About Us --

Please contact us at the information below to set up a free, 30-minute phone consultation or to find out when our next group presentation will be held. Face-to-face consulting services are $100 for a 2-hour consultation, payable at the time of the meeting.

Rita Mills — Owner & Project Manager
The Book Connection
rita@bookconnectiononline.com

Rita Mills’ passions are the First Amendment, books, and literacy, so it is understandable that her career would take its charted path.

In the early ‘70s she started a 20-year stint at a major metropolitan newspaper, The Houston Post, where ink permanently took up residence in her blood. She left there in the early ‘90s to become the Managing Editor of Arte Publico Press at the University of Houston where she organized their production department and coordinated a half-million dollar annual print budget. While there, Rita also helped with the start-up of a new children’s picture book imprint, Pinata Books.

After what turned into a 4-year apprenticeship in the book publishing business, she left the University of Houston to start her own business, The Book Connection, where she consults with small and independent presses in proper book-publishing-industry standards and protocol. The Book Connection utilizes 35+ freelance individuals with book-specific experience in all areas of writing, editing, design, illustration, marketing and public relations. She guides her clients through the publishing maze to produce and sell bookstore-quality books. She is a resource for the printing of all types of books from B&W interiors (printed in the USA) to 4-color books (printed in Hong Kong).

Her 17 years in the book business has resulted in the packaging of more than 350 different titles, ranging from simple mass-market paperbacks to hard-cover, coffee-table books. Included in this smorgasbord of books are a 4-book reference set; companion books for two PBS series; 25 hard-cover children’s picture books; 4 cookbooks; 5 books used as fund raisers for nonprofits; and 11 books that have won various publishing awards.

Rita Mills has a small press, Bluebonnets Boots & Books, and has published 10 titles since 1996. She has a children’s picture book imprint called The ABC’s Press where she will have 10 children’s titles in print by the end of 2009.

Her other endeavors include a website hub, Texas Authors Group , where independent Texas publishers showcase their books and highlight their availability as speakers. She is also the organizer of the ABC’s Children’s Picture Book Competition, ABC Book Competition, an annual competition for children’s book writers with a grand prize that is unparalleled in the industry.

Rita’s passion for literacy has led her to get involved with 2 local Houston charities:

1. Operation Storytime that gives books to children in Title I schools in the Houston area and is sponsored by Target, READ Commission, Houston Public Library System, and Perceptive Marketing
2. Houston Children’s Book Festival coming November 6 & 7, 2009 and will be held in the Children’s Museum in Houston; recipient of fund raising event will go to benefit Fam2Fam Adoption Agency in Richmond

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