See on www.webmarketingdude.comRecent Posts:

• UPDATED Book Publishers: What I Learned at IBPA Pub U (Part 2)
• Forget Facebook; keep your fans to yourself! : Confluent Forms
• The Small Business Guide to Google Analytics

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Today I’ll start with this question: have you ever thought of yourself as a global company?

Most likely you already are, particularly if you are creating and selling in the digital space. From the thumbnail of your book cover in the iTunes bookstore to the fact that 5.1 billion of the 7.1 billion people on our planet have cellphones … many of us using them for reading.

Futurist David Houle really brought this home for me in his keynote at IBPA Publishing University on Saturday. As he explained, we are in a transformation point of the “Shift Age.” 2010-2020 represents a transformation where “legacy thinking falls away.” These are the three key forces

• Flow to global – Not just economic, but the human construct, too. Neither time, distance, nor place limit our communications. 
• Flow to individual – An explosion of choice means power moves from the producer to the consumer.
• Accelerating Electronic Connectedness – Internet and cellphones.

So what does this mean for creatives and their publishers? According to David:

Content is not king. ConTEXT is king. Context isn’t about content exclusively, and it isn’t about product absolutely. ~ David Heule, futurist and author

Sound familiar? In his presentation, David offered that intellectual property creates wealth in the Shift Age. Validation of this point was available all weekend long.

• Guy Kawasaki’s presentation about his new book APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur: How to Publish a Book.
  
• Christopher Kenneally’s panel, Beyond the Click: There’s More to Publishing than Uploading a file
  • Allen Lau, co-founder and CEO of Wattpad, the world’s largest community of readers and writers.
    
  • Matthew Cavnar, VP of Business Development at Vook, a cloud-based ePublishing platform.
• Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, an ebook distributor serving more than 35,000 indie authors and small presses around the world.
• Brian Felsen, president of BookBaby, CD Baby, and HostBaby.
• Dominique Raccah‘s keynote that focused on the evolution of Sourcebooks.

Shift happens. My sense of the weekend is that attendees look at the idea of “legacy thinking falling away” in the same way the world looked at Lenin’s statue coming down in Red Square. Transformation.

Progressive thinking and flexibility have always been the hallmarks of the independent publishers and writers. The shift to the individual is neither new nor unique to IBPA and its members.

Now is the perfect time for the self-described small, nontraditional, or artisanal publisher and independent creator (author, illustrator, blogger) to drop the labels, step into the spotlight, share their expertise, and shine.

IBPA Publishing University makes that possible … and I can’t wait until next year. I hope I’ll see you there.

 Recent Posts:

• UPDATED Book Publishers: What I Learned at IBPA Pub U (Part 2)
• What I Learned at IBPA University 2013 – Part 1
• IBPA Publishing University: Will I see you in Chicago?

The post Shift Has Happened: Today’s Book Publishing Paradigm (Part 3) appeared first on Celebrating Mom's Choice.

This is the second in a three-part series about attending the Independent Book Publishers’ Association (IBPA) Publishing University last weekend in Chicago.

In Part I, I shared my experiences from a “macro” view. That post focused on the opportunities and my general observations. Today’s focus is on books from the book publishers perspective.

Your book is part of the discoverability process. It is not the end game.

Everyone agrees that your book is an investment – your creative capital, your time, and of course money to pay for it all. What was new to me, however, is the idea that a book is a tangible piece of a broader marketing plan. More than a “prop,” but clearly just one piece of a broader strategy.

Book publishers sell books, they aren’t marketers. In our session, Deltina Hay Mary Agnes Antonopoulos explained that book sales won’t make money. The book is a vehicle, but it is the product services that draw your audience first.

Discoverability at its core. Guy Kawasaki explained in his presentation that writing a book to get speaking engagements won’t work. As he – and many others – explained, though, discovery can’t happen unless you have established your expertise.

How? It takes a well-defined strategy that you can realistically implement. Here are three takeaways:

1. Don’t try to be everywhere. You don’t have time and it dilutes your message. [Panel: Strategies for a Winning  Social Media Campaign]
2. Do only the type of promotion you enjoy [Earlybird General Session: Dan Poynter: Book Promotion 2013]
3. Marketing is about connecting to people / readers, not [insert company name]. [Dominique Raccah, Luncheon Keynote]

I’ll close with this quote about book publishers from Dominique Raccah …

Book publishers are solving problems for readers in ways that are useful for authors.

What are your experiences in trying to get your book discovered? Is it strictly book events (like signings) or does it take more?Recent Posts:

• How To Get More Pinterest Users To Pin Your Blog Posts ~ Web Marketing Dude
• Shift Has Happened: Today’s Book Publishing Paradigm (Part 3)
• What I Learned at IBPA University 2013 – Part 1

The post UPDATED Book Publishers: What I Learned at IBPA Pub U (Part 2) appeared first on Celebrating Mom's Choice.

The Independent Book Publishers’ Association (IBPA) is for anyone in the independent book industry: printers and graphic sources; logistics and shipping; converter and subscription services; and of course, publishers, writers, and illustrators.. If you are in any way associated with the industry this is YOUR learning and networking opportunity.

If you’ve ever sat in on one of my classes, you know that I L-O-V-E Book Expo America.  The energy, the opportunity to meet new people, celebrating our Honorees … the list goes on. IBPA Publishing University gives you all of those things in an environment that lets you set your pace and better balance your learning and marketing opportunities.

IBPA Publishing University if for all of us who write, whether we have a book or are thinking about one. Or not. In an early conversation, someone asked me if I was an an author. I gave them my usual response.

No, I’m just a blogger.

The gentleman I was speaking with reminded me that I am, indeed, a published author! A simple change of perspective that shifted my mindset. [Not to mention an ego boost!]

The theme for this year’s program was “Discoverability: How to Reach Your Reader and Sell More Books.” It could easily have been called Shift: We are Well on Our Way. My sense of the attendees is that they view “digital and “E” as givens and are actively integrating these products and process into their operations.

That’s not to suggest that everyone said the exact same thing. Frankly, I wouldn’t want that. The conversations were honest (or “authentic” to use the current label), substantive, and – the best part – lead to more discussion and thought. For me as a writer,

• There is no one path to success.
• Diverse thinking is not just welcome, but embraced. 
• Sharing best practices and success, are as likely as sharing mis-steps and failure.

Most importantly, I learned that it is time to stop limiting our perspectives as publishers. There is no need to tag ourselves with words like small, independent, nontraditional, or just a blogger.

I am not planning to write a book, but I am now better prepared – and armed with tools – that can help me get more readers too.

Part II: The Book is Your Investment and Your Prop
Part III: The Shift has Happened: Publishers PerspectivesRecent Posts:

• Shift Has Happened: Today’s Book Publishing Paradigm (Part 3)
• UPDATED Book Publishers: What I Learned at IBPA Pub U (Part 2)
• IBPA Publishing University: Will I see you in Chicago?

The post What I Learned at IBPA University 2013 – Part 1 appeared first on Celebrating Mom's Choice.

See on www.confluentforms.comRecent Posts:

• Children learn empathy with Flip Side Stories
• Maggie Van Galen’s fun and thoughtful story for families
• Meet our Newest Honorees

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