IPG Announces Spring 2021 Top Shelf Titles

CHICAGO, IL—Independent Publishers Group (IPG) is pleased to present their Top Shelf books for the Spring 2021 season. The list includes 24 key titles across their publishing and distribution divisions, and it features both adult and children’s titles, as well as fiction and nonfiction across a variety of categories.

Top Shelf, which is IPG’s select key titles program, began with the Fall 2018 season and is in its sixth iteration. These titles are selected by IPG’s sales, marketing, and publicity departments, determined to be the biggest priorities across the company for the season with the most potential for outstanding sales.

“The Top Shelf program allows IPG staff to dive into each season’s list and identify titles that work across nearly all accounts each season,” said VP of Marketing and Publicity Annette Hobbs Magier. “With hundreds of titles to choose from, it’s an opportunity to rally around our publishers’ key titles.”

The Spring 2021 list includes groundbreaking books like a series of children’s titles celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community called Pride In from Booklife; David and Ameena, a modern New York romance with massive cultural differences from Fairlight Books; and My Shadow is Pink (Larrikin House), which tackles gender identity for kids.

Several titles are already getting major preorder buzz, including Authentic: A Memoir by the Founder of Vans (Vertel Publishing); Central Avenue’s new poetry volume sometimes i fall asleep thinking about you; The Captain and Me: On and Off the Field with Thurman Munson by Yankee great Ron Blomberg (Triumph Books); and the latest Nordic Noir from Orenda with Winterkill and Hinton Hollow Death Trip.

Pop culture makes a splash in the list with We Are the Baby-Sitters Club (Chicago Review Press), building off the retro buzz for the classic books started by the updated Netflix series; Surf By Day Jam By Night (Lost the Plot) featuring interviews with surfer musicians Jack Johnson, Dave Rastovich, Kelly Slater, and more; and in time for this year’s singular golf tournament, The Story of The Masters from Tatra Press.

Previous bestsellers highlighted by Top Shelf include How I Met My Monster (Flashlight Press, November 2019), Sincerely by F. S. Yousaf (Central Avenue, February 2020), This Is Not a Fashion Story by Danielle Bernstein (Vertel Publishing, May 2020), 5-Ingredient Natural Recipes by Phyllis Good (Walnut Street Books, September 2020), I’ll Show You by Derrick Rose (Triumph Books, September 2019), and more.

IPG’s most recent Top Shelf collection can be found here.

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About Independent Publishers Group (IPG):
Founded in 1971, IPG was the first organization specifically created for the purpose of marketing titles from independent presses to the book trade. Today, IPG’s wide reach into the book market includes distribution of both print and e-books from a wide array of publishers, digital printing and traditional publishing. With consistent growth year over year, IPG’s success has come from supporting and encouraging the growth of its publishing partners in the United States and worldwide. IPG was acquired by Chicago Review Press in 1987, and this acquisition formed the parent company Chicago Review Press, Inc., which now owns Chicago-based indie publishers Chicago Review Press and Triumph Books.