MONTHLY MEETING: Turn Your Critique Group Into A Marketing Machine

Turn Your Crit Group into a Marketing Machine: Learn from children’s authors Kari Lavelle, Lindsay Leslie and Melissa Coffey about how they turned their pb critique group into a marketing machine. 

From library brochures to industry conferences, to school visits to book festivals, teaming up with other kidlit creatives to collectively promote your books and each other can gain more traction and visibility than going it alone. Hear from children’s authors Melissa Coffey, Kari Lavelle, and Lindsay Leslie, members of ATX Children’s Authors, about how they have successfully expanded their picture book critique partnership into a strategic marketing group. Learn the specific tools they have employed to successfully promote themselves locally and nationally.    

Melissa Coffey is the author of FRIDGE-OPOLIS, her debut picture book which won the 2022

Writers’ League of Texas Discovery Award. She spent 20+ years writing professionally for

grown-ups before discovering her passion writing for kids. She loves creating stories that garner

giggles, expand horizons and inspire action and emotion. Melissa lives with her family in Austin,

Texas. Visit her at melissacoffey.com.

Lindsay Leslie is the award-winning author of So You Want to Build a Library, Dusk

Explorers, Nova the Star Eater, and This Book Is Spineless. Her next picture book, Gus

❤ the Bus (illus. by Geeta Ladi), is slated for July 2025 with Sleeping Bear Press. She

lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, sci-fi/fantasy novelist Ryan Leslie, two

teenagers, and two fur-beasts (a.k.a. dogs).Visit her at lindsayleslie.com.

Kari Lavelle is the award-winning author of WE MOVE THE WORLD (HarperCollins), the BUTT OR FACE? series (Sourcebooks) and ODE TO GRAPEFRUIT: HOW JAMES EARL JONES FOUND HIS VOICE (Knopf). She has always had a love for words: as a kid reading books, as a speech pathologist helping children communicate, and now as a writer creating stories. She grew up in the Midwest but now lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, their two children, and doggo, Dobby. Learn more about Kari and her books at karilavelle.com.

Event Breakdown

WHEN

Saturday Aug 30th, 2025 at 10:00am CST.

WHERE

In-person at Book People on North Lamar. Third floor!

COST

Free!

RECORDING

None

The meeting starts at 10am. However, if you can not make it in person due to distance or health, we will do our best to stream it live on Zoom. Please register to get the zoom link in your My Events section of your SCBWI account. This meeting is open (and free!) to both paid Members and Registered Users. If you have questions during the presentation, please put them in the Zoom chat. By registering and/or attending our event, you agree to abide by the SCBWI Anti-harassment policy.