Publishing University 2015

In February, winter can feel never-ending. But never fear, spring is just around the corner, and spring, of course, makes everyone here think about Publishing University. During Publishing University 2015, more than 20 experts will present practical content designed to help you advance your publishing company and your publishing career.

The conference will be held in Austin, Texas, on April 10 and 11 and registration is open at publishinguniversity.org. We’ve programmed educational sessions that focus on each aspect of book publishing. Whether you’re looking to brush up on production, design, legal issues, and/or publicity, newbies as well past attendees will find this year’s conference to be a great experience.

I look forward to Publishing University every year because it gives me a chance to meet hundreds of IBPA members and to learn about their accomplishments. Your work is exciting; your businesses are growing; you are making your mark across the globe. We’re excited to be a part of all that.

For example, we recently learned that after displaying a series of books in IBPA’s cooperative booth during the Frankfurt Book Fair, In 30 Minutes® guides received an offer to reprint several titles in English for the Indian subcontinent. The offer includes an advance of $2,000, print royalties at 10 percent of copies sold, and e-book royalties at 25 percent of net receipts. We also learned recently that after Reanne Hemingway-Douglass of Cave Art Press displayed her Shelburne Escape Line in IBPA’s cooperative booth at BookExpo 2014, she contracted with Pen & Sword Books in the United Kingdom for publication of a hardcover edition in April 2015. “I’m quite excited about it,” she told us.

And I’m excited, too, by the prospect of hearing more reports like these in Austin in April.

New Questions for You

Sometime during the next few weeks, I hope you’ll help us improve our ability to be of service to you by taking 12–15 minutes to fill out our latest membership survey. Each year, IBPA conducts a member survey both to develop a better profile of our 3,000+ members and to develop a better understanding of how well we are serving our community.

We need to know as much about you as possible so we can build and fine-tune programs that make your business sing.

To take the survey, IBPA members should check their e-mail over the next week or two for a direct link from the IBPA office. Survey responses are due by Friday, March 27, 2015.

Everyone who completes the member survey will be entered in a drawing to win one of two $100 Visa gift cards. And we will share aggregated survey results with members this summer.

I’m very interested to find out how the shape of IBPA membership has (or has not) shifted over the past year. The picture of IBPA members that last year’s survey painted helped us focus on the need to build benefits that are easy to understand and take advantage of.

Given the finding that 85 percent of IBPA members run businesses that are self-financed and that 56 percent of all members do so with only one employee, we realized you don’t have the time or money to invest in complicated programs. Now we take that knowledge into account every time we consider suggesting an educational or cooperative opportunity for your benefit.

Your participation in IBPA’s member survey is vital to the success of IBPA as your professional trade association because it helps us assess how well we’re meeting your needs. When you take the survey, please know that there are no wrong answers. Your honest feedback is what is most valuable to us. We’re eager to keep learning from your experiences and to continue helping you prosper in the future.

Thank you for being a valued IBPA member. I hope we can meet face to face at Publishing University this April. I look forward to talking in person then.

About the author:

Just before Angela Bole became IBPA’s Executive Director, she was Deputy Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG), which fosters conversation and consensus across all sectors of the book business. Before that, Angela served for two years as BISG’s Associate Director and two years as its Marketing and Communications Manager. Angela also serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of IDPF, the International Digital Publishing Forum.