Audience: All Levels

Book marketing is a challenge for every self-publisher, but for children's book authors there are extra hurdles. Laurie MIller of SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) interviews three successful authors to discuss creative ways to get books into the hands of young readers through parents, teachers, librarians, and more.

Tonya Duncan Ellis

Tonya Duncan Ellis has had her nose in a book since she learned to read, so it’s no surprise that she’d one day become a writer. She is author of the bestselling Sophie Washington children’s book series, a former journalist, and a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), the Authors Guild, Black Creators in KidLit, and the Brown Bookshelf’s Highlights Foundation-sponsored, Amplify Black Stories storyteller cohort. She’s a 2022 winner of SCBWI’s Independently Published Book Launch Marketing Grant. In 2021, she won the Austin SCBWI Cynthia Leitich Smith Writing Mentor Award. Tonya loves learning about other cultures and has traveled to 49 states and 20 countries. Represented by Sara Megibow of KT Literary she lives in Houston, Texas and is married with three children.

Silvia Acevedo

Silvia Acevedo is a children’s book author and winner of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’s Spark Award for GOD AWFUL REBEL, the final book in her mythological trilogy. She’s also co-founder of Fantasy Art Workshop’s Illustration Intensive, a week-long workshop for aspiring and professional illustrators. Silvia most recently worked at Scholastic, where she assisted the president of trade publishing. Before that, she guided programming at Inkluded, a non-profit championing diversity within publishing. She launched her own publishing career at New York literary agency Writers House, focusing on editorial and agenting. Simultaneously, she led the Wisconsin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Previously, Silvia enjoyed 25+ years in news reporting, covering everything from presidential candidates to state-fair-food-on-a-stick. She reported national and international stories for CNN, local TV, radio, and newspapers, in English and Spanish. Some of her favorite times were guest hosting a television morning talk show for Milwaukee’s NBC station.