Rebecca Joines Schinsky writes about books and the publishing industry at her popular literary website, The Book Lady’s Blog. She is a reader, a critic, and a member of the National Book Critics Circle. She is also an outspoken advocate of independent bookstores, and her partnership with Richmond’s Fountain Bookstore inspired the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance’s “Get in Bed with a Book Blogger” campaign. Rebecca’s work in blogging and social media has been featured in Publishers Weekly, the LA Times, Shelf Awareness, and Bookselling This Week and has earned her invitations to speak at industry conferences and book festivals nationwide.
Panelists:
Kelly Justice is the owner of Fountain Bookstore, a locally owned independent bookstore in historic Shockoe Slip. She is current president of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance and serves on the technology advisory council for the American Booksellers Association.
Kristin Keith is currently the Mid-Atlantic sales representative for W.W. Norton & Company and its affiliates. Previously she was a sales rep for Publishers Group West and the Perseus group, and has been a buyer for Koen Book Distributors (a regional wholesaler based out of New Jersey), and a manager for a Tower Bookstore in Fair Oaks, Va. She is also currently on the NAIBA (New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association) advisory committee. Her first bookstore job was as the closing clerk in a Tower Bookstore in Portland, OR, just after graduating with her English Major from Lewis & Clark College.
Julie Schoerke, founder of JKSCommunications, specializes in developing winning book publicity campaigns integrating traditional and new media for authors and publishers and in managing comprehensive publicity campaigns. The roster of books JKSCommunications represents includes New York Times Bestsellers, Indie Next Pick and SIBA Book of the Year nominees as well as numerous national award-winning fiction and non-fiction. The firm has represented authors residing in more than 30 states and four foreign countries and books from The Big Six publishing houses to self-published.
