will be more open to you than ever before.

Brian Allain

Founding Director, Publishing in Color and Writing for your Life conferences

Session 1B

Publishing in Color: Why and How

This session will (1) invite discussion regarding potential reasons why publishing more books from writers of color may make sense, (2) describe how Publishing in Color conferences might help facilitate books from writers of color, and (3) invite discussion regarding additional ideas for accelerating this evolution.

Judy Dunagan

Acquisitions Editor, Moody Publishers

Session 2A

New Kid in Town

Though it can seem daunting to enter the publishing world as a newbie, we’ll look at what you have to offer with your diverse background and fresh perspective. Or, if you’re a manager considering new hires, discover how thinking outside the box about your team’s expertise can add new life to your publishing house.

Keith Williams

Bible Editor, Tyndale House Publishers

Session 2B

Essentials for Surviving and Thriving in your First Five Years of Christian Publishing

When you are just getting started, it is easy to think that the best thing you can do is focus on doing the specifics of your job assignments well. While that is true, Christian publishing is a complex business with many interrelated parts. The best way to learn how to do your job well and grow alongside your colleagues is to understand the big picture so that you can maximize your impact. This session will go over the various parts of a publishing operation briefly along with tips for how we can not only survive our first five years, but be set up to thrive.

Natalie Mills

Marketing Manager, Lexham Press (Faithlife)

Session 3A

Writer, Meet Reader: Strategies for Developing a Reader-Centric Mindset and Growing the Audience for Your Books

At its core, our work in publishing is to bring readers and writers together over great books. But where do we even start to make that happen? This session will look at strategies for developing and keeping a reader-centric mindset that drives good publishing decisions.

Session 3B

Roundtable Q&A with presenters

We’ll cover the five previous sessions and answer any questions the group has (either about the talks or publishing in general). We’ll also make sure to build in time for the group to get to know one another.

For sessions 4-7, please plan to choose among the tracks that most relate to your publishing role.