PUBLISHED APRIL 2015 by David Wogahn, digital publishing consultant In an increasingly online world, metadata best practices go beyond fields in an ONIX record and pertain to how we create, present, and maintain information about ourselves as authors and publishers. Accordingly, I believe we need to define metadata more broadly and develop new habits to ensure …

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 …

With the ever-increasing importance of libraries as a way readers can discover new authors and books, and with the growing popularity of digital access, the time has come for a close look at libraries and e-book licensing. It’s important to recognize that most libraries license, rather than buy, their e-books because the first sale doctrine …

Say “e-books” and “libraries,” and independent book publishers are quick to express frustration. OverDrive dominates e-book distribution to libraries, and many small publishers struggle to get this vendor to sell their titles. Independent publishers also face two other obstacles when marketing e-books: Few libraries buy direct from publishers. Few libraries buy e-only titles. Discouraged? Here …

When I was a kid there were word games that involved reading a simple letter and then circling every fifth word to get a “secret message.” It was neat. So neat that I developed a similar strategy for website landing pages that are designed to sell books. The strategy is built around the fact that …

Since the arrival of the commercial Internet 20 years ago, we’ve seen an upwelling of business model disruption in media companies—music, television, newspapers, and, to a lesser degree, book publishing. Both gradually and suddenly, companies couldn’t sell what they used to sell, or not to the same consumers, or not in the same way, or …

Lately I’ve noticed that some author bios are very short—sometimes not more than one line—and say little more than “John Doe is a writer.” When I made this observation on Twitter, Atlantic editor Alexis Madrigal observed that the super-short bio is a response to widespread use of super-long bios, and Glenn Fleishman, then the editor …

Analytics is not rocket science. And business analytics, which uses relatively simple methodologies on past data, is a problem-solving tool that everyone in an organization can use to effect positive change on a day-today basis. Business analytics can help you solve 80 percent of your business problems at a fraction of the cost of complex …

One problem for authors who publish independently is that each ends up reinventing the proverbial wheel. Convinced that like-minded authors could reach readers better by sharing resources and a quality brand, I formed the author collective Running Fox Books in 2013. Similar reasons have led other writers to form collectives. “The main advantage of a …

I’ve had the pleasure of being part of the Ingram Content Group publisher services team for eight years. During this time, I’ve educated publishers about the business models and the benefits of print on demand (POD), and I’ve consulted with content creators from various industries on how to make the most of their content. Whether …

Speaking Up For Special Needs Publishing a book to launch a speaking career isn’t unusual. But the Dixon family of Finding Words Press may be unique because they created a book to get a teenager with brain damage on the lecture circuit. The company’s only title, A Stroke of Luck, came about because of bad …

PUBLISHED MARCH 2015 by Angela Bole, CEO, Independent Book Publishers Association Earlier this year, I participated in a panel on indie publishing at the Los Angeles Public Library. It was part of Indie Author Day, which was sponsored by IBPA and SELF-e, a collaboration between Library Journal and BiblioBoard. The SELF-e program is a new …

PUBLISHED MARCH 2015 by Suw Charman-Anderson, social technologist Using social media in business can be a challenge, even for those who already use it personally and are familiar with the tools, the culture, and the expectations of social media audiences. It can be difficult to know where to start and how to develop your social …

PUBLISHED MARCH 2015 by Mark Coker, Founder, Smashwords — After a decade of exponential growth in e-books, with indies partying like it was 1999, that growth has slowed. Indies have hit a brick wall and scrambling to make sense of it. In recent weeks, for example, I’ve heard a number of indie authors report that …

PUBLISHED MARCH 2015 by Linda Carlson, Reporter, IBPA Independent magazine — This is the first in a series of articles under the headline “Marketing Whatever You Have to Market.” Access the full series here. This is the first in a series of articles under the headline “Marketing Whatever You Have to Market” about using the …

When IBPA began more than 30 years ago, it was built on a foundation of cooperative marketing programs. In 1983, a group of 15 Southern California independent publishers who couldn’t afford to attend the annual American Booksellers Association convention decided to pool their funds and send Jan Nathan to represent them and their books. Jan …

Many of us remember when Barnes & Noble was a single store in Manhattan, the Internet was only a government project, department stores had book buyers, and most cities had at least a few bookstores. Places such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Boston seemed to have a store in every neighborhood— and in some neighborhoods, …

As the new year begins, major social media networks are, or soon will be, providing some new and some different options. For best results, keep the changes described below in your mind while you develop social media marketing campaigns. The Dwindling Facebook Reach Facebook “reach”—in other words, how many of your page’s fans actually see …

PUBLISHED JANUARY 2015 by Sandra Beckwith, Build Book Buzz One of my books got a negative review on Amazon that really bugs me. The reviewer for Publicity for Nonprofits: Generating Media Exposure That Leads to Awareness wrote, “This book was disappointing in that it joins the many books already out there that focus on the …

I have a friend who is a 10. He takes a dim view of another friend, who is a 3. The 10 sees 3 as limited in outlook and perhaps not possessing “real” intelligence. The 3, on the other hand, sees the 10 as incorrigibly impractical. The 10 just doesn’t see what is actually going …