PUBLISHED MARCH/APRIL 2021 by Deb Vanasse, Reporter, IBPA Independent magazine — Publishers can help their authors with where to start, which direction to go, how to navigate the curves, and which roadblocks to avoid when building a platform. Synopsis: A platform helps authors reach buyers, but it involves more than that. An author platform is …

PUBLISHED MAY/JUNE 2020 by Deb Vanasse, Reporter, IBPA Independent magazine — Publishers that build direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales into their business models can reap substantial rewards, especially when they tap into online platforms and services that help in scaling up their efforts. Article Synopsis: Savvy publishers are succeeding with sales made directly to consumers from their …

PUBLISHED MARCH/APRIL 2020 by Deb Vanasse, Reporter, IBPA Independent magazine — Don’t overlook prepublication marketing in your book publishing plan. Article Synopsis: Build the buzz of your book prior to launch by generating preorders and garnering reviews from advanced reader copies. Use genre-specific data from platforms like Bookbub and Goodreads in your marketing plan. Write …

PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 2017 by Deb Vanasse, Reporter, IBPA Independent magazine — Indie bookstores are thriving today. If indie publishers want to get their foot in the door, they need to understand the factors booksellers weigh when deciding which books to stock. Forget the gloom-and-doom forecasts of a few years back. In the digital age, independent …

PUBLISHED JANUARY 2016 by Deb Vanasse, IBPA Independent staff reporter Journals, stationary, music, posters, plush toys, and other products — some packaged with books, some not. With these products, booksellers enhance their bottom line. Should book publishers do the same? A peek inside the book-plus trend. At the 2012 American Book Producers Association Conference, panelist …

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2015 by Deb Vanasse, IBPA Independent staff reporter Within the publishing industry, bestsellers are conventionally defined in terms of rapid sales that occur during the launch period, resulting in bestseller lists that show early buying trends which may or may not lead to sizable sales over the long term. That fast start by …

Why publish an anthology? At Running Fox Books, an Alaska-based press and authors’ cooperative, the answer was simple: We believed it would help sell our other books. With the anthology we titled simply Alaska Sampler 2014, our idea was to make it easy for readers to discover the real Alaska, minus the hype and minus …