The first publishers at Brooklyn Pride!
It gives me an immense amount of pride (pun only slightly intended) to have initiated the very first presence of a publishing house at Brooklyn’s Pride Festival, and New York City as a whole! In 2019, MacMillan had a list of upcoming LGBTQ publications, and I saw an opportunity to connect with consumers in a meaningful way—in person.
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Red, White, and Royal Blue, Carry On, A Little Life, and more… MacMillan had a wide variety of LGBTQ content and I wanted to connect more with the community with an in-person festival.
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With some research into upcoming Pride events as well as looks into various budgets (DEI, MacMillan, and my particular imprint’s marketing allotments), I proposed our presence and delivered an argument to each above leading body for our presence as an experiment as a potential for an on-going opportunity.
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Once the idea of participating was established and budgets were assessed, I worked across all Marketing, Sales, and Publicity teams in addition to the DEI committee to move forward with the event. Marketing budgets allowed for promotional items such as designed buttons, stickers, and bookmarks and we consulted with Inventory and Sales for merch and stock to sell.
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The event proved to be a success, where we sold 50-60% of our stock, promoted multiple new release and upcoming titles, and received high praise from those attending for being the first publishing house to be present.
Credit: Brooklyn Pride, Inc.