biOs SPEAKERS


Amy Collins MacGregor The Cadence Group & New Shelves Distribution www.thecadencegrp.com


Amy Collins MacGregor provides publishers and small presses with the guid- ance necessary to create and market successful, professionally-designed books. She started her career in the book industry in 1992 as the book buyer for Village Green Books in upstate, New York and by 2001, was named Director of Sales at Adams Media in Boston and quickly rose to the Special Sales Director for parent company, F+W Media. Over the years, Amy has sold to Borders, Barnes and Noble, Target, Costco, Wal-Mart, and all the major chains as well as worked with several private label publishing programs for chains such as Borders, PetSmart and CVS. Amy is now the president of The Cadence Group and New Shelves Distribution.


Dave Marx Publisher, PassPorter Travel Press www.passporter.com


Dave Marx is the Publisher at PassPorter Travel Press, and co- author of several of the company’s guidebooks. PassPorter guidebooks have received over a dozen awards, including IBPA’s Bill Fisher Award and several more Benjamin Franklin Awards, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year awards, and an ABA BookSense Pick. PassPorter’s Walt Disney World guide-


book consistently ranks among BookScan’s top 50 travel titles. He’s spent 35 years in the media—print, broadcast, music, and online. Dave also serves on the IBPA Board of Directors. He lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and partner-in- PassPorter, Jennifer, and their four year-old son Alexander.


Josh Mettee American West Books, Inc. www.AmericanWestBooks.com


Joshua Blake Mettee is the owner and CEO of American West Books, a wholesaler specializing in regional and niche titles. In 1993, the summer after he graduated from high school, he took over a then defunct book company by the same name. That same year he began work on a marketing degree at California State University, Fresno, immediately applying the lessons he


learned from his studies to the business. During spring and summer breaks, Met- tee would hit the road selling books to museums, gift shops, tourist locations, and other retailers. Many nights were spent in the back of his Blazer camping in the Sierra Nevada Mountains or on California’s coast since campsites were cheaper than hotel rooms. Today, American West Books continues to sell to accounts in Central and Northern California, but it also sells a wide range of titles nationally to the major wholesale clubs and the national bookstore chains.


Stephen Mettee The Write Thought, Inc. www.quilldriverbooks.com


Stephen Blake Mettee, founder of Quill Driver Books and The Write Thought, is the author of The Fast-Track Course on How to Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal which has been adopted for use in univer- sity courses. He serves on the board of Independent Book Publisher’s Association. He regularly consults on and teaches writing and pub- lishing. During his time at the helm, Mettee shepherded two Quill


Driver Books titles into Book-of-the-Month Club selections and one onto the New York Times bestseller list. In 2008, Mettee sold Quill Driver Books but still acts as acquisitions editor and, as such, is always in the market for exceptional nonfiction manuscripts. Met- tee has published scads of nonfiction articles and is working on a book on fund-raising.


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