About Tara

Tara started her career in children’s publishing at Scholastic Inc. working on well-known licenses and brands such as The Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, The Adventures of Captain Underpants, The Magic School Bus, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Harry Potter paperbacks, The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley (Olsen), Powerpuff Girls, and Teletubbies.

Her branding experience led her to Disney Publishing Worldwide where she helped launch major brand book initiatives such as Disney Fairies, W.I.T.C.H., and Baby Einstein. She was also the Marketing Director for Hyperion Books for Children, crafting strategies for high-profile authors including Maurice Sendak, Robert F. Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, and Julie Andrews. She oversaw marketing and publicity launches for Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series, Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl, and Mo Willems’s Pigeon books.

Now, with her author services business, Tara uses her longtime experience and expert skills to build customized marketing plans for authors that are practical, actionable, and effective, along with the marketing collatoral to support the launch including press releases, sell sheets, author bios, and more.

Tara’s private business projects have included, among many, a picture book by Erin Russell, the co-author of the first twelve books in the Dork Diaries series; the award-winning Westfallen middle-grade series, co-authored by Ben Breshares and his sister Ann Breshares, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; Me and My Afro, as featured in People Magazine; and books by Darryl Kluskowski, award-winning cartoonist and animated series creator for Nickelodeon and Disney.

Tara has been an invited guest speaker at many industry panels, workshops, master classes, and forums, to discuss affordable and effective marketing for children’s books. She was a contributor in Stanford’s writing course, “How to Succeed on the Road to Publishing.”

Tara is a marketing consultant for publishers, small presses, and agencies.