President’s Post: Field Guide to the New IBPA Benefits Handbook

December 2012

by Florrie Binford Kichler, President, IBPA

Benefit: An advantage or profit gained from something (Oxford English Dictionary)

It’s holiday time, and if you’re like me, budget is the last thing on your mind. But a new year is looming, and as you try to decide how to allocate the too-few dollars to the too-many projects, why not let IBPA help?

Welcome to the new IBPA Benefits Handbook—your road map to saving dollars on the goods and services that you need on a daily basis to run your business successfully. From A (Advocacy) to T (Trade Shows), the handbook lists more than 60 “advantages” that will help both the newest one-book self-publisher and the largest 100-plus-book publisher boost the bottom line.

To make it even more useful for you, our members, we have organized the benefits in sections on the new IBPA Web site so you can easily zero in on the ones that best serve the needs of the specific kind of publisher you are.

What follows is a list of categories that you can find on the Web site, with just a small sampling of the benefits offered in each. A special thanks to IBPA board member Davida Breier, who was instrumental in creating the IBPA Benefits Handbook.

You’ll find more than 50 additional ways to save time and money when you explore the “Member Benefits” section of the new and improved ibpa-online.org—no matter what your level of publishing experience.

Benefits for New Publishers

Ask the Experts Online. IBPA members can now “Ask the Experts Online” questions about Book Design, Publicity and Marketing, Publishing Law, Social Media, E-books, Amazon, and more. You have a question, and you need an expert answer. IBPA’s “Ask the Experts Online” program will get that answer for you and, in the process, help other members as well.

NetGalley. IBPA members can reach thousand of reviewers—cost effectively. Using NetGalley, you can share galleys electronically, securely, and instantly with reviewers, media people, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, and other contacts. You save the expense of processing, shipping, and mailing galleys; IBPA does the work, including uploading your galley to the NetGalley catalog and advising you when reviewers request your title.

Benefits for Publishers of Digital Products

BookBaby. IBPA members save 20 percent on BookBaby. Services include e-book publishing, e-book distribution, e-book conversion, ISBN barcode assignment, e-book cover design, author Web sites and Web hosting, and its newest offering, BookBaby Print, which is a custom short-run book printing service for authors who want to create beautiful and affordable physical books.

Benjamin Franklin Digital Awards. The Benjamin Franklin Digital Awards™ honor achievement in electronic book publishing by individuals and organizations of all sizes, including publishers, developers, designers, manufacturers, institutions, and technology leaders. The awards are administered by IBPA, with the help of more than 50 book publishing professionals representing all segments of the book industry.

Benefits for Self-Publishers

Publishing University Online. IBPA members save 20 percent at Publishing University Online, where publishing industry experts, many of whom have spoken at IBPA’s successful Publishing University, present dynamic Webinars on subjects of special interest to both new and experienced publishers.

Through an Internet and telephone connection, the audience participates in 60-minute programs with interactive Q&A. Participants get a PDF of notes from the seminar, follow-up opportunities with speakers, and access to three free replays of the program.

Publishers Weekly PW Select Supplement. IBPA members save $50 if they pay for an announcement in PW Select, a quarterly supplement to Publishers Weekly that presents independently published books to PW’s trade audience. Like the writeups in PW’s regular announcement issues, these announcements include author, title, subtitle, price, page count, format, ISBN, a brief description, and ordering information. For $99, you get the announcement plus a complimentary six-month subscription to the Publishers Weekly digital edition, and inclusion in Publishers Weekly’s seasonal PW Select Announcement issue.

Benefits for Growing Publishers

Bowker’s Manuscript Submission Service. Bowker’s Manuscript Submission Service is a new online tool designed to provide a channel for reviewing unsolicited manuscripts. There is no cost to publishers. For IBPA members only, Bowker has waived the requirement of a minimum number of titles in print. This new service allows publishers and/or acquisitions editors to search proposals for interesting and marketable projects. Each proposal includes subject category, topic, the writer’s background and publishing history, a book synopsis, and a writing sample to facilitate filtering and targeting manuscripts to your publishing needs.

Plumb Social. IBPA members save 20 percent on Plumb Social, which saves its clients time and money by integrating several social media tools (Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube, and others) into each client’s own blog site so that the client doesn’t need to enter information more than once. For instance, when a client sends a post to its blog, that content will be fed to the other social sites where the client has a presence. This same process applies to other kinds of content, including images, video clips, and status updates.

Benefits for Midsized Publishers

Nielsen BookScan. IBPA now has an agreement with Nielsen BookScan that gives IBPA members access to the BookScan site at a special one-year rate just for us. The saving is significant (slight annual increases may apply).

Frankfurt Book Fair. Several opportunities are available only to IBPA members at the largest international book fair in the world. IBPA has been attending Frankfurt for more than two decades, and we have prime exhibit space on the show floor. Smaller publishers can arrange for us to display single titles in our booth. Larger publishers can purchase their own exhibit space cost-effectively through IBPA and obtain assistance in international shipping and on-site services from the IBPA staff, including assistance with setup and breakdown.

The Independent

Of course, no talk of benefits is complete without a mention of the number-one IBPA benefit, which serves every publisher month after month—the IBPA Independent.

Assets for Changing Times

IBPA is committed to supporting you, our members, by providing services that will best serve you in the ever-changing world of publishing. The IBPA Benefits Handbook will be ever-changing as the IBPA board and staff continue to add benefits to it. Visit the IBPA Web site, acquaint yourself with the many benefits available to you, and start saving today.

Follow Florrie and IBPA on Twitter at twitter.com/ibpa, and on IBPA’s blog at ibpablog.wordpress.com. Join Independent Book Publishers Association–IBPA group on LinkedIn (linkedin.com).