Lauren Cepero hosted our Instagram, on September 10, 2023 for our weekly #SalaSundays series. Below are a few questions that we asked Lauren.
Latinx In Publishing (LxP): What do you do?
Lauren Cepero (LC): I am a Publicity Manager for Kids & YA titles at Page Street.
LxP: How did you get started?
(LC): From middle school through my third year of undergrad, I had planned to become a journalist but when I looked around and saw how passionate everyone else in my final classes were, compared to my waning interest, I knew that journalism wasn’t going to be the path for me. At the time, I was working at the university library and ended up talking to a librarian about my future options. They suggested publishing! Despite being a voracious reader, I had never thought about how books were made. I tried for internships but didn’t have much luck, so I applied for the Publishing & Writing graduate program at Emerson College. From there, I did many internships and eventually went on to work for HMH Books for Young Readers and Page Street.
LxP: What do you wish you knew before getting into the industry?
(LC): This is a hard question because so much of the job is learned on the job, even with previous schooling / internships! Over the years, via various sources, I have heard the advice that to work in a marketing department you need to be an extrovert. Many things are probably easier if you are naturally a charismatic extrovert, but you can tend toward shyness (as I do) and still work in marketing. The reality is that you will likely have to publicly speak in some capacity in many of the departments within publishing (to the sales team / when pitching a book for acquisition / to your own team or full department) and it’s a skill you absolutely can learn! So don’t let that stop you from considering a position in marketing or publicity.
LxP: What book are you currently working on or reading?
(LC): I just finished reading What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez, which was swoony and fun – recommend if you enjoyed The Royal Diaries: Cleopatra VII, Daughter of the Nile as a kid. Now I am trying to decide between Starling House by Alix E. Harrow and Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison (which I’ve never read!). Very different vibes, lol, but both fit with the early Fall / back-to-school- season and I’ll likely go back and forth with both this month.
Lauren Cepero is a Publicity Manager for Kids & YA titles at Page Street. She has worked on campaigns for Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez, Damned If You Do by Alex Brown, The Gathering Dark anthology edited by Tori Bovalino, and more. Originally from Orlando, Florida, she earned her MA in Publishing & Writing from Emerson College and currently resides in the Boston-area.
