I have been watching this site grow since shortly after its launch, and I have to say… they are really kicking ass.

I love the design, I love the tone, I love the mission but most of all I love the info that they have bursting out of the seems.

I’ll admit – I am a little jealous. They are positioning themselves as a real resource center for indie publishing. I’m not sure how they do it, but it seems to have something to do with the word “tireless.”

It seems they are pulling posts from book blogs all over the place (with permission, of course) which is a fabulous idea. They also have a forum that, it seems like, people are actually even using. And I don’t want to skip past the Publetariat Vault.

The Vault deserves a post of its own, and one will be forthcoming. But in the mean-time, know that this resource alone makes it worth stopping over there to check things out.

And on top of the Vault itself, is the Vault University – “the Publetariat Vault provides monthly lessons in self-publishing in print, ebook and podcast formats, author platform and book promotion.”

There is enough going on over there to get a little confusing even – until you spend a few minutes poking around.

Anyway – you do need to head over there to check it out. You’ll be glad you did.

Let me leave you with this little nugget of an article, as an example of the wonderful content you will find over there:

How I Actually Increased Sales by Ruth Ann Nordin.

So head on over and tell ‘em the IndieBookMan sent you!

LitLine is an very easy, non-imposing venue that offers lists of, among other things, indie publishers, indie journals and bookstores (both online and off) that are freindly to indie books. Sadly, AuthorsBookshop ins’t listed but I have an email in to the webmaster. Hopefully we can rectify that.

I see an Illinois Arts Council button there, and several links to Illinois related sights so I am guessing that this is in part at least sponsored byt he IAC, which is cool. The webmaster also has an Illinois Sate University email address, and the physical address is also at the university so perhaps it’s run in part by ISU. In fact, it seems a little Illinois specific, but there is a lot here even if you aren’t from the Land of Lincoln.

But in anycase, here is a nice, easy listing of some great resources that I am sure you, as an indie book lover, will find useful.

If anyone knows more about the LitLine, please drop a comment below. They have an about page, but it doens’t give us a whole lot of info on the who what when were or why… not that we need all that to appreciate it.

I am an active user of Amazon.com’s author-promotion mechanisms. I have an author-blog on my book’s Amazon page, I submitted my book so it’s searchable on Amazon, I have submitted a review written by an independent reviewer for display on my book’s Amazon page. So far so good. However: the book I’m pitching is among other things an attack on Amazon.com.

Amazon.com is the last resort for authors who cannot manage to get their books into bookstores. To pretend that it’s a GOOD place to sell books is to ignore the words of its founder, Jeff Bezos, who recently PERSONALLY told the biggest Amazon booster that Amazon actually sells a far smaller percentage of “little” books than was being touted.

Specifically, Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson wrote a book called The Long Tail in which he said that books below the 100,000 rank on Amazon.com’s bestseller list account for 57% of all Amazon sales. He extended this statement to suggest that since presumably the top 100,000 sellers were the same as the 100,000 titles carried nationally by the big box book superstores, that therefore Amazon could essentially take credit for being the key distribution channel for millions of “little” books that couldn’t get into bookstores around the country.

Such a statement would naturally make many frustrated authors feel that they should use all possible means to ensure they benefitted from Amazon’s fabulous sales mechanisms.

But Jeff Bezos personally told Chris Anderson that this statement in the book was wrong. Bezos says that it’s PROBABLY 20%-25% of all Amazon sales that are going to books ranked below 100,000 in their bestseller list.

There are over 4 million books listed on Amazon.com. Therefore, more than 3.9 million books are accounting for 25% of the book sales on Amazon. 



Amazon is a LOUSY place to sell books. For most authors. 



You can use all their promo systems. I do. But this won’t help you very much. You have to be above (better than) the 100,000 bestseller-rank level to be seeing perhaps sales of 100 books per year on Amazon. It won’t generally be worth much work-time to achieve this mediocre status! 



If you’re above (better than) 100,000 in their bestseller list, then, according to Chris Anderson, this means you should be among the favored books that are already represented in big box superstores anyway!! So, why would you be working so hard on your Amazon sales?



Look—three thousand brick-and-mortar bookstores in this country (chain and indie). If you’re falling back on struggling to sell a hundred copies annually on Amazon, then are you sure you shouldn’t be struggling to get your titles onto the shelves of bookstores instead/also/more-so? Are you finding that impossible? How about linking on your book’s website to your local independent bookstore, via their IndieBound.com affiliate mechanism (which does pay you a royalty). Or, even better, TELL your local bookseller who is not stocking your book on her shelves that YOU ARE SENDING HER CUSTOMERS. Have your friends place special orders for your books through that local indie bookstore! Make the bookstore understand that you’re pitching all your hand-built traffic and sales to them. Make your local bookseller love you. Get their support by providing them with your support. Your local bookstore is starving; You are starving. You can help one another! 



Amazon is a huckster. Like The Music Man.



Authors gain traction in this society through personal buzz. Word of mouth. But online is a mythological environment. You’re up one day and forgotten the next. 



If you get out into the real world, shake hands, make phone calls, offer assistance to booksellers and trade favors with them, you’re creating more authentic relationships. This is the best use of your time, to further your career as an author. 



Amazon does not love any author. Your local bookseller can LEARN to love you as an individual, and to promote you, and to tout your books to other booksellers. 



It is a slow process, building a professional identity as a great author, among the crowd of authors. But it’s worth it. It pays off in the long run. Make friends with as many individual, real-world, front-line booksellers as possible. This is how to build your sales. 


Sure, set up your Amazon webpage properly, set up a nice website—run a Google ad-words campaign—SURE do those things. But much more important is to establish life-long relationships with professional booksellers. They’ll stick by you over the years.

Now, this is the stuff of which Indie Publisher’s dreams are made, right? These two women write a book (What I Learned About Life When My Husband Got Fired), someone at NM gets a hold of it, loves it, and sets them up with a window and launch event. Sweet.

But what makes this story even cooler is that these women are clearly dedicated to the Path. They had the book printed locally (an idea I have previosuly discussed here), and it looks like they are hand binding them (!?) 25,000 copies (!?!?!)

And they even, get this, even refuse to list the book through Amazon. Ahhhhh… indie publishers after my very heart! They have set up their own website RedandBlackBooks.com to market their book and to, puprotedly, help other indies sell their book without Amazon. They offer a list of marketing ideas, and a great philosophie.

Oh, one other interesting point that probably warrants a post in and of itself. They used a very interesting “Hybrid” publishing model that I’m not sure I have seen before. They were passed over by a publisher – not because the publisher didn’t love the book, but because it was too commercial (huh? What kinda publisher is that?) – but the publisher agreed to work with them to help them publish it themselve. So, even though they were going it on there own, they had the benefit of the connections and experience of a traditional publisher. Very interesting. Let me know if you have heard of any other books being published in this way.

So, I gotta email these ladies and let them know about AuthorsBookshop. This is exactly the kind of situation for which I created it in the first place. They aught to dig it.

http://barrylyga.com/new/blog-writing-advice.html

(hat-tip to Sheila Ruth via facebook)

They play really great Baltimore based music (especially sahffi! ) and literature, and are doing a lot to support local arts and music. Plus, they are really great people.

Both AuthorsBookshop and IndieBookman are going to be partnering with them in some really cool ways so… stay tuned: Some big announcements are coming!

Stop by the website and listen!!!!

http://www.umbrellaradio.org/

Seems some person, I don’t know if he is afilliated with IndieBound or not but he/she definately throws their name in there – gives her the old up-and-down about calling herself an indie despite the fact that she has her book listed on Amazon, and is pointing folks there from her site. Huh?

Here, let me quote:

I am wondering why you call yourself an “inide” (sic) author when you have not one, but 2 links to Amazon on your site with no mention of Indiebound.org. Amazon is the anti-indie.

As the manager of an indie book shop we seek the support of authors by asking them to post Indiebound.org as a purchase option.

I cannot believe that you profess to be indie all over [your author] site when you are blatently (sic) promoting Amazon, an entity that has been responsible for destroying the spirit of indie across this country. You will have a very difficult time getting indie book shops to support your book with a page that has Amazon all over it.

Urrr…. what!? I mean, don’t get me wrong – I hate amazon too. I have set out to take them on at their very own game, and traffic hardcore in indie indie indie. I mean, that’s all that I do.

But come on man. An author has to sell books, and each publisher has to make decisions based on what it feels is best for their own business model. If it makes the most sense to April to send potential buyers to Amazon, well then, we indie booksellers selling indie books have two choices: 1) Offer her a better business deal than Amazon, or 2) Educate her as to why you are offering a better business deal than Amazon.

If a bookseller is not offering a better business deal, than they can take a hike. She has no obligation to focus on you, just because you are indie, and she is indie.

And, come to think of it, Indie bookstores don’t generally go out of their way to avoid mainstream published books. They can’t, it’s their bread-and-butter. I mean, I do at AuthorsBookshop (we sell indie books and nothing else) but we are weird and, as I sad, hardcore indie. The sellers have to do what’s best for their business. They have to stay afloat.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think this person is actually great. We really need, in the indie publishing world, to have the folks who are willing to remove their jackets and throw a couple punches. I’m a softy, and something of a pacifist and prefer other methods. But we need those folks too. I just think in this case, he/she is swinging at the wrong target.

Indie publishers and indie booksellers are both pushing huge rocks up a steep hill. We can’t afford to spend time tripping each other up. If you have a better way to push your rock – share the info, and encourage the other indies. Then we all get to the top faster.

Look, I would obviously rather April had her books listed at AuthorsBookshop… I’ve got a better deal for her than Amazon anyway. I would rather she list them with IndieBound. So, I will talk to her about what I have, how it might work better for her. Im just worried that accusing her of not being “indie enough” is going to drive a deeper wedge between indie publishers and indie sellers.

I’m sorry Mr./Ms. Letter Writer, April is an indie author and publisher. She is not owned by a mainstream media company, or an international conglomerate. She is indie. Maybe not indie the way you would like, but by any rational definition, she is indie.

By the way – I notice at her website Publetariot.com, which totally kicks ass by the way, April has a link to Indiebound. I am relieved by this… it would appear that the letter writer has not yet done irreversible damage.

Just one of her considerations:

2. Will I receive royalties or all sales proceeds? If the answer is “royalties,” you’re dealing with a subsidy house. Subsidy publishers pay authors a standard royalty of around 10-15% (which may be based on the retail price of the book or upon a discounted price). When you self-publish, you receive all sales proceeds (although this does not necessarily translate into profit).

According to their website,

BOOKS FOR BOOTS partners with selected authors and publishers. Authors donate their royalties and publishers donate books.

The money goes to VA hospitals where it is used for special needs and emergencies. This can, in some cases, include helping families with travel costs when they make a bedside visit.

The books go to vets in hospital.

Take a few minutes to find out more about the program by checking out their website, BooksForBoots.org