When people get started in book publishing these days, their projects usually include plans for both print books and e-books. And that makes a lot of sense. With the growing popularity of devices that can deliver books in digital formats, it’s important to ensure that a book you’ve worked hard on is available to readers …

While we were celebrating John F. Blair, Publisher’s 60th anniversary during the past year, I noticed that half of our staff members have worked for Blair for more than 20 years, but a quarter of the staff members are under the age of 30. That gives us the unique advantage of having a historical perspective …

Outside of baseball but inside the book business, a pitch is an inducement to do something with a book. We are pitching when we send a query letter or e-mail about coverage or sales. We are pitching when we talk to someone in the elevator about a book’s content and benefits. A pitch is your …

Galapagos to Grammie Guide: That’s the trajectory of the 232-page handbook on grandparenting that four San Jose-area women have written and published. Their company, Tell-A-Gram Publishing, started because of Richard Mobilio, an adventure travel buff who wanted to visit Ecuador. He and his wife, Laurie, put together a group of about a dozen couples in …

Fiction Succeeds With An Ass-Kicking Female Chaplain Jaime Richards is a US Armychaplain, but this heroine’s explosive situations—and occasional explosive language— have won her a following among Christians and atheists alike, and generated healthy sales for Arundel Publishing, a Warwick, NY, company founded in 2011 that does how-to nonfiction and YA novels as well as …

These days, we all know it’s easier than ever to make books available for readers to purchase. The technological barriers are so low, in fact, that the number of self-published titles rose to 458,564 in 2013, an increase of 16.5% over 2012, according to a Bowker report issued in October. And according to a story …

Publicity is free. Publicity is easy. Publicity is a given if your book wins an award. Publicity sells books. These are only a few of the myths about public relations and publicity. You’ve undoubtedly heard many others, especially in sales pitches from people who want you to pay them to generate media releases, write social …

When I started Eschar Publications in 1988, I viewed it as a ship for reaching my goals in my work with parents and their children. If the small business administration consultant who advised me saw it differently, he did not say so. Instead, he tactfully pointed out how to steer my ship to a safe …

The process of selling to bookstore chains is much the same no matter which chain is involved. However, during my 13 years as IPG’s salesperson for these chains, I’ve seen that it is important to be aware of some differences. Preparations Calling on Barnes & Noble is one of my favorite parts of my job. …

Despite the age-old adage, everyone judges a book by its cover—booksellers, librarians, educators, and, of course, readers. At Little Pickle Press, we have developed a rather unorthodox way to create our covers. To follow our formula for success, you would take the following steps: Brainstorm cover concepts collaboratively with your editor, author, art director, and …

Metadata matters—it matters a lot. Defined as data about data, it is information about your books that is communicated to others, in part, through a set of descriptive keywords. It matters because skillfully chosen keywords in your metadata can make it easy for readers to find your books. In fact, if you are publishing e-books …

In the midst of the everyday chaos of running a business, leaders often don’t think about what they could or should say to motivate the people they employ, whether those people are on staff or functioning as independent contractors. But there are certain sentences these people want to hear from you. Some have to do …

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2014 SEE ALSO: Part 1, Part 2 Experimenting With Promotion Possibilities When I self-published my novel Remember the Moon through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing earlier this year, I’d already had a wonderful experience with my Canadian publisher, who organized a launch party, radio and TV interviews, and newspaper and magazine reviews for my …

No matter how involved and adept you are at networking via social media, networking face to face remains a powerful tool for writers and publishers, among many others. Here is a compilation of 29 tips for in-person networking that I have gathered from colleagues and friends on Facebook as well as from my own online …

Independent publishers, including self-publishers, have a lot of choices to make about uploading books. You can upload your e-books to each online e-book retailer directly, but you might instead choose to distribute using an e-book aggregator such as Smashwords, IngramSpark, BookBaby, or Vook. Likewise, you can upload your print books to sell in the Amazon …

New to the IBPA board this year, Brooke Warner is publisher of She Writes Press and president of Warner Coaching Inc., both based in Berkeley, CA. A native of San Juan Capistrano in southern California, Warner went east to George Washington University for her undergraduate degree and then returned west to San Francisco State University, …

60 And Going Strong Founded by John Fries Blair at a time when he could have been planning his retirement, John F.Blair, Publisher, is celebrating its 60th anniversary. Lasting so long was hardly assured, as publicist Sally Johnson explains, “When Blair died peacefully at his legendary desk in 1986, lawyers advised the family to close …

At IBPA, we celebrate our community members’ ability and willingness to help each other achieve and succeed. There is strength in numbers and together your voices resonate with a passion and commitment to independent publishing that is inspiring to hear. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the pages of this magazine, IBPA’s Independent. …

Getting information to the media has always been an involved process, starting with determining which media might be interested, and unearthing contact information for the appropriate editors, producers, and writers. Once they had their lists, publishers and authors used to mail catalogs, sell sheets, and releases to promote new titles and events, but that’s so …

Back in pre-Internet times, books, music, and video generally had their own retail networks. But when media became largely digital in the first decade of the 21st century, the digital companies that decided to establish consumer retail operations tried to erase the distinction that had divided reading (books) from listening (music) from watching (movies and …