Working with an Outside Publicist   by Cynthia Shannon   Hiring an outside publicist to work on a book is a big investment, so when an author wants to do that, it’s important that the author know what to look for. Since being a book publicist requires no formal certification or training, a lot of …

Mike Shatzkin, founder and CEO of The Idea Logical Company, has been an industry consultant for more than three decades. His blog, The Shatzkin Files (idealog.com/blog), is the source of this article and offers links to speeches and posts that document the evolution in his thinking in this area. Four overarching realities are determining the …

PUBLISHED JULY 2013 by Angela Bole, CEO, Independent Book Publishers Association — Dear Friends, Welcome to my first Director’s Desk column as executive director of IBPA! I’m delighted to be taking up this new position. Through my previous engagement with the Book Industry Study Group, I had the honor of working with both Jan Nathan …

June 2013 by Linda Carlson   Closeup: Christopher Robbins Continuing to put the spotlight on individuals who’ve made significant contributions to IBPA and to publishing in general, as well as on member companies and their achievements, we’re focusing this month on Christopher Robbins. An IBPA board member, the CEO of a midsize publishing company for …

  Axing the General Who Hadn’t Been Born Yet: What a Copy Editor Can Do for You June 2013 by Robert A. Juran   Let’s have a long talk about copyediting. Many people seem to forget that with inferior copyediting—or indeed no copyediting at all—a book can be blown right out of the water. Inferior …

  The Language of Publishing: Q, R June 2013 by Linda Carlson   Quiet zone, reserves, returns, and rights got you confused—or curious? You’ll find centuries-old publishing lingo, 21st-century jargon, and dozens of other terms in this installment of the IBPA printing and publishing glossary. If you’ve missed any of the issues with A through P, check the Independent archives. If …

Little Pickle Press is an award-winning publisher of children’s media entering its fifth year. Based in San Francisco, we have five employees, 40 independent contractors, and four strategic partners located throughout the world. Unlike Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo CEO who decided to make all its telecommuters work in the office, we operate as a virtual …

12 Ways to Leverage LinkedIn for Book Promotion June 2013 by Stephanie Chandler   Of all the social media networks, LinkedIn is the most business-oriented. The vast majority of LinkedIn users are involved in business of some kind, and therefore can be great connections for publishers and authors who want to sell books in bulk …

An IBPA Roundtable June 2013 Books in Action, Part 2   As you might imagine, it’s exhilarating to get a stream of reports from IBPA members about what their books do for the people who read them and, through those people, for lots of others. Because each email tells a different story, I’m impressed again …

Soon after the Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision this spring in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, a story in the New York Times gave voice to a widespread concern that personal and library lending of e-books might be legal even though many publishers oppose that. The case turned on a contest for priority between apparently conflicting provisions in …

Now That the Revolution Is Over: Action Items for Today and Tomorrow June 2013 by Joseph J. Esposito   No industry is without its tricksters, but the media businesses, and publishing in particular, have seen more than their share. This is because of the inherent nature of information, which can be reduced to ones and …

PUBLISHED JUNE 2013 by Linda Nix, Founder, Golden Orb Creative — I can’t imagine a world without books. I’ve been a bookworm since I was three years old. My Ph.D. thesis was on book production in the early Middle Ages, and the interplay between text (the content), format (the materials), and layout (the design). That …

At Berrett-Koehler, we are currently engaged in a strategic planning process designed to help the company achieve growth and long-term sustainability. As part of that process, I’m creating a list of the most important trends underlying the many tumultuous forces now affecting all of us in the publishing industry. I offer it here as a …

  The key to success in publishing is not just the best cover, the most compelling content, the most creative marketing plan, or the most lucrative sales program. Publishing success is built on the foundation of learning—the willingness to explore, to experiment, to step outside the box and even leave that box behind when necessary. …

We’re continuing to put the spotlight on individuals within IBPA as well as on member companies and their achievements. This month we’ve got spotlights (and footlights) on Judith Appelbaum, the long-time Independent editor. She’s been involved with IBPA and its predecessors almost since the beginning in the early 1980s, and Independent editor starting with the July 2001 issue. Judith …

How to Entice People to Your Presentations May 2013 by Patricia Fry   In a perfect world, once you set up a speaking gig, the host will start advertising the upcoming presentation far and wide. In most cases, however, this is a fantasy. In fact, any publisher or author who hopes to sell more than …

As you’ve probably noticed, the recently transformed IBPA Website is sleek and clean and gives IBPA a new level of online sophistication—but there’s much more to it than aesthetics. Interestingly, the person responsible for giving the site 21st-century functionality got her start with books about 18th- and 19th-century art, furniture, and housewares, and she considers …

If you blog, or advise authors who blog, or plan to do either of those things, you may be as disturbed as I am that the life of a blog post is very, very short. You create it; it appears; a few buddies may let you pop it onto their site as a guest post; …

People like to talk about how much the publishing world has changed recently and how the rate of change is accelerating. Actually, it’s been in a constant state of change during the entire 30-year period I have been in the business. Although the focus on social media is a fairly recent development, the transition from …

Picture this: you pick up a book and open it, only to discover that every page is exactly the same, a tall rectangle of text extending close to the edge of the page and without interruption. There are no spaces between paragraphs because there are no paragraphs, no chapters, no page numbers, no running heads, …