Every month, approximately 80 newcomers to the publishing industry crowd into the Time Warner conference room at lunchtime to dine on the knowledge served up by publishing veterans like Esther Margolis, president of Newmarket Press, and George Gibson, president and publisher of Walker & Company. The attendees hail from publishers both large and small, but they share one thing in common—they're all members of the Young to Publishing Group (YPG), an initiative launched by the Association of American Publishers in 2001.
Since its inception, YPG has sponsored the free Brown Bag Luncheon series and other educational events for its members. Membership is free and open to anyone with five or fewer years' experience working for a book publishing company. The group, now more than 600 members strong, has satellite chapters in 14 states, but New York City is still YPG's primary stomping ground.
This past January, YPG celebrated its third birthday with a wine and cheese reception at the German Book Office, where PW spoke with the group's president, HarperCollins advertising manager Kate Williams.
"YPG has taken the place of the three-martini lunch," Williams told PW. "In the '40s, you would get to really know your boss. You'd go to meetings with them, and they'd take you out to lunch. Everything's so corporate now.... People at the assistant level aren't getting the camaraderie, the support or the education they need."
For the past three years, Williams and her fellow board members have tried to fill that gap by making YPG not just an educational outlet but a social one as well. A recently launched pen pal program connects YPG members with their U.K. counterparts at the Society of Young Publishers, and YPG's mentoring program helps foster relationships among the new and more experienced members. Last year, YPG held an Uno de Mayo party on the rooftop of the Scholastic Building and organized a three-hour cruise around Manhattan island, which attracted more than 160 people. Jim Schiff, editorial assistant at Warner, was one of them. "I was very excited to meet new people," Schiff said. "We're all pretty much just out of college, trying to make our way in the world, and something like this really helps."
