Corporate Leadership

From New York Times bestsellers to Pulitzer Prize candidates, Milli Brown empowers authors as the founder and CEO of Brown Books Publishing Group (BBPG). Milli pioneered a New Era in Publishing® by building BBPG as a fiercely independent, full-service publishing house with an author-first ethos.

Since establishing her Texas-based company, Milli has prioritized one pivotal commitment—developing award-winning books for those who wish to retain the rights to their intellectual property.

Under her leadership, BBPG has continued to evolve with responsive publishing solutions for entrepreneurs, executives, thought leaders, and corporations. In addition to traditional editorial, design, and development services, BBPG has leveraged a 360-degree approach with distribution and promotional options that can be engaged by authors from diverse publishers around the globe.

After all, many authors joined Milli at BBPG to find a better way to publish after working with major houses like Simon & Schuster, Random House, and others.

Milli marked another industry first in 2015 with the launch of The Agency at Brown Books (ABB), introducing a turnkey publicity firm that serves authors from all publishing houses. In 2016, she enhanced BBPG's end-to-end retail distribution with a national sales force to represent the company's catalog to wholesalers and booksellers.

Most recently, Milli and her team expanded ABB's cross-promotional capabilities in 2018, adding an in-house video production studio and premiering an original author spotlight series, Page Turners.

BBPG and ABB authors also continue to make headlines with high-profile media appearances. During the past year, current titles have been featured by CNN, Bloomberg, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Forbes, USA Today, the Washington Post, and many more.

"The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer. Ultimately, the best way to predict the future is to create it—and that's what we do as entrepreneurs."

A seasoned veteran of the publishing industry, Tom Reale brought over 30 years of diverse experience to BBPG when he joined the organization in 2014. In the seven years since his arrival at the Texas-based publisher, BBPG has experienced sales and distribution growth of more than 900 percent, and in 2020, Publishers Weekly named BBPG a Top-5 Fast-Growing Independent Publisher for a third consecutive year. Following his highly effective leadership as COO, Tom was promoted to the role of President in 2018. Tom has previously served in various capacities at Random House, HarperCollins, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, among others. He led the pre-merger change initiative Custom Advantage at Harcourt Education, as well as the project management office for product development after Harcourt's merger with Houghton Mifflin.

"My friends and former colleagues in New York think it's funny that, as a publishing executive, I talk with authors all day. I really prefer our collaborative model over the organizational structure of traditional publishers."