(Manhattan Beach, CA – Jul 10, 2025)

IBPA was proud to participate in the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in Philadelphia June 26-30, 2025—an inspiring gathering where thousands came together to reflect on the challenges and opportunities shaping our industry, celebrate the joy of reading, and showcase an incredible range of books.

The energy on the show floor was electric, and independent publishers played a central role throughout the event. Attendance reached an impressive 14,250 participants, including 2,500 first-time attendees, over 450 student members, and 160 international guests representing 44 countries. Highlights included keynote speeches from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and an unforgettable conversation between former Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and author Kwame Alexander, which brought the crowd to its feet in a standing ovation.

IBPA’S BOOTH

Librarians line up for signed copies during one of the many author signings, drawing people to visit the IBPA booth.

A busy IBPA booth during the 2025 ALA Annual Convention in Philadelphia, PA.

The IBPA stands proud in the middle of the main convention floor at the 2025 American Library Association's Annual Conference.

In our newly expanded cooperative booth, IBPA proudly represented 307 books, welcomed over 1,400 visitors, and hosted 91 author signings over the four-day conference. For the first time, IBPA also co-hosted the Library Insights Summit (LIS) with Foreword Reviews on Friday, June 27—an exciting new pre-conference event that brought together 140 attendees for a full day of programming centered on building stronger bridges between publishers and libraries.

This year’s booth was staffed by a passionate and engaged team: IBPA CEO Andrea Fleck-Nisbet, Director of Membership & Member Services Christopher Locke, Chief Content Officer Lee Wind, Board Secretary Kathryn Sparks (Senior Editor at the American Academy of Pediatrics), Project Coordinator Sean McDonald, and a fantastic group of IBPA member volunteers.

The exhibit hall opened Friday evening, June 27 (5:30–7:00pm), and continued with full days on Saturday and Sunday (9:00am–5:00pm), and a final half-day on Monday (9:00am–2:00pm).

IBPA’s booth lined two sides of the aisle this year, with seven kiosks from IBPA large independent publishers and a third signing table across from our cooperative shelves. Books from four of those publishers as well as IBPA Book Award winners and strong trade review recipients from the cooperative shelves were featured in our Indie Book Bingo game at the Book Buzz stage on Sunday. Dozens of librarians heard rapid-fire pitches of 38 books while playing bingo for prizes… which were, of course, the books!

IBPA's Chief Content Officer Lee Wind (far right) sits beside winners of our Indie Book Buzz Bingo.

Andrea and Lee also presented Sunday on the Pop Top Stage about “Landing Your Book in Libraries: Metadata, Marketing, and Tools for Success” in a presentation for authors and indie publishers that was also attended by librarians! It’s another way that sharing information and being industry leaders helps drive interest and traffic to the IBPA booth and the books our publishers displayed with us.

Another highlight this year was the expanded author signing experience. With three active signing tables, attendees had ample opportunity to meet authors and receive free signed books—many of which drew lines of eager librarians. Some authors gave away more than 25 books in their 25-minute slots, while others kept the buzz going with bookmarks and offers of digital editions when their print copies ran out. Booth staff and volunteers actively engaged attendees, pitching books in the aisles and inviting them to explore the full selection of titles on display.

To support future outreach, we scanned every librarian’s badge when they received a free review copy, browsed the booth, picked up swag, or requested a digital catalog. Attendees also left with memorable giveaways—bookmarks, postcards, colorful IBPA triangle highlighters, pens, and a link to the complete digital catalog featuring all 307 titles on display.

All told, we scanned the badges of over 1,790 visitors to our IBPA booth throughout the show! Many librarians returned multiple times to browse or join additional signings (which is why we have the badge scan information for 1,405 unique visitors)—clear proof of the growing interest in independently published books.

For the final two hours on Monday, IBPA invited librarians to “shop the booth,” selecting one free book to take home in exchange for a quick badge scan and writing down the book title they selected. This initiative helped hundreds of books find new homes with passionate librarians. The remaining books were donated through ALA to a local Philadelphia-area charity.

As a final benefit, all participating IBPA members will receive the contact information for the scanned badges—making it easy to follow up with new leads and keep the momentum going.

The kiosks were a nice alternative for our larger publishers wanting their own space.

The Library Insights Summit on Friday drew publishers and librarians alike.

Click here for the full photo gallery from the ALA 2025 show.

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW

The numbers:

2025:

• We scanned 1,405 unique booth visitor badges over four days
• 307 IBPA member books
• 60’x10’ booth
• Attendees: 8,585
• Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 5,665
• Total: 14,250

2024

• We scanned 1,650+ booth visitor badges over four days
• 360+ IBPA member books
• 45’x10’ booth
• Attendees: 8,439
• Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 5,093
• Total: 13,532

2023

• We scanned 2,300+ booth visitor badges over four days
• 270+ IBPA member books
• 50’x10’ booth
• Attendees: 9,476
• Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 6,375
• Total: 15,851

2022

• We scanned 1,350+ booth visitor badges over four days
• 300+ IBPA member books
• 40’x10’ booth
• Attendees: 8,023
• Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 5,133
• Total: 13,990

2019 (pre-Covid)

• We scanned 1,500+ booth visitor badges over four days
• 260+ IBPA member books
• 40’x10’ booth
• Attendees: 14,600
• Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 6,860
• Total: 21,460

Again this year the conference included programming to give librarians insights and tools to stand up against the efforts to ban books, and that was a big part of the press coverage.

ALA IN THE NEWS

To read more about the activity at this year’s conference, please check out these links:

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/libraries/article/98131-ala-2025-librarians-chart-a-course-for-the-future-amid-existential-threat.html

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/interviews/article/98013-ala-2025-leading-from-the-heartland-pw-talks-with-sam-helmick.html

https://www.ala.org/news/2025/07/american-library-association-annual-conference-and-exhibition-brings-more-14000

THE ALA SHOW CATALOG

You can see the digital catalog here.

IBPA NETWORKING EVENT

IBPA’s joint mixer was a huge success! Publishers and friends met to kick off ALA.

SPECIAL THANKS

LUCKY WINNER

IBPA ran a contest once again, entering every librarian whose badge we scanned into a drawing for one lucky librarian to win $500. 

Congratulations to Sara Figueroa, Youth Services Supervisor at the Margaret E. Heggan Free Public Library in New Jersey, who won our drawing for $500 from all the badges scanned at the IBPA booth during ALA 2025!

Sara will be sharing this prize with the Free Public Library to expand their community programs!

SEE YOU IN 2026!

(Manhattan Beach, CA – Jul 11, 2024)

In a time when librarians and libraries are under attack, this year's ALA conference was, in the words of Publishers Weekly reporters Andrew Albanese and Nathalie op de Beeck, “well-attended, high energy,” and “offered librarians plenty of reason for optimism.”

A lot of that great energy came to the IBPA booth on the Library Marketplace exhibition floor, with more than 1,650 visitors browsing our display of over 360 books from our independent publisher members.

IBPA’S BOOTH

IBPA staff right before the show, excited to greet librarians.

All set up and ready to go for the 2024 ALA Annual Conference at the San Diego Convention Center.

The show kicks off! Librarians line up to participate in IBPA's author signing.

IBPA redesigned our booth this year to both lower the expense and the cost for participating publishers. The new bookstore-style shelving resulted in us having 369 books on display (nearly 100 more than last year.) The booth was staffed by IBPA CEO Andrea Fleck-Nisbet, Director of Membership and Member Services Christopher Locke, Chief Content Officer Lee Wind, Secretary of the Board Kathryn Sparks (senior editor at the parent consumer line at the American Academy of Pediatrics), Project Coordinator Ashley Hirao, and Vendor Relations Manager Jackie Thompson Maillet, with the help of 32 IBPA member volunteers.

The show opened at San Diego’s Convention Center on Friday evening June 28 from 5:30pm-7:00pm, ran Saturday June 29 from 9am-5pm, Sunday June 30 from 9am-5pm, and Monday July 1 from 9am until the show closed at 2pm.

Once again, IBPA ran two different author signing tables around the clock, where librarians could meet authors and receive free signed copies of their books from the publisher. The IBPA booth staff and volunteers stood in the aisles and actively pitched the books being signed to create lines of interested librarians, who were able to look at the other books on display in the booth while waiting for their turn. The signings were very popular, with many authors and publishers giving out more than 25 copies in their 25 minute time slots – some ran out of copies and shifted to giving out bookmarks and digital editions.

The signings, swag, and eye-catching books meant that we scanned a lot of badges: more than 1,650! Some librarians came back multiple times for the book giveaways – which we love because it shows us their love of independently published books. For the final two hours of the show, from noon-2pm on Monday, we let librarians ‘shop’ the titles on display and select one book they could take home for free. They simply had to allow us to scan their badge and record the book’s title so we could share that information with the publisher. More than 300 of the books on display found enthusiastic librarian homes, and the balance were donated via ALA to a San Diego-area charity.

IBPA members who participated in the 2024 ALA Conference will receive the contact information from all the scanned badges, allowing them to directly follow-up with these new connections for their titles.

An author greets librarians at her signing

Authors Ariane and Todd Erickson signing copies of their children’s book Baxter and Jeffrey.

Click here for the full photo gallery from the ALA 2024 show.

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW

The numbers:

2024
We scanned 1,650+ booth visitor badges over four days
360+ IBPA member books
45’x10’ booth
Attendees: 8,439
Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 5,093
Total: 13,532

2023
We scanned 2,300+ booth visitor badges over four days
270+ IBPA member books
50’x10’ booth
Attendees: 9,476
Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 6,375
Total: 15,851

2022
We scanned 1,350+ booth visitor badges over four days
300+ IBPA member books
40’x10’ booth
Attendees: 8,023
Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 5,133
Total: 13,990

2019 (pre-Covid)
We scanned 1,500+ booth visitor badges over four days
260+ IBPA member books
40’x10’ booth
Attendees: 14,600
Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 6,860
Total: 21,460

Again this year the conference included programming to give librarians insights and tools to stand up against the efforts to ban books, and that was a big part of the press coverage.

ALAAC24 IN THE NEWS

The ALA 2024 Annual Conference was widely reported on, including this coverage:

PW articles: 

Resurgent ALA Annual Conference Draws More than 13,000 to San Diego

ALA 2024: Authors and Librarians Address 'Soft' Censorship

THE ALA SHOW CATALOG

You can see the digital catalog here.

IBPA NETWORKING EVENT

IBPA’s joint mixer was a huge success! Publishers and friends met to kick off ALA.

SPECIAL THANKS

LUCKY WINNER

IBPA ran a contest once again, entering every librarian whose badge we scanned into a drawing for one lucky librarian to win $500. 

This year’s winner is Jennifer M. Harris, Assistant Vice President, Library Technology and Information Management at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, NH.

Congratulations, Jennifer!

SEE YOU IN 2025!

Librarians are Re-Gathering, Re-Tooling, and Re-Surging in Their Support of Indie Published Books

(Manhattan Beach, CA - July 18, 2023)—More than 270 IBPA member titles were displayed in IBPA’s 500 square foot booth (100 feet larger than last year), in a prime location on the 2023 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition show floor. The booth was staffed by IBPA CEO Andrea Fleck-Nisbet, Director of Membership and Member Services Christopher Locke, Director of Education and Programs Lee Wind, and IBPA Board member Kathryn Sparks (senior editor for the parent consumer line at the American Academy of Pediatrics), with the help of more than two dozen IBPA member volunteers.

The show opened at Chicago's McCormick Place on Friday evening June 23 from 5:30pm-7:00pm, and the steady stream of interested librarians ran consistently from 9am-5pm, Saturday, June 24th and Sunday, 25th, and 9am until the show’s close at 2pm Monday, June 26, 2023.

IBPA concurrently ran two different author signing tables, where librarians could meet authors and receive free signed review copies of their books from the publisher. IBPA member volunteers stood in the aisles and actively pitched the books being signed to create lines of interested librarians. This was incredibly popular, with giveaways in some cases doubling the pace of previous years. Some participating publishers gave away 50 copies in 25 minutes!

Every librarian who received a free review copy had their badge scanned so the publisher can follow up with them. We also scanned the badges of many librarians who came to the booth wanting to explore the books on display, and pick up a catalog, bookmark, and/or postcard. We gave away a lot of fun IBPA swag (triangular 3-colored highlighters and a tech connector pack), scanning badges and offering to send each of them a digital copy of all 270+ books on display.

All the signings, swag, and eye-catching books on the shelves generated tremendous foot traffic for the IBPA booth, with the result that we scanned a record number of booth visitor badges across the four days of the show—over 2,300!

Some librarians came back multiple times for the book giveaways and shared their love of independently published books. For the final hour of the show, 1pm-2pm on Monday, we tried something new: we allowed librarians to come to our booth and select one title from everything on display that they could take home for free. They simply had to allow us to scan their badge and record the book’s title to share with the publisher. This was a tremendous success, with the IBPA booth packed with librarians studying every book cover, taking photos of some books because they were only allowed to get one, and lots of excitement. More than 230 of the books on display were selected for these new librarian homes, and the balance of titles were donated to a Chicago-area charity.

IBPA members who participated in the 2023 ALA conference will receive the contact information from all the scanned badges, allowing them to follow-up directly with these new connections for their titles.

[Additional reporting follows the photos below.]

All set up and ready to go for the 2023 ALA Annual Conference at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL on Friday June 23, 2023.

And away we go... the show is open and the IBPA booth is ready for librarians to find amazing new books!

Posters promote a jam-packed weekend on one of the author signing tables in the IBPA booth (left); and one of Light Message Publishing's authors, Dean Backus, shares his book with a crowd of interested librarians (right).

Florenza Lee, doing her best to keep up with the librarians waiting for a signed copy of one of her books.

Sandra Rostirolla shares her YA/Coming of Age title Making Friends with Monsters.

Click here for the full photo gallery from the ALA 2023 show.

Conference Overview

ALA was resurgent, with librarian and exhibitor numbers up over 2022. Total attendance was nearly 16,000 (up from almost 14,000 last year.)

The numbers:

2023
We scanned 2,300+ booth visitor badges over four days
270+ IBPA member books
50’x10’ booth
Attendees: 9,476
Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 6,375
Total: 15,851

2022
We scanned 1,350+ booth visitor badges over four days
300+ IBPA member books
40’x10’ booth
Attendees: 8,023
Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 5,133
Total: 13,990

2019 (pre-Covid)
We scanned 1,500+ booth visitor badges over four days
260+ IBPA member books
40’x10’ booth
Attendees: 14,600
Exhibitors, Authors, Illustrators, Press, Staff: 6,860
Total: 21,460

In 2023, librarians were buzzing from Judy Blume’s welcoming keynote, the interactive #BannedBooksBigChair photo and video opportunity, and enthusiastically exploring the exhibition show floor – including the IBPA booth!

This year’s conference included programming to give librarians insights and tools to stand up against the efforts to ban books, and that was a big part of the press coverage.

Publishers Weekly ran these articles:

• ALA 2023: Program Picks for Dealing with Book Bans
• ALA 2023: Experts and Allies Supply Librarians with Information and Tools to Fight Censorship
• ALA 2023: Judy Blume Offers a Rousing Defense of the Freedom to Read

And one of IBPA’s volunteers at the booth, Andrew Hiller, wrote this piece for Amazing Stories.

IBPA’s friends at publishing world organizations also reported on the ALA 2023 show, including:

• Shelf Awareness “Pictures at a Conference & Exhibition”
• Library Journal “Speaking to the Issues | ALA Annual 2023”
• School Library Journal “Judy Blume Kicks Off ALA Annual, Talking Censorship and Thanking Librarians”
  

[Additional reporting follows the photos below.]

IBPA's CEO, Andrea Fleck-Nisbet, talks with librarians while helping publisher Peter Trimarco and his author with their new release The Cousins are Coming.

Free bookmarks and information available to attendees.

IBPA's Director of Membership and Member Benefits (and also a self publisher), Christopher Locke signs copies of his YA series.

The ALA Show Catalog

With a new streamlined format, the IBPA “Indie Titles for Your Consideration: 2023 ALA Annual Conference” Catalog featured all 270+ books on display in the booth.

The catalogs were distributed with both free print copies in the booth and as a follow-up, a digital copy will be emailed to each librarian who swung by the IBPA booth who got their badge scanned!

You can see the digital copy here: https://bit.ly/IBPAala23

The calm before the storm... signage encourages librarians to stop for a chance to win $500 (and pick up a show catalog along the way). Who doesn't love a purple orchid?!

IBPA Networking Event

Friday night directly after the exhibition floor closed, IBPA hosted an informal gathering of Chicago-area independent publishers at Reviver, the cocktail bar in the lobby of the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile hotel.

With a networking game and lots of camaraderie, about 40 local indie publishers mingled and talked independent publishing with IBPA staff, board members, and each other!

Local members got together for some fun and games on Friday, June 23, 2023.

Special Thanks

We want to extend an extra special thank you to the IBPA members who volunteered to help with set up, hosting the booth, drawing interested librarians to our book giveaways and display, answering questions about IBPA, breaking the booth down at the end, and generally living the IBPA motto of Independent publishers helping each other achieve and succeed!

Special shout outs to Andrew Hiller, Dale Wilstermann, Deep Udeshi, Jim Jacobs, Phil Passen and Marti Gorman for their amazing spirit and contributions!

IBPA board member Kathryn Sparks (left) and IBPA staff member Lee Wind still going strong after four exciting days of working the show!

Lucky Winner

IBPA ran a contest once again, entering every librarian whose badge we scanned into a drawing for one lucky librarian to win $500!

This year’s winner is Mary Bogue, M.L.S., Associate Library Director; Technical Services Librarian at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana.

Congratulations, Mary!

See You in 2024!

The 2024 annual ALA conference is set for San Diego, CA, June 28 - July 1, 2024. We would love to represent your books at next year’s conference, so make sure to sign up for single-title or full shelf display now!

Back in-person for the first time since 2019, the 2022 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition proved a successful in-person trade show for IBPA & its participating members.

(Manhattan Beach, CA - July 14, 2022)—Over 300 IBPA member titles were displayed in IBPA’s 40ft x 10ft cooperative booth, which was well-located on the 2022 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition show floor. IBPA Director of Education and Programs Lee Wind worked the booth with IBPA Board member Kathryn Sparks (senior editor for the parent consumer line at the American Academy of Pediatrics). They were helped throughout by over two dozen IBPA member volunteers.

The show floor opened Friday evening (5:30pm-7:00pm) and while previous years had a more frantic game-show quality with librarians running around with luggage to grab as many free books as possible, this year the flow of people was constant and steady – librarians wanted to talk, connect, and discover new books.

That engaged feel – and traffic – continued steadily all day Saturday (9am-5pm) and Sunday (9am-5pm). Two different author signing tables ran simultaneously in the IBPA booth from Friday evening through Sunday afternoon, letting IBPA publisher members give away signed copies of their authors’ books to interested librarians. IBPA member volunteers stood in the aisles and pitched the books being signed to create lines of interested librarians.

On Monday (9:00am-2:00pm), we broke out the IBPA swag, which kept librarians coming to the booth! Throughout the show, we offered to scan each and every librarian’s badge, allowing IBPA email them a digital copy of the IBPA show catalog as well as give them a chance to win $500.

All the signings, swag, and beautiful books on display generated tremendous foot traffic for the IBPA booth, and we scanned an impressive number of booth visitor badges across the four days of the exhibition—over 1,350!

Some librarians came back multiple times for the book give-aways, showing how much they love independently published books. IBPA members who participated in the ALA conference will receive the contact information from the scanned badges, allowing them to follow-up personally on these new connections for their titles.

[Additional reporting follows the photos below.]

A panoramic view of IBPA's 2022 ALA Annual Conference booth just before the exhibition floor opened on Friday June 24, 2022.

Brothers Timothy, Eugene, and Daniel Amadi sign copies of the book they co-authored, Grandma and Grandpa Can You Code? (Light Messages Publishing).

Andrew Faulk, MD, signs copies of his memoir, My Epidemic (Culbertson Publishing).

Author and pilot Carole Hopson signed copies of her historical fiction novel, A Pair of Wings (Jet Black Press).

Triplet nephews (Nicholas, Zachary, and Benjamin) accompany Michelle Flynn Osborne, co-author of The Maid as Michelle signs copies of the novel aiming to make the issue of human trafficking personal (Light Messages Publishing).

Click here for the full photo gallery from the ALA 2022 show.

Conference Overview

This year’s ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition was held June 23-28, 2022 and, as reported in Publishers Weekly, had a total of 13,990 registrations: 8,023 attendees and 5,133 exhibitors. In comparison, the last in-person ALA annual conference (in 2019) had 21,460 total registrations.

The professional display of more than 300 IBPA member books stood out on the show floor, with librarians eager to explore the intriguing and exceptional books. IBPA staff and volunteers helped guide visitors to members’ titles based on the librarians’ needs and interests.

[Additional reporting follows the photos below.]

A librarian browses the shelves of books by IBPA publisher members.

A librarian explores the postcards and bookmarks for various titles published by IBPA members.

The ALA Show Catalog

The over 300 member titles in IBPA’s cooperative booth were also included in IBPA’s 2022 “Indie Titles” show catalog, which was distributed in three ways:

1. Prior to the show, an invitation to visit IBPA's cooperative booth was emailed to the 17,000 subscribers of Library Journal. The invitation included a link to the show catalog.
   
2. During the event, IBPA staff passed out more than 120 print copies of the show catalog. Many more librarians were happy to not have to carry the paper catalogs, but to be emailed a digital version, as their bags were already filled with books.
   
3. A link to the digital version of the IBPA show catalog was emailed to every librarian whose badge was scanned by IBPA staff and volunteers during the 2022 show (more than 1,350 badges were scanned this year!).

A pile of IBPA swag for librarian attendees at ALA 2022, along with signage offering to scan the librarian badges to share a digital copy of the IBPA ALA 2022 Show Catalog and give them a chance to win $500!

IBPA’s "Literature and Libations" Networking Event

On Friday night at 7:30pm, about 40 IBPA members and friends gathered at Clyde’s bar – a short walk from the ALA Conference and Exhibition – for drinks and a networking game.

A great time was had by everyone who attended. Special congratulations to Judy Bradbury, Ryan Scribner, and Kaitlyn Jain for each winning a free year’s membership in IBPA!

Fun, drinks, and a networking game at the IBPA gathering on Friday evening June 24, 2022.

Special Thanks

IBPA ordered more than 100 show badges for members with books on display, and we’re grateful to the more than 24 volunteers who took the time to work at the booth and encourage visiting librarians to review all the books on display.

A special thank you to Wendy Hinman, Marti Gorman, Ryan Scribner, Sarah Bean, and Julie Broad for the extra – and awesome – effort!

IBPA board member Kathryn Sparks (right) and IBPA staff member Lee Wind welcome librarians to the IBPA booth at ALA 2022!

Biggest thanks to IBPA Board member Kathryn Sparks who jumped in at the last minute to help out and was a superstar – working tirelessly to help our members’ books shine (and scan lots and lots of librarian badges!).

And remember all those librarian badges that were scanned? This year's lucky winner of our $500 prize is public library librarian Abby Curry! Congratulations, Abby!

Abby Curry, pictured here with an ALA friend, was the librarian who won $500 for visiting the IBPA booth to explore the over 300 books from IBPA member independent publishers!

Final Thoughts

Here are links to see what other professionals in our publishing industry are saying about the 2022 ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition:

• Publishers Weekly
• Library Journal
• The American Library Association

See You in 2023!

The 2023 annual ALA conference is set for Chicago, Illinois, June 22–27, 2023. We would love to represent your books at next year’s conference, so make sure to sign up for single-title or full shelf display now!

(Manhattan Beach, CA - June 2, 2022)—After a two-year pandemic-induced hiatus, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) is excited to be representing America’s best independently published books once again IN-PERSON at the largest book fair in the world, the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Frankfurt Buchmesse will take place October 19-23, 2022 in Frankfurt, Germany. For publishers all over the, it is the place to be to sell foreign rights to their titles, and to see their books published in foreign languages.

IBPA COO Terry Nathan

IBPA Chief Operations Officer Terry Nathan has been managing IBPA's cooperative booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair for nearly 20 years. About the coop booth, Nathan said, "The cost and logistics of flying to Europe and exhibiting at such a major event is prohibitive for many, let alone for small independent publishers. That's why a coop booth like IBPA’s is such a win-win for everyone.".

Nathan continued, "Through the IBPA coop booth, foreign rights buyers have access to the great quality titles put forth by America’s amazing indie publishers, not just from the big publishers who are there."

IBPA members can place their books in IBPA’s booth two ways—a full shelf with their branding dedicated to 4-5 of their titles ($950), or a single title display for $225 only.

“I’ve promoted thousands of IBPA members’ titles here over the years,” said Nathan, “and it’s always exciting to see international interest in a great book, regardless of who published it. I’ve seen many members grow their overseas market by displaying their books in the IBPA booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Some now boast Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Korean, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian and French versions of their titles.”

Space in IBPA’s booth is limited and expected to sell out before the deadline, so if interested, publishers should reserve their spots early here.

If you have any questions, please contact Terry Nathan at terry@ibpa-online.org or 310-546-1818. We're happy to help!

About the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA)

Founded in 1983 to support independent publishers nationwide, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) leads and serves the independent publishing community through advocacy, education, and tools for success. With over 4,000 members, IBPA is the largest publishing association in the U.S. Its vision is a world where every independent publisher has the access, knowledge, and tools needed to professionally engage in all aspects of an inclusive publishing industry. For more information, visit ibpa-online.org.

Juergen Boos, president and CEO of Buchmesse, said in the announcement, “Now the focus is on our virtual offer and the events in the festival hall and in the city. In the last few months we have expanded our numerous, already existing services into a coherent digital overall concept. International publishing professionals meet well-known and new digital formats with which they can advance their business even in times of coronavirus...”

The Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) has been preparing for a robust digital offering for Frankfurt. On August 25, 2020, IBPA announced its single-title digital offering for the Frankfurt Book Fair, which includes:

• A set of custom webinars explaining how to license foreign and translation rights from a U.S. publisher to a foreign publisher when the U.S. publisher controls foreign and translation rights to a work.
• Listing in Frankfurt Book Fair's Frankfurt Rights digital catalog (currently named IPR License, but to be rebranded "Frankfurt Rights" in September 2020).
• Listing on a dedicated website showcasing IBPA member titles with foreign and translation rights available.
• Listings will remain online for one year.
• Website will be socialized to a custom list of 550+ foreign rights contacts, developed by IBPA over 35 years of attending the Frankfurt Book Fair, who will be invited to one-on-one meetings with the IBPA office to discuss the titles available.
• Opportunity to embed a video explaining why the title listed is a good candidate for foreign rights sales, and which countries would be a good fit (optional but encouraged).
• In addition to the online listing, the website will include a downloadable PDF catalog of all titles.
• Updated sample translation rights licensing agreement to use for developing a contract for licensing foreign and translation rights.

Registration for single-title display in IBPA’s [Virtual] Frankfurt Book Fair is available through September 18th, 2020. Registration is available here.

For more information, contact IBPA COO Terry Nathan at terry@ibpa-online.org or 310-546-1818.

About the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA)

Founded in 1983 to support independent publishers nationwide, the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) leads and serves the independent publishing community through advocacy, education, and tools for success. With over 3,600 members, IBPA is the largest publishing association in the U.S. Its vision is a world where every independent publisher has the access, knowledge, and tools needed to professionally engage in all aspects of an inclusive publishing industryFor more information, visit ibpa-online.org.

BOOKFEST Digital will happen October 17, 2020

This week, organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair (aka Frankfurter Buchmesse) have announced a virtual option for the 2020 Frankfurt Book Fair program entitled BOOKFEST digital. According to the Frankfurt Book Fair website:

“The Saturday of the fair will see the launch of BOOKFEST digital! On 17 October 2020, literature and culture fans all over the world will experience a virtual, moderated spectacle – one like never before – live in their own homes. With top-class artists, authors, interactive discussions on current topics, and creative performances."

The official Frankfurt Book Fair site continues:

"Early in the morning, the show will start with contributions primarily for the Asian region, followed by European events, until the programme is completed in America in the late evening. All over the world, literature and culture fans will be able to experience the BOOKFEST feeling in their own homes. Streamed via Facebook, Youtube or the website of Frankfurter Buchmesse, they will be able to immerse themselves in the topics that interest them – live and free of charge."

"Since participation [in BOOKFEST digital] is free for publishers, everyone has a chance to be a part of the excitement regardless of company size," said IBPA Editorial Advisory Committee member Sherry Nigam, publisher at SAE International. "In addition, Frankfurter Buchmesse has put out a call for creative ideas to make this experience entertaining, international, and colorful. I find this exciting."

IBPA members are encouraged to submit their ideas for consideration. Possible categories suggested by the organizers include:

• Live talks
• Cultural and literary performances
• Discussions on politics and society
• Interactive Meet & Greets with stars, authors, and artists
• Book and technology presentations
• Deep dives into the latest topics
• Lifestyle, travel and culinary themed events
• Music and cooking shows

The deadline for submissions is July 31, 2020. IBPA members can find out more, and submit their ideas here.

By Terry Nathan, IBPA Chief Operations Officer –

IBPA staff and volunteers are ready to welcome visitors to IBPA’s booth at the 2019 Frankfurt International Book Fair. Left to right are Stephanie Beard of Turner Publishing, Terry Nathan, IBPA COO, Katie Miller of BiggerPockets Publishing, and Stephen Buda of J. Ross Publishing.

(Manhattan Beach, CA - November 18, 2019) -- Every October, hundreds of thousands of book lovers descend upon the fairgrounds in Frankfurt, Germany for the Frankfurt Book Fair. That’s right, I said hundreds of thousands – not thousands, not tens of thousands…hundreds of thousands.

According to the show organizers, more than 302,000 people attended this year’s show (that is an increase of about 5% over last year, by the way). Granted, this includes the public that attend on the weekend, but that is still a lot of people! And according to the show organizers, 47% (or 142,000) of these people are trade visitors. To put this in perspective, the largest industry shows here in the U.S. are the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference and BookExpo/BookCon. ALA had a total of 25,000 visitors in 2019 and BookExpo/BookCon (two shows, one for the trade and one for the public) has 27,000 combined. ALA had 800 exhibitors and BookExpo/BookCon had 475. There were close to 7,500 exhibitors at the 2019 Frankfurt Book Fair.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is a five-day book fair that takes up six or seven buildings within what’s called “the fairgrounds,” a space large enough to house a small city. When I first started attending the fair in the early 90’s it was even larger, up to 12 buildings if I remember correctly. Because of this some may say the show is shrinking, and yes it probably is ... like everything else. But I say it’s still a very large show!

IBPA attends the Frankfurt Book Fair each year to help generate international interest in our members’ books. This typically means selling foreign rights for translation into a different language, but it can also mean reprint rights or international distribution rights for English versions of the books. Just about every country in the world is represented at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Dominque Raccah, publisher and founder of Sourcebooks, was excited to celebrate her 25th year at the fair. She has been part of the IBPA area since her first show in 1995.

One way IBPA generates interest is by staffing a cooperative booth filled with IBPA member titles. Not every book in IBPA’s cooperative booth receives direct interest during the show, but all the books receive great exposure, both through the face-out display in our cooperative booth and by being part of IBPA’s show catalog, which is emailed to IBPA’s full list of 550 international rights contacts from around the world as well as given in person to the 50-75 foreign rights agents we meet with at the show. In addition, plenty of people walk through IBPA’s booth over the five days of the show to just browse the books at their leisure.

This year, I was joined in IBPA’s cooperative booth for the second time by IBPA member Katie Miller of BiggerPockets Publishing. Katie did an amazing job representing the books and publishers on display. We were proud to display 193 of our members’ books in the cooperative booth (for those unable to make the trek to the show). And we were honored to host a number of our larger members as part of IBPA’s collective area at the show. Companies like Sourcebooks, Llewellyn, Lerner, New Harbinger, Independent Publishers Group, Turner Publishing, and more surrounded IBPA’s collective booth, making row A in hall 6.0 THE place to be for indie publishing.

In addition to helping the IBPA members at the show, Katie also represented her own company, BiggerPockets Publishing. This year I was especially happy to see her meeting again with Korean agents she met two years ago when she first attended the show. They stopped by the IBPA booth to show her copies of BiggerPockets Publishing’s books which had been published in Korean. So exciting to see!

Katie Miller of BiggerPockets Pulishing proudly displays a few of her books that were recently published in Korea.

About the Show

The Frankfurt Book Fair is by far the longest running and largest book fair in the world. IBPA has been attending the show since the 1980s and over that time we have developed incredible relationships with publishers and agents from all over the world. Connecting once a year in Frankfurt, Germany is special, and these relationships are at the heart of how foreign rights deals often get done. Working the Frankfurt Book Fair is a process. To approach it as a one-off event would be a mistake. The relationships take work and time, but they will pay off in the end.

According to the Frankfurt Book Fair’s Wikipedia page:

"The Frankfurt Book Fair has a tradition spanning more than 500 years. In 1454, soon after Johannes Gutenberg had developed printing in movable letters in Mainz near Frankfurt, the first book fair was held by local booksellers."

As mentioned above, overall attendance was up this year. According to Publishers Weekly:

"In a release, organizers reported 302,267 total visitors, a 5.5% jump from the 285,024 who attended in 2018, including a 1.8% increase in professional attendance, and a 9.2% jump in weekend attendance. The number of exhibitors was down slightly to 7,450 from 7,503 in 2018."

Visitors browse the books in the IBPA booth (photo left), while a couple of meetings take place in the IBPA booth.

Attending the Frankfurt Book Fair

Frankfurt is no longer just a book fair; it is now a content fair. I guess when I think about it, though, it always has been. Guests and visitor attractions vary from astronauts to YouTubers. There are even folks there looking for content for reality shows. [On my list of international rights agents is a person from Freemantle Media, a company from the UK that produces shows like Idol, Got Talent, X-Factor, etc.] Netflix is a player at the fair and the Netflix International Originals chief was a highlight at this year’s show. You can read more about it here.

Terry Nathan, IBPA’s COO, works hard to place some of IBPA’s members’ books with some publishers from Spain.

Audio was a big topic at this year’s fair once again, with the show hosting panels on the subject and making Frankfurt Audio a "thing." You can read more about that here.

I was especially excited to see the show adapting to and embracing authors. This year they opened an Authors Area for the first time – called Frankfurt Authors. It replaced the self-publishing area). Not unlike here in the U.S. (and here at IBPA), this part of the market is critical - and huge! We’re working very hard to serve this part of the industry and I was pleased to see the show embracing it, as well. Read more about it here.

Authors have always been a vital part of the publishing landscape, but it used to be for their celebrity status – of course in addition to their creativity. Now authors are being engrained (and relied upon) in the publishing process at a much more involved level.

IBPA at the 2019 Frankfurt Book Fair

IBPA supports members' books at the Frankfurt Book Fair in a few different ways. Many IBPA members purchase a single-title display in the IBPA cooperative booth ($185/title). In addition to the onsite, face-out display, those who sign up for single-title display are added to the show catalog which is sent to IBPA's exclusive list of 550+ international contacts. Other members opt for the full-shelf display, which accommodates 4-5 books along with catalogs or sell sheets ($750/shelf, including dedicated company signage).

During this year’s Fair, I met with close to 50 international rights agents and publishers. Each meeting lasted 15-30 minutes. During these meetings, I got a sense of the buyer's particular area of interest and what’s happening in their local publishing scene.

Interest areas are often quite specific. Sometimes we'll have many titles for the rights agent to consider; other times just a few. In rare cases, of course, we won't have anything at all. But, like everything else in the publishing business, it’s all about building relationships as mentioned above, and repetitive exposure to the marketplace. Following the Fair, members displaying in IBPA's cooperative booth received a report of all of meetings held and any interest expressed in their particular book(s).

A complete catalog of titles represented in IBPA’s cooperative booth is available online. To take a look at each book displayed, check out the photo album on Facebook.

There’s Strength in Numbers

In addition to representing members’ titles in the cooperative booth, we were privileged to be joined on the show floor by those members who chose to purchase a private booth through IBPA.

IBPA would like to give special thanks to Stephanie Beard at Turner Publishing, Dominique Raccah, Valerie Pierce and all our friends at Sourcebooks; Maria Kjoller at Lerner Publishing; Bill Krause at Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.; Dorothy and Tim Smyk at New Harbinger Publications; Brooke O’Donnell, Joe Matthews, Janet Potter and Paul Murphy at Independent Publishers Group; Stephen Buda at J. Ross Publishing; Jim Schmelzer at Publishers’ Services International; and Dave Wildasin at The Napoleon Hill Foundation / Sound Wisdom.

The Llewellyn booth is always alive with activity. Above their representatives show international publishers and agents their new titles and strong backlist titles.

By signing up to host their own booth with IBPA, these members received free freight to the Fair and booth support on site. We look forward to hosting them again in 2020.

Over the Weekend

Over the weekend, non-trade visitors came out in large numbers to meet their favorite authors, get deals on books, or just have a good time. Most of the visitors were German locals looking to buy books in German or discover interesting English-language books. Many German teenagers came as Cosplayers, dressed up as their favorite characters from animated films, comics, books, and manga. For us, Saturday and Sunday felt like a completely different Fair! Despite this, we still had a few very productive meetings on Saturday and Sunday, and we also met a lot of interesting people.

Have a look at some of the fun and games happening over the weekend:

The middle of the fairgrounds is alive with activity, especially on the weekend. Behind the crowd is Hall 3 where most of the German publishers display.

Some of the local book lovers enjoying their weekend at the 2019 Frankfurt Book Fair.

ADDITIONAL COVERAGE

• Publishers Weekly – All coverage
  
• Full set of press releases from the Frankfurt Book Fair’s website
  
• Publishing Perspectives
  
• Netflix Publishing Perspectives
  
• Frankfurt Audio
  

IBPA at the 2020 Frankfurt Book Fair

Next year, the Frankfurt Book Fair will take place October 14-18, 2020. IBPA is happy to announce we will again host a cooperative booth at the Fair (our 35th year in attendance!). We look forward to displaying your book.

More information is available here. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail us at info@ibpa-online.org or call our office at (310) 546-1818.

The American Library Association’s 2019 Annual Conference was a hugely successful trade show for IBPA’s participating members!

Over 260 titles were on display in IBPA's large 40ft x 10ft booth on the exhibit hall floor. Hosting two author signing tables running simultaneously kept the space buzzing with activity, resulting in IBPA staff and volunteers being able to scan a record-breaking number of badges. All-in-all, over 1,500 booth visitors were documented. Some librarians came back multiple times to check out the titles being signed and given away. We love that—it means they are especially interested in independent voices in publishing! IBPA members who participated in the ALA conference will receive the contact information from these 1,500+ scanned badges, leading to new connections for their titles.

IBPA staff Lee Wind (left), Terry Nathan (center), and Christopher Locke (right) are excited to open the show after a successful booth set up.

A panoramic view of IBPA's 2019 ALA Annual Conference booth in action.

Young author Timothy Amadi drew plenty of librarians to the booth during one of his signings for his book Everyone Can Code: Including Kids. His publisher, Elizabeth Turnbull, told us that he practiced signing his name to prepare for the show. Thank you, Timothy for being an inspiration to us all!

Click here for the full photo gallery from this year’s show.

Conference Overview

This year’s American Library Association Annual Conference was held June 20 to 25, 2019 in Washington, D.C. and was attended by over 21,460 individuals, 14,600 of whom were librarians, educators, and other attendees to the show.

The IBPA cooperative booth always stands out with its 400 square foot display. Members’ books made quite the splash with the professionally designed shelves filled with colorful and intriguing titles.

Throughout the event, there was a constant flow of interested librarians to the booth. The IBPA staff and volunteers guided the visitors to members’ books based on the librarians’ interest in specific genres, subject matter, and more.

IBPA member (and former NFL player) Israel Idonije shares his new children's book, I Love Me, with interested librarians (left); while Peter Trimarco (right), author and illustrator of It’s Just a Bunnypalooza draws a crowd to the IBPA booth.

The IBPA booth is full of books for every reader. Above are a few shots of librarians and others enjoying the books on display

The Show Catalog

The 260+ books displayed in IBPA's cooperative booth were also included in IBPA's “Indie Titles’ ALA show catalog, which was distributed in three ways:

1. Prior to the show, a link to the digital version of the catalog along with an invitation to visit IBPA's cooperative booth was emailed to our list of close to 2,000 librarians who have visited the IBPA booth during previous ALA shows. Included in that email was an invitation to visit the IBPA booth at this year’s show for a chance to win $500 cash.
   
2. During the event, IBPA staff passed out more than 150 print catalogs featuring the 260+ member books on display. Many more librarians were happy to not have to carry the paper catalogs, but to be emailed a digitial version, as their bags were already filled with books.
   
3. A link to the digital version of the catalog was emailed to every librarian whose badge was scanned by IBPA staff during the 2019 show (more than 1,200 badges were scanned this year - a new record for us!)

Librarians love dogs! And IBPA member Ted Dubois (aka Tobi Little Deer) did not disappoint during his signing of his latest book Lake Isle.

IBPA’s Panel Presentation at the ALA Conference

As a special bonus, IBPA highlighted five winners of our 2019 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, with the PopTop panel presentation: "IBPA Presents: The Best Independently Published Books of 2018." The panel was moderated by IBPA's Lee Wind, and the panelists were: Teri Case (author and publisher of Tiger Drive: A Novel); Chris Capen (for San Diego Zoo Press/Blue Sneaker Press’ Ruuxa & Raina: A Cheetah and Dog's True Story of Friendship and Miracles); Annie Harper (for Duet Books/Interlude Press’ Running with Lions); Trevor Wiser (for Plough Publishing House’s Mandela and the General); and Brooke Warner (publisher at She Writes Press for Rudy's Rules for Travel: Life Lessons from Around the Globe).

IBPA's Director of Marketing, Lee Wind (standing), moderates a panel of IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award-Winning authors and publishers on the floor of ALA.

IBPA member Elana Mugdan dressed in costume to help draw interest to her new book Dragon Speaker.

Special Thanks

IBPA ordered more than 100 show badges for members with books on display and we are especially grateful to all the volunteers who took the time to work the booth and encourage librarians to review all of the books on display. A special IBPA Thank You goes to members: Kurt and Dana Brackob, Mark Diehl, Margot Lester and Steve Peha, Bill Manchee, Elana Mugdan, Teresa Power and Nikki Stern for embracing IBPA’s motto of “Helping Each Other Achieve and Succeed!”

These members were key in bringing a record number of librarians into the IBPA booth this year. Their job was made a little easier with our $500 cash giveaway to one lucky librarian. In exchange for a quick scan of their badge, these librarians were entered into the drawing. More than 1,500 visitors were scanned (mostly librarians) and that list was shared with all participating IBPA members for post-show follow-up.

This year’s lucky winner? Heather Thomas, Library Media Specialist at the Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Congratulations Heather!

IBPA's $500 Sweepstakes Winner, Heather Thomas, visiting the Baker & Taylor booth at ALA 2019.

Final Thoughts

Below you will find links to see what other parts of the industry are saying about the 2019 ALA Association Conference:

• Library Journal
• Publishers Weekly
• The American Library Association
• ALA Annual’s Cognotes Recap Issue
  

As we do every year, IBPA will be attending the ALA Conference in 2020, which takes place in Chicago, IL on June 25-30. We would love to represent your books at next year’s conference, so make sure to sign up for single-title or full shelf display now!

By Terry Nathan, IBPA Chief Operations Officer –

A panoramic view of IBPA's cooperative booth at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair on "setup day" - the day before the Fair officially opened (notice no carpet in the aisle...yet!)

Every October my body clicks into gear. It’s time for the Frankfurt International Book Fair – the Grandaddy of them all! I first attended the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1992, seven or eight years after IBPA (then called Publishers Marketing Association) started displaying members’ titles. I have been back almost every year since, missing just a few years when my kids were young. To put this in perspective, IBPA started attending the Frankfurt Book Fair long before the Berlin Wall came down, and I started just after it fell. The relationships I’ve made during this time have been life changing. Even better, I keep adding new, interesting people to my worldwide network of book lovers! I see these people as part of my family and look forward to catching up with them every year.

IBPA COO Terry Nathan (right) with Leann Garms of Build.Buzz.Launch. Media & Publishing at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

This year I was joined in the IBPA cooperative booth by IBPA member Leann Garms of Build.Buzz.Launch. Media & Publishing, who did an incredible job of representing the IBPA member books and publishers on display by engaging with passersby as I did my best to interest international rights agents during my close to 60 preset appointments. Leann and I were proud to display 229 books for IBPA members who were unable to make the trek to the show. In addition, we were honored to host a number of IBPA’s larger members as part of the association’s collective area at the show. Companies like Sourcebooks, Llewellyn, Lerner, New Harbinger, Independent Publishers Group, Turner Publishing, Sound Wisdom/The Napoleon Hill Foundation and more surrounded IBPA’s cooperative booth, making Row A in Hall 6.0 a beehive of indie publisher activity once again.

After all these years I am surprised to report I experienced a first at this year’s show… the sun was shining the entire time! It was over 80 degrees on a couple of the days. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen the sun in Frankfurt. I was beginning to wonder if the earth was permanently tilted in some strange way. What a treat it was this year to see the sun! And with the nicer weather came loads of beautiful people – friendly, engaging people – people that are likely there every year, but hard to see because they are all bundled up.

Another October… another Frankfurt Book Fair. Sounds so ordinary, right? But, no. I can assure you the Frankfurt Book Fair is anything but ordinary.

About the Frankfurt Book Fair

This is by far the longest running and largest book fair in the world. IBPA has been attending the Frankfurt show for close to 35 years and over that time we have developed incredible relationships with publishers and agents from all over the world. Connecting once a year in Frankfurt is special and these relationships are at the heart of how foreign rights deals often get done.

According to the Frankfurt Book Fair’s Wikipedia page:

"The Frankfurt Book Fair has a tradition spanning more than 500 years. In 1454, soon after Johannes Gutenberg had developed printing in movable letters in Mainz near Frankfurt, the first book fair was held by local booksellers."

This year was relatively flat in terms of attendance compared to 2017.

"A total 285,024 visitors are reported being counted at the 2018 Fair, as compared with 286,425 in 2017, representing a relatively flat level of participation year-over-year, a 0.5-percent decline from last year," Publishing Perspectives reported.

But as Publishers Weekly further reports, “The 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair concluded Sunday, October 14, with Fair officials reporting a 2.7% gain in the number of exhibitors over 2017’s Fair. In all, the Fair featured 7,503 exhibitors from 109 countries (up from 102 last year)… a sign that the Fair has found solid footing again after attendance declines in the recession-challenged years following the 2009 event.”

Attending this show is exhilarating and exhausting all at once. The show is five full days, Wednesday through Sunday from 9AM to 6PM. We often extend conversations with our international colleagues into group dinners and days can easily run anywhere from 12 to 15 hours. From Wednesday to Friday, trade visitors or book professionals from around the globe wheel and deal, looking to strike that sweetheart deal we all live for. And then on the weekend, show organizers open the doors to the public, inviting a whole new energy and audience. Book lovers dress in their favorite costumes and meet their favorite authors. Much of the activity over these final two days takes place in the German halls, but there is also a significant amount of interest being shown by the German public to books written in English.

Around the show this year a lot of focus was paid to politics and related topics. According to Juergen Boos, director of the Fair, as reported by Publishing Perspectives, “In a prepared statement [he] is quoted as saying ‘As the most international event of its kind, Frankfurter Buchmesse is the ideal place to discuss topics affecting the global community… We saw a noticeable increase in the need for political participation; the desire is increasing to represent one’s own position and participate in the public discourse. A number of topics predominated during this year’s activities, including the importance of human rights, along with displacement and migration, populism and civic engagement.”

And this article from Publishers Weekly quotes Macmillan CEO John Sargent, when asked about President Trump’s effort to stop the publication of Fire and Fury, as saying: “I thought initially it was a commercial decision [to continue with the publication], but then realized it was an extremely important decision. Freedom of speech is the very foundation of democracy. There is less and less concern about freedom of speech. Instead, people are more concerned that their point of view be announced as loud as possible. [Publishing Fury] was not a literary function, or a commercial function, but a function to protect the democracy.”

IBPA at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

IBPA supports members' books at the Frankfurt Book Fair in a few different ways. Many IBPA members purchase a single-title display in the IBPA cooperative booth ($185/title). In addition to the onsite, face-out display, those who sign up for single-title display are added to the show catalog which is sent to IBPA's exclusive list of 600+ international contacts. Other members opt for the full-shelf display, which accommodates 4-5 books along with catalogs or sell sheets ($750/shelf, including dedicated company signage).

IBPA cooperative booth on day one of the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

IBPA cooperative booth on day two of the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

IBPA COO Terry Nathan taking a meeting at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair while another attendee scans the shelves of books

During this year’s Fair, I met with close to 60 international rights agents and publishers. Each meeting lasted 15-30 minutes. During these meetings, I got a sense of the buyer's particular area of interest and what’s happening in their local publishing scene.

Interest areas are often quite specific. Sometimes we'll have many titles for the rights agent to consider; other times just a few. In rare cases, of course, we won't have anything at all. But, like everything else in the publishing business, it’s all about building relationships as mentioned above.

Following the Fair, members displaying in IBPA's cooperative booth received a report of all the meetings held and any interest experienced in their particular book(s).

A complete catalog of titles represented in IBPA’s cooperative booth is available online. To take a look at each book displayed, check out the photo album on Facebook.

There's Strength in Numbers

In addition to representing members’ titles in the cooperative booth, we were privileged to be joined on the show floor by those members who chose to purchase a private booth through IBPA. Together, IBPA’s presence secured almost a whole aisle in Hall 6.0!

IBPA COO Terry Nathan (right) with Bill Krause of Llewellyn Worldwide at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

IBPA would like to give special thanks to Stephanie Beard at Turner Publishing; Stephanie Graham and Valerie Pierce at Sourcebooks; Maria Kjoller at Lerner Publishing; Bill Krause at Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.; Dorothy Smyk at New Harbinger Publications; Brooke O’Donnell, Joe Matthews, and Paul Murphy at Independent Publishers Group; Stephen Buda at J. Ross Publishing; Jim Schmelzer at Publishers’ Services International; and Dave Wildasin at The Napoleon Hill Foundation / Sound Wisdom.

By signing up to host their own booth with IBPA, these members received free freight to the Fair and booth support on site. We look forward to hosting them again in 2019.

A side view of Sourcebook's booth at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

A side view of the Independent Publisher Group's booth at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

Fun & Games on the Weekend

As mentioned above, the first three days of the Fair (October 10-12, 2018), publishing and multimedia companies from all over the world were briskly walking from one appointment to another, either negotiating international publishing rights or exchanging information for future dealings. Each booth occupied by at least two individuals sitting across from each other around a small table; catalogs and books sprawled between them. These three days alone welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors – professionals who attend the Fair for the purpose of doing business.

The last two days of the Fair, however, hosted a different crowd. Non-trade visitors — also known as the "public"— were invited to attend the Fair on October 13-14, 2018. And with the nice weather as mentioned above, the public came out in full force! The majority of visitors were German locals looking to buy books in German or discover interesting English-language books. Many German teenagers came as Cosplayers, dressed up as their favorite characters from animated films, comics, books, and manga. For us, Saturday and Sunday felt like a completely different Fair!

A group of cosplayers take a break in the sun outside the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

ADDITIONAL COVERAGE

• Chimamanda Adichie’s powerful opening address – click here.
• Stability Reigns at Frankfurt – click here.
• The Big Titles U.S. Agencies Will Be Selling at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair - click here.
• The Audio Boom is Real, Global, and Just Getting Started – click here.
• Full set of press releases from the Frankfurt Book Fair’s website – click here.

IBPA at the 2019 Frankfurt Book Fair

Next year, the Frankfurt Book Fair will take place October 16-20, 2019. IBPA is happy to announce we will again host a cooperative booth at the Fair (our 34th year in attendance!). We look forward to displaying your book. More information is available here. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail us at info@ibpa-online.org or call our office at (310) 546-1818.

The Independent Book Publishers Association's (IBPA's) cooperative booth at the 2018 ALA Annual Conference proudly introduced more than two hundred IBPA member titles to thousands of attending librarians.

Throughout the weekend, over thirty book signings and giveaways in the booth provided a great connection between IBPA members’ authors and attending librarians, while at the same time driving traffic to see all the titles on display. In addition, the IBPA staff was able to collect contact information from close to six hundred librarians who visited the IBPA booth. Their contact information will be shared with participating IBPA members, adding to the numerous new connections and opportunities that opened up for those who participated in this special annual program.

IBPA Director of Marketing & Programming Lee Wind (left) and IBPA Chief Operations Officer Terry Nathan stand ready to receive librarians just prior to the exhibit floor opening on Friday, June 22nd.

A panoramic view of IBPA's 2108 ALA Annual Conference booth in action.

Click here for the full photo gallery from this year’s show.

Conference Overview

More than 12,400 librarians attended the American Library Association’s annual conference in New Orleans, Louisiana from June 21 to 25, 2018. This was in addition to the more than 5,100 exhibitors, which included IBPA staff Terry Nathan (Chief Operations Officer) and Lee Wind (Director of Marketing and Programming), as well as IBPA publisher members and their authors who attended to sign books, volunteer in the IBPA cooperative booth, and network with the attending librarians.

IBPA’s cooperative booth had an impressive footprint on the show floor (40’ x 10’), and the professional signage and shelving made a proud showroom for the more than 200 books from our publisher members.

One trend visible from walking the exhibit hall was the cost-cutting of some of the major publishing houses, whose booths were simply books on cardboard boxes on tables. In dramatic contrast, IBPA’s built-out booth with professional signage—and our members’ books—looked polished and well-presented.

Candlewick Press (left) and Simon & Schuster (right) are among some of the larger publishers who opted to go with a more simple looking display at this year's ALA Show.

The Show Catalog

The 200+ books displayed in IBPA's cooperative booth were also included in IBPA's "Indie Titles" ALA show catalog, which was distributed in three ways:

1. Prior to the show, a link to the digital version of the catalog along with an invitation to visit IBPA's cooperative booth was emailed to the librarians who visited the IBPA booth at the 2017 ALA Annual Conference (in Chicago) and the 2016 ALA Annual Conference (in Orlando).
2. Printed copies of the catalog were available and handed out in the IBPA cooperative booth on the show floor.
   
3. A link to the digital version of the catalog was emailed to every librarian whose badge was scanned by IBPA staff during the 2018 show.
   

Good, Better, Best: Simple book display, the personal touch, making a connection

The Good. Does simply displaying a book in the IBPA cooperative booth work at the ALA Annual Conference? Yes, to a point. Librarians did come into the booth and browse the shelves, picking up titles of interest and taking photos of the covers. Nearly all who visited the booth were grateful to know that if an IBPA staff member scanned their badge, they’d receive a digital copy of the show catalog with all 200+ books included. Badge scans also entered librarians in a cash drawing for $300; they were excited about that, too.

Librarians enjoying the incredible selection of Indie titles offered by IBPA members at the 2018 American Library Association's Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA.

The Better. Better connections were made when an attending librarian spoke with an IBPA staff member or volunteer in the booth. When this happened, the librarian was guided to titles they were specifically interested in. They also learned more about IBPA, and our goal of leveling the playing field for our independent publisher members.

The Best. Perhaps the best moments were the author signings, where IBPA members’ authors got to meet and sign free copies of their ARCs or finished books for the attending librarians. These moments of personal connection stood out, and when the librarians returned to their libraries with stacks of new books to consider, the personalized IBPA members’ books certainly stood out, too!

Paige Ashley Brotherton, author of Avery Appreciates True Friendship, attracts a crowd of librarians during her signing on Saturday, June 23rd.

New Opportunities for IBPA Members

The IBPA staff discovered multiple new opportunities for IBPA members as a result of representing IBPA member titles at the 2018 ALA Annual Conference.

Claire Thompson, the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award coordinator, stopped by the IBPA cooperative booth and had a great conversation with IBPA staff member Lee Wind. Claire is especially open to having IBPA members submit their eligible works for the Ezra Jack Keats Book Awards for New Writer and New Illustrator. You can find the full guidelines here: https://www.degrummond.org/ezra-jack-keats-book-award-guidelin.

Morgan Peters, program coordinator for the OHIOana Library, runs an annual Ohio author festival in Columbus, Ohio. If you are or have an Ohio-based author in your publishing program, you can reach Morgan at ohioana@ohioana.org.

Not sure what to do with extra ARCs? Kathleen Kluegel is a volunteer for the Urbana Champaign Books to Prisoners program in Illinois, and shared with IBPA staff how uncorrected proofs are accepted and welcomed (paperbacks preferred). Kathleen spoke of similar programs all over the country. You can learn more at www.books2prisoners.org.

VOYA, Voice of Youth Advocates bills itself as “a library magazine serving those who serve young adults.” For more than 40 years, VOYA has been reviewing books for tweens and teens, rating each book’s quality, predicted popularity, and grade level interest (from middle school through college-age). Lee Wind spoke with their review editor, Lisa Kurdyla, and found she’s very open to submissions of new books for teens and tweens from IBPA members. Lisa writes,

“Please send digital ARCs or physical ARCs as soon as three months prepublication. I prefer two copies when possible in case a teen reviewer will be reading and reviewing, as well. Please include a contact email for sending the finished review. Feel free to follow up with me at my email address (reviews@voyamagazine.com) but please understand I cannot answer every email regarding titles I am sent for review. BUT... I do read each one and sometimes an email is a great reminder about a title. VOYA appreciates independently published authors and we do our very best to review as many as possible. All pertinent info can be found at www.voyamagazine.com or by emailing me.”

Johanna Rotondo-McCord is the brand manager for Locally.com, a new app which connects online buyers with products locally. They are expanding their offerings into the book market. You can check them out at http://www.locally.com.

Valeria Fike stopped by the IBPA cooperative booth to tell us about the newly re-named LITA Excellence in Children’s and Young Adult Science Fiction Notable Lists. 2018 titles are now being considered for the 2019 lists in three categories: Golden Duck Science Fiction Notables List for Picture Books, ages 0-6; Eleanor Cameron Science Fiction Notable List for Middle grades, ages 7-12; and the Hal Clement Science Fiction Notable List for Young Adult, ages 13-18. Submissions can be made via the SF Notables Submission Form at their website, https://sfnotables.org/. The submission deadline is December 1, 2018.

Lee had a great meeting with LibraryWorks representatives Sharon Deutch and Jenny Newman that yielded a no-cost-to-IBPA-members expansion of IBPA's Library eBlast Program. In addition to the 5,000 librarians in each category (elementary school librarians; middle and high school librarians; college and academic librarians; public library children’s & YA librarians; public library adult librarians) LibraryWorks will start to include the librarians whose information IBPA has collected at the ALA Annual Conference. This lets IBPA build relationships with librarians we know are interested in indie titles—giving our participating members’ books an even better chance to get noticed and acquired for these library collections!

Having their badge scanned entered the librarians in a random drawing for $300. Close to 600 librarians entered and that list was shared with all participating IBPA members for post-show follow-up.

Our lucky winner? Montie' Dobbins, Head, Access Services, Health Sciences Library, LSU Health Shreveport (photo right).

Special Thanks

Special thanks to the IBPA members who so generously volunteered their time in the booth to represent all of our publisher members’ books: Mark Diehl, Melissa Guzzetta, Margot Lester, Tyra Manning, and Mark Ristau.

You can read about Mark Diehl’s remarkable book marketing synergy moment at the conference here.

Final Thoughts

And here are some links to what other parts of the industry are saying about ALA:

• The American Library Association
• ALA Cognotes
• American Libraries Magazine
• Library Journal
• Publishers Weekly

ALA 2019 is already on our calendars: June 20 to 24, 2019 in Washington, D.C. We hope we’ll be able to represent you and your books there—and maybe, you can join us!

Read below to understand their thought process.

By Angela Bole, IBPA Chief Executive Officer –

This year's BookExpo and BookCon events took place May 30-June 3, 2018 at New York City's Javits Center. Generally, those from IBPA who attend a show on behalf of membership write and publish a report within a week, maybe two. This year, I’ve taken my time to gather as much feedback as possible from members, the IBPA Board of Directors, media reports, and general industry professionals in order to fully inform the following takeaways and recommendations.

If you’ve followed IBPA’s thinking about BookExpo and BookCon this past year, you know we went into the 2018 show with a lot of questions. The most crucial question, however, was could IBPA feel comfortable recommending the ‘Reimagined BookExpo’ to members as a place to raise awareness among booksellers, librarians, and media about independently published books?

To find out, I attended the 2018 show with IBPA’s director of marketing and programming Lee Wind and IBPA’s incoming board chair Brooke Warner. Together, we took just over 25 separate meetings where we discussed current and possible partnerships and what people thought about the value of BookExpo and BookCon today.

Everyone we met said they felt having a single time and place for the traditional book industry to come together and discuss business was beneficial. Our meetings were productive on a maintaining connections basis and our offsite Literature & Libations happy hour was a fun and lively networking event for IBPA members (see Photos from IBPA’s Literature & Librations at the end of this report).

But meetings are only one side of the BookExpo coin. What about the crucial question of whether or not BookExpo is a good place to raise awareness among booksellers, librarians, and media about independently published books?

After much consideration, and many conversations with members who participated in the show this year, the answer we’ve come to is BookExpo is such a place "for a few, certainly not for all, and definitely not for author publishers (i.e., self-published authors)."

Let me explain.

Publishers (and some service providers) foot the bulk of the bill for BookExpo by buying exhibitor space on the trade show floor. Each publisher’s space is built out as a mini showroom for displaying upcoming titles and holding author signings. For 34 years, IBPA hosted a cooperative booth for members who didn’t have the number of books or financial resources necessary to build out their own space. The cost to host IBPA’s cooperative booth was between $85,000 and $110,000 each year – a considerable expense we could no longer justify following the 2017 program (read IBPA to Forgo Cooperative Book Display at BookExpo 2018).

IBPA's cooperative booth at BookExpo 2016. The book display shelves were featured along the wall in the the back; the author signing table was placed on the corner.

The decision to forgo a cooperative booth was a difficult one, even though applauded by many IBPA members (see comments in above article). Coming out of the 2018 show, we can say for sure that our members were well served by the decision. We now believe, with few exceptions, that there is little reason for a publisher not part of the traditional eco-system to exhibit on the trade show floor. This includes niche publishers, regional publishers, and most certainly author publishers. As mentioned above, exhibiting at BookExpo is "good for a few, certainly not all, and definitely not for author publishers."

Good For a Few, but Certainly Not All

Independent publishers publishing several dozen new titles (or more) each year and already supported by a national distributor could find value in exhibiting at BookExpo or BookCon. The expense to do so should be considered a marketing expense and part of a larger marketing effort or sales plan. According to Porter Anderson’s BookExpo recap, the ‘reimagined’ aspect of BookExpo related to "a major effort this year to emphasize booksellers and to attract them with special chances to meet one-on-one with publishers’ editors and others. There was a strong cooperative effort with the American Booksellers Association, recognized by ABA chief Oren Teicher during the [ABA’s] annual meeting."

A focus on independent booksellers means a focus on traditional publishing and blockbuster titles. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, independent booksellers prioritize established publishers. Booksellers are pragmatic and risk-averse. They want to invest time, money, and energy in books they can be confident will sell because the publisher has demonstrated a solid national marketing campaign. It’s impossible to say exactly what an appropriate marketing campaign is for a particular book, but generally speaking, if a book's marketing budget is in excess of $5,000 and includes printing over 150 galley copies, it makes sense for an independent publisher to find out if the timing is right for a signing at BookExpo or BookCon. If this isn't the case, it's unlikely that BookExpo is the best platform for the book's discoverability.

Related to regional content, it’s true that most independent bookstores make a point of offering unique regional content in store. That said, niche and regional publishers don’t need to exhibit at BookExpo to get their regional titles into an independent bookstore. They would be better served by having their sales people visit the bookstores in their region – saving both time and money and building up personal relationships.

In my 2017 BookExpo show report I wrote that show attendees seemed to "skip the traditional browsing that was such a part of previous shows in favor of jumping from pre-planned meeting to pre-planned meeting – a good enough use of time, I suppose, but not something that fosters the serendipitous discovery of new books." This year was much the same. This cultural shift is important to understand because it means that, should an IBPA member decide to spend the money to exhibit, they will only feel successful if they set up meetings in advance and don’t expect people to be interested in their books simply because they built a booth. The days of BookExpo foot traffic bringing curious book lovers into publishers’ exhibits are behind us.

Definitely Not for Author Publishers

Without pulling punches, BookExpo on the whole is rather hostile toward author publishers. Some of this has to do with author publishers who come to the show without understanding the rules (pitching Big 5 publishers, literary agents, and/or distributors in hopes one of them will publish or represent their book, for example – an activity BookExpo considers particularly gauche), but mostly it’s for the same reason the show isn’t great for very small and/or not yet established independent publishers generally: e.g., a singluar focus on blockbuster titles backed by considerable publisher-provided marketing dollars.

The IBPA Board’s Decision

Members of the IBPA Board of Directors discussed the issues above during their June 20, 2018 Board meeting. They also discussed a recent offer from BookExpo executives suggesting IBPA could again sell exhibitor space to members in 2019. The space IBPA sold would become part of an "indie publisher showcase."

Despite conceptual interest in something like an "indie publisher showcase" at BookExpo 2019, the Board ultimately decided it’s not the right time to push the purchase of exhibit space to members. All the reasons above inform this decison, of course, but the Board also knows that established IBPA members with national distribution can already purchase exhibit space of this kind through their distributor. Some choose to, many don’t. Regardless, IBPA would not be able to offer a better deal to members than they’re already getting from their distributor. Nor can we see the benefit of a member going outside their distributor zone.

By the end of their June 20th meeting, the IBPA Board unanimously voted to approach BookExpo 2019 in the same way it approached this year’s show. That is with a focus on one-on-one meetings, member networking opportunities, educational programming, and no reselling of exhibit space on the trade show floor. This decision melds with the feedback we’ve collected from members, media, and general industry professionals over the past few weeks.

Looking Ahead

Although fewer independent and author publishers are attending BookExpo each year, it is still the book industry’s largest national trade event. And, although BookCon remains a consumer show generally focused on blockbuster authors and titles, it is still a massive gathering of readers with potential upside for independent and author publishers. With these things in mind, we want to be sure we continue to give proper consideration to both events.

All of us at IBPA feel the decision not to resell exhibit space at BookExpo 2019 is the best decision for now. At the same time, we understand that things can change for BookExpo and that BookCon, in particular, is still evolving and may prove to be a more viable event for independent publisher investment in the end.

We remain open to securing positive opportunities for IBPA members at both BookExpo and BookCon. Stay tuned for further updates as they become available. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below or email them to me directly at angela@ibpa-online.org. I’d be happy to hear from you.

--Angela Bole, IBPA CEO (July 2018)

Photos from IBPA’s Literature & Librations at BookExpo 2018

The photos below were taken during IBPA's May 31, 2018 Literature & Libations Happy Hour held at Clyde Frazier's Wine & Dine in New York City.

By Terry Nathan, IBPA Chief Operations Officer –

Having just returned from the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair, I am energized and excited to see that indie publishers and authors continue to command a very large presence on the world stage.

This year I was joined by IBPA member Katie Askew of BiggerPockets Publishing who did an amazing job of representing the books and publishers on display. We were proud to display 208 IBPA member books for those that were unable to make the trek to the show. And we were honored to host a number of our larger members as part of IBPA's collective area at the show. Companies like Sourcebooks, Llewellyn, Lerner Publishing, New Harbinger Publications, Independent Publishers Group, Turner Publishing and more surrounded IBPA's collective stand, making row A in hall 6.0 a beehive of indie activity.

IBPA COO Terry Nathan (left) with BiggerPockets Publishing's Katie Askew (right) in IBPA's cooperative booth at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair (more photos here)

A clear view of the entire IBPA cooperative booth at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair (more photos here)

The Frankfurt Book Fair is by far the longest running and largest book fair in the world. IBPA has been attending the Frankfurt show for close to 35 years and over that time we have developed incredible relationships with publishers and agents from all over the world. Connecting once a year in Frankfurt is special and these relationships are at the heart of how foreign rights deals get done.

According to the Frankfurt Book Fair Wikipedia page:

"The Frankfurt Book Fair has a tradition spanning more than 500 years. In 1454, soon after Johannes Gutenberg had developed printing in movable letters in Mainz near Frankfurt, the first book fair was held by local booksellers."

This year saw an increase, once again, in attendance.

"In all, some 286,425 visitors attended the fair, along with 7,300 exhibitors from 102 countries. That's up from 275,342 total visitors in 2016, and 281,753 in 2015," Publishers Weekly reported.

Included within the 286,425 visitors were close to 142,000 trade visitors or book professionals, which is basically the same number as last year. That is a lot of book professionals all in one place! From Wednesday to Friday, these professionals from around the globe wheel and deal, looking to strike that sweetheart deal we all live for. And then on the weekend, show organizers open the doors to the public, inviting a whole new energy and audience. Book lovers dress in their favorite costumes and meet their favorite authors. Much of the activity over these final two days takes place in the German halls, but there is also a significant amount of interest being shown to books written in English. The weather for this year’s show was the best I’ve seen it in years, which certainly helped to bring people out in large numbers (and full costume!).

Attending this show is exhilarating and exhausting all at once. The show is five full days, Wednesday through Sunday from 9AM to 6PM. We often extend the conversation with our international colleagues into a group dinner and days can run anywhere from 12 to 15 hours, easily.

Around the show this year there was a lot of positive energy and excitement for great deals to be placed. Some of the big named authors in attendance included Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown and Nicholas Sparks. And according to another Publisher's Weekly article:

"In the fair’s professional program, the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair was marked by a sense of stability in the publishing industry. In his opening address, Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle suggested that “the global book business is doing better now than it has been for the past 50 years, and perhaps even since its inception,” citing among other things consistent, if slow, growth in many territories, and balance among print and digital formats,"

IBPA at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair

IBPA supports members' books at the Frankfurt Book Fair in a few different ways. Many IBPA members purchase a single-title display in the IBPA cooperative booth ($185/title). In addition to the onsite, face-out display, those who sign up for single-title display are added to the show catalog which is sent to IBPA's exclusive list of 600+ international contacts. Other members opt for the full-shelf display, which accommodates 4-5 books along with catalogs or sell sheets ($750/shelf, including dedicated company signage).

During the Fair we met with close to 60 foreign rights agents and publishers. Each meeting lasts 15-30 minutes. During these meetings, we got a sense of the buyer's particular area of interest and what may be happening in their local publishing scene.

Interest areas are often quite specific. Sometimes we'll have many titles for the rights agent to consider; other times just a few. In rare cases, of course, we won't have anything at all. But, like everything else in the publishing business, it’s all about building relationships as mentioned above.

Following the Fair, members displaying in IBPA's cooperative booth received a report of all of meetings held and any interest experienced in their particular book.

A complete catalog of titles represented in IBPA’s cooperative booth is available online. And, to take a look at each book displayed, check out the photo album on Facebook.

There's Strength in Numbers

Llewellyn Worldwide employees discuss foreign rights opportunities in their private booth at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair (more photos here)

In addition to representing members’ titles in the IBPA cooperative booth, we were privileged to be joined on the show floor by those members who chose to purchase a private booth through IBPA. Together, our presence secured almost a whole aisle in Hall 6.0!

IBPA would like to give special thanks to Stephanie Beard at Turner Publishing, Sara Hartman-Seeskin at Sourcebooks; Maria Kjoller at Lerner Publishing; Bill Krause at Llewellyn Worldwide; Dorothy Smyk at New Harbinger Publications; Brooke O’Donnell, Joe Matthews, and Paul Murphy at Independent Publishers Group; Stephen Buda at J. Ross Publishing; Jim Schmelzer at Publishers' Services International; and Ethan Atkin at Cranbury International.

By signing up to host their own booth with IBPA, these members received free freight to the Fair and booth support on site. We look forward to hosting them again in 2018.

A very special shout out goes to Dorothy Smyk of New Harbinger Publications on just completing her 25th year in attendance! Publishers Weekly published this amazing article in their October 9, 2017 issue. Thanks for the love, Dorothy. And thanks for your continued confidence.

New Harbinger Publications' Dorthy and Tim Smyk celebrate 25 years of attending the Frankfurt Book Fair during the 2017 event (more photos here)

Fun & Games on the Weekend

As mentioned above, the first three days of the show (October 10-13, 2017), publishing and multimedia companies from all over the world were briskly walking from one appointment to another, either negotiating international publishing rights or exchanging information for future dealings. Each booth occupied by at least two individuals sitting across from each other around a small table; catalogs and books sprawled between them. These three days alone welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors – professionals who attend the Fair for the purpose of doing business.

The last two days of the Fair, however, hosted a different crowd. Non-trade visitors — also known as the "public"— were invited to attend the Fair on October 14-15, 2017.

The majority of visitors were German locals looking to buy books in German or discover interesting English-language books. Many German teenagers came as Cosplayers, dressed up as their favorite characters from animated films, comics, books, and manga. For us, Saturday and Sunday felt like a completely different Fair!

Have a look at some of the fun and games happening on the weekend:

IBPA at the 2018 Frankfurt Book Fair

Next year, the Frankfurt Book Fair will take place October 10-14, 2018. IBPA is happy to announce we will again host a cooperative booth at the Fair (our 33rd year in attendance). We look forward to displaying your book. More information is available here. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail us at info@ibpa-online.org or call our office at 310-546-1818.

Additional Coverage

• New York Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/arts/frankfurt-book-fair-macron.html
• Publishers Weekly (multiple articles) – https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/Frankfurt-Book-Fair/
• The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/09/frankfurt-book-fair-moves-the-focus-back-to-writer-star-power

The 2017 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference (ALAAC17), held June 22-27, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois, provided an opportunity for librarians from across the country to gather with their peers, attend inspiring keynotes, share and learn during educational breakout sessions, cheer at award ceremonies, meet some of their favorite (and some new-to-them) authors, and check out all the library-related services and books on display in the exhibit hall.

Most of all, however, the ALA Annual Conference was about librarians finding and getting their hands on the latest and greatest books. Books, books, books!

On the first day of exhibits, Friday, June 23rd, librarians massed in front of the exhibit hall entrance waiting for the 5:30pm opening. For Terry Nathan, IBPA’s Chief Operations Officer, and me, standing ready in IBPA’s booth 3529, there was a palpable roar as the crowd rushed into the hall, heading for the big give-aways of free books. After only an hour and a half the show closed on Friday night, but librarians were already walking around with stacks of 10, 15, 20 books in their hands, bags, and rolling luggage.

IBPA Chief Operations Officer Terry Nathan (left) and IBPA Director of Marketing & Programming Lee Wind stand ready to receive librarians just prior to the exhibit floor opening on Friday, June 23rd.

Just down the aisle from HarperCollins and Penguin Random House, the IBPA cooperative booth gave all our members’ books an equal and very professional footing for an audience of more than 16,000 attendees. Over the show’s four days, eager, interested librarians snapped photos of our book covers, pulled titles from the shelves to look at more closely, selected bookmarks and promotional postcards, and picked up copies of our show catalog along with a candy or chocolate. Nearly everyone who visited the booth was delighted to let us scan their name badge, so we could send them an email with a link to download the catalog after the show.

Having their badge scanned also entered the librarians in our random drawing for a $100 gift card.

Our lucky winner?

Librarian April Dawkins, University of North Carolina in Greensboro (pictured at left). Congratulations, April!

Free Books and the Perception of Value

Unlike many other exhibitors, IBPA didn’t allow librarians to grab from stacks of books piled on the exhibit hall floor. From my perspective, this was a good call. A lot of the magic of marketing books and getting people excited about them is perceived value. Sure, the latest Nicola Yoon book can be stacked without taking a value-hit, but if you’re not a “name” that’s won some serious awards or spent time on the bestseller lists, just giving away your book is a risky proposition.

What IBPA did instead was provide a professional platform and structure for librarians to meet our members' authors and illustrators, and receive a free signed copy of their book. As librarians waited to meet the authors, they had nothing to do but check out all of our books on display (and get their badges scanned!) Those brief conversations and the personal connections that resulted will hopefully translate in the librarians prioritizing IBPA members’ books in their now gigantic to-read pile… In turn translating into IBPA members’ books reaching many more readers!

A line forms to meet Tyra Manning as she signs copies of WHERE THE WATER MEETS THE SAND (Greenleaf Book Group) in IBPA's cooperative booth during the 2017 ALA Annual Conference. IBPA's Lee Wind (center) scans librarian badges so the leads can be shared with Tyra and all participating members after the show.

IBPA member Brenda Faatz introduces her picture book, IT'S JUST SO... LITTLE, and its prequel, to a set of librarians at the 2017 ALA Annual Conference.

Another benefit of IBPA's in-booth author signings was that they generated tremendous foot-traffic to the cooperative booth, benefiting every book on our shelves. IBPA's booth experienced much more traffic than other exhibitor booths where there were books on shelves, but no interactive component. Knowing this, we’re looking to add more interactivity for future shows.

From Children’s to Self-Help, from Fiction to Nonfiction, from Poetry to Business, IBPA's cooperative booth had all the variety – and quality – of any of the bigger publishers attending ALA. Like our Industry Standards Checklist for a Professionally Published Book says, we’re out to “level the reading field!”

You can see (and download) the catalog of books exhibited here. And, you can explore the full IBPA photo album here.

IBPA's In-Booth Author Signings

Over ALAAC17’s four days, seventeen (17) IBPA member books were represented in IBPA's in-booth author signings. Many publishers signed up for more than one half-hour time slot. Author MaryTherese Grabowski and illustrator Michelle Graham Fricks signed up for eight signings in total (one hour on each of the four exhibition days) to share with librarians the latest chapter book in their series on civics: The Great Missing Flag Caper (Waypoint Press). During one of their signings, they managed to have a conversation with a librarian from the Library of Congress who wants to explore collaborating with them on a future book in the series – an opportunity they would never have landed if they hadn’t been there, smiling and signing books in the IBPA cooperative booth.

MaryTherese Grabowski (right) and Michelle Graham Fricks (left) sign copies of their chapter book, THE GREAT MISSING FLAG CAPER, in IBPA's cooperative booth at the 2017 ALA Annual Conference.

IBPA member Nancy Doyle signs copies of her book, MANAGE YOUR FINANCIAL LIFE, in IBPA's cooperative booth during the 2017 ALA Annual Conference.

Author Nancy Doyle used the opportunity of signing her book on financial literacy for women, Manage Your Financial Life (The Doyle Group), to let the librarians know that she loves doing financial literacy programs for libraries, and had a hand-out ready to go on the different topics she offers!

And Old Stone Press authors Robert Arthur Neff (Über Alles: A Novel of Love, Loyalty and Political Intrigue in World War II) and Retired Major Jason Criss Howk (The Qur’an: A Chronological Modern English Interpretation) were there for each other, helping draw a crowd to the other’s signings.

Most authors ran out of books before their signing time ended, which we all agreed was a good problem to have. Often, librarians who missed out on getting a free copy would take a catalog (or even a photo of the title) to make sure they purchased one later.

One more note on perceived value...

On a quick break from helping with the author signings, I ran into some people I knew in the indoor lounge area. As we stood talking, someone came by holding two copies of their book in their hands, and with this intense, slightly desperate energy, walked around the space offering, “FREE BOOKS! FREE BOOKS!” No one in the area took the author up on their offer. The ‘selling point’ can’t simply be that a book is free. You have to be able to answer the questions.... What’s the hook? Why would a person want to read it? And, outside of a professional booth setting (like IBPA’s) how does a person know it is a professionally-published title?

Capturing Leads

Across the show’s four days, Terry Nathan and I scanned the name badges of over 600 librarians who came into the IBPA cooperative booth and expressed interest in at least one of our titles on display (and some were interested in multiple books!). Those scans gave us the name, email, position, and library information on each attendee, wonderful leads that we’ll be sharing with all the publishers who had a book in our booth.

And, speaking of multiples, many librarians came back to our booth multiple times, because there were other author signings and give-aways of other books they were interested in. A few apologized to me for showing up again, and I assured them, “We love that you’re back. It means you’re a librarian who believes in the power of independent voices, just like we do!”

IBPA's Twitter feed spiked with traffic as well, topping 7,900 organic impressions during the show. Follow us @IBPA, and you can see all the ALA show tweets with the hashtag #alaac17.

The over 600 librarians who shared with us their information via lead scanning will receive a digital copy of IBPA's 2017 ALA Annual Conference Book Catalog (pictured here) to explore when they get home.

Conclusion

All in all, ALA felt like a valuable opportunity for our participating members, and I already can’t wait to represent IBPA and our members at ALAAC18 in New Orleans, LA: June 21-26, 2018.

With ALA's annual conference the place for librarians to be – and the place for publishers and authors to have their books discovered by librarians – look for us to open up registration for participating in IBPA's booth at ALA's 2018 Conference and Exhibition soon.

A Final Word of "Thanks!"

A big “Thank you!” to IBPA members Carla Bass (pictured below) and Tory Hartmann (First Friday: How Virginity Almost Killed Me, Sand Hill Review Press) for not just signing their own books, but also volunteering in the IBPA cooperative booth and representing all their fellow members’ books to interested librarians.

Carla Bass signs copies of her book, WRITE TO INFLUENCE! (Gatekeeper Press), in IBPA's cooperative booth at the 2017 ALA Annual Conference.

Following the show, Carla wrote us to say, "THIS was THE place to be! I made so many connections, working (nicely) -- schmoozing -- librarians as we waited in bus lines, sharing information about the book as they sat waiting for the 0900 opening, and more. And, I was agog this morning to see that the paperback of Write to Influence! hit 29,000 yesterday on Amazon ranking out of 8 million. Previously, 125,000 was a great number; 325,000 - 400,000 was the norm. It occasionally dipped to 800,000. Unsure what all contributed to this remarkable (for me) turn... but doing handstands, figuratively, of course!"

Congratulations, Carla.

And congratulations to everyone who participated in IBPA's cooperative booth at ALA's 2017 Annual Conference!

By Lyn Dunsavage Young --

Melissa Palmer

Melissa Palmer, author of Baking for Dave, was effusive about her book signing at the largest book show in the U.S. on June 2. “BookExpo was unbelievable! Everyone was so interested and amazing. It was so user-friendly to navigate and meet people — big publishers, small publishers, tons of small presses and big presses–and they all were so open and receptive. I couldn’t believe it.”

“There were busloads of librarians, and they were so enthusiastic. We ran out of books to sign, even though I brought extras from home. And, now, they (the librarians and bookstores) want me to come to meet with them in Cape May County and Avalon and in North Jersey. God bless the summer in New Jersey because they (beach people) read books!”

She said it wasn’t anything like the academic conferences she has attended as an English professor at a junior college in  New Jersey. “In the academic conferences, you often feel like the kid at the dance no one will talk to–particularly if you teach at a small school, where many academics from larger institutions act like pickles because they don’t think you have something to discuss with them.”

Melissa Palmer

Another Sensory World author, Rachel S. Schneider, signed copies of her first book, Making Sense: A Guide to Sensory Issues.  She said it was “such a special opportunity to both represent and support the Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) community, and an exciting experience as a new author and literary nerd!” Since her own diagnosis in 2010, Rachel has wanted to achieve for the SPD community what Temple Grandin has achieved for the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) community: writing and speaking enough to make SPD as commonly known as ASD is today. She saw her time at BookExpo as yet another great platform to reach anyone impacted by SPD. And she did.

During Rachel’s book signing and author meet-and-greet, one woman was passing by the booth and stopped short when she saw the enlarged cover of Making Sense next to the table. “She said, ‘sensory! I need to talk to you about my son!’ and told me all about her child, who was being evaluated for what she called ‘something–not Autism or ADHD, but something in between,’” Rachel related.

“Of course, I jumped right in with my usual SPD-advocacy-related questioning: do any senses bother him in particular? Do any senses seem to bring him comfort? Does he seem to have no particular issue connecting socially? Does he seem anxious? And it was clear that her son had SPD. We talked about tools to help him at school and at home, and she asked me to sign her copy of Making Sense to her child, hoping that someday he’ll read it and own his diagnosis much as I have.”

Rachel is thrilled to know at least one person’s day was made and one more sensory child will be understood. Two special needs teachers/librarians also came by to get Rachel’s book signed, saying how excited they were to see a book that could impact their work in the classroom.

Melissa, also, cited her most unusual experience, which was that she was “recognized.” She was on an escalator going down when she heard a group of people going up, saying to one another, “Isn’t that Melissa Palmer?” “It is! I’m sure it IS Melissa Palmer.” They waved as she was going one way and they another, so she waved back almost timidly. Later, she classified the experience as “surreal.”

Melissa wondered later if the person might have been a bill collector.

Both authors were surprised by something they didn’t expect at all, which was that they were, well, “authors.” Both also came away with different experiences but a common theme. “It wasn’t anything I expected it to be,” mused Melissa. “The one thing I can say is that I made a great friend, and Rachel and I will be doing shows together in the future.” Rachel agreed. “Meeting Melissa was like connecting with an old friend. We couldn’t find and hug each other quickly enough.”

That’s because they both intimately understand sensory issues and work so that others know the meaning of those two words.

Melissa was part of a full page story on the New York event reported on June 6 in L’idea Magazine, an Italian publication, written by poet/journalist Tiziano Thomas Dossena. He told her he listened to her meetings with all who attended the event because he was in a booth beside her, and that she was the most honest person he’d ever met. She will be speaking at NJBooks on that subject – “honesty in writing books” -- next week to people who hope to write a book.

2017 marked the 34th year that the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) represented member titles at BookExpo. Much has changed in three decades, of course, but the rapidity of change over the past several years has been especially head spinning. The introduction of BookCon in 2014 has proved a major precipitator of this change, but it’s not the only factor to consider. Incredibly high booth prices, an increased focus on celebrity authors and Big 5 publishers, and the intentional squeezing out of technology providers, self-published authors, book bloggers, and small presses have all contributed to a rapid shift in how the industry experiences BookExpo today.

According to ReedPOP, the organization that produces both BookExpo and BookCon, “BookExpo is meant to create meaningful interactions in a focused professional environment while BookCon is built to directly connect fans with the authors and brands they love.” In other words, BookExpo is a B2B show and BookCon is a B2C show.

For now, let’s leave BookCon aside and talk directly about BookExpo. The 2017 BookExpo shrunk in multiple ways.

• The name shrunk from BookExpo America to just “BookExpo.”
• The timeline shrunk from a three-day show to a two-day show.
• The total event attendance shrunk from around 20,000 attendees in 2015 (the last time BookExpo was in New York City) to around 7,500 attendees in 2017.

In addition, I read in Brooke Warner’s extremely honest recap of the show, “The Incredible Shrinking BookExpo: A 2017 Recap From An Indie Publisher’s Perspective,” that she heard eight years ago BookExpo’s floor space was 600,000 square feet (including booths, rights, stages, programming, etc.) and that this year it was 98,000. One-sixth of the size. This is hearsay, of course, and can’t be proven. Regardless, the fact that many joked about the professional sports that could be played in the extremely wide aisles exemplifies how “airy” the show floor was in 2017.

It felt small because it was small. As mentioned above, total conference attendance in 2015 was verified by ReedPOP at 20,895. In 2017, exhibit hall and conference attendance (excluding exhibitors) was verified by ReedPOP at 7,425. Since ReedPOP hasn't (yet) released exhibitor numbers for 2017 I can't say how much the addition of these would change the conversation. It won't be by more than a couple thousand, however.

The spin from BookExpo is that the drop in attendance was intentional. Brien McDonald, Event Director for BookExpo and BookCon, explained it this way:

Brien McDonald

"As many of you know, our main goal for BookExpo this year was to curate a high-quality attendance of the people exhibitors told us they value the most. We did this through a professional application process that reviewed and qualified all non-buying categories like self-published authors, bloggers, digital service providers and consultants. The result was a solid group of 7,425 attendees comprised primarily of booksellers, librarians, retailers and media. This gave the right people the time and space for meaningful interactions on the show floor.

From IBPA’s perspective (and mine), there is so much wrong with the statement above. The main issue is the deliberate snubbing of non-traditional players. BookExpo used to be a place where book industry professionals, the new and the seasoned, could all gather and learn from one another. It was a celebration of all things publishing. Now it’s a show for the Big 5. We’ve been feeling the pinch here at IBPA for a few years, but still believed there was value for the IBPA members who displayed and attended the show. Considering this year’s show, our views are changing.

IBPA Activities at BookExpo and BookCon

Before expanding on IBPA’s changing views of the show itself, I want to take a second to highlight some of the amazing books and people that participated in the 2017 show as a benefit of their IBPA membership. BookExpo may be shrinking, but the quality of books coming out of independent publishing certainly isn’t.

Spanning 50 feet and featuring 280 unique titles, IBPA’s cooperative booth was a beacon of inclusivity and activity for members and non-members alike. In addition to displaying our members’ books, IBPA staff facilitated thirty-two in-booth author signings, hosted a networking cocktail hour, and recorded six author interviews. We’re excited about these interactive elements because of how they help level the playing field for independent publishers by providing cost effective (in the case of the cocktail reception: free!) on-site marketing and networking opportunities.

IBPA's 50-foot cooperative booth at BookExpo 2017 in New York City.

Author, artist, and musician Michael Koep signs copies of his book, LEAVES OF FIRE, in IBPA's cooperative booth during BookExpo 2017. Koep is published by IBPA member Will Dreamly Arts. LEAVES OF FIRE is part 2 in his Newirth Mythology series. (Also pictured: IBPA staff member Joanne Kenny scans attendee badges, capturing leads that are then shared with the participating publisher.)

Author, storyteller, developer, and performer of children’s programs Jason Edwards (right) works with IBPA CEO Angela Bole (left) during BookExpo 2017 to craft an script for a 5-minute interview about his book series the CHRONICLES OF THE MONSTER DETECTIVE AGENCY.

The full catalog of member titles displayed during BookExpo/BookCon 2017 is available here. The full photo album is here. All videos from the show were recorded and edited by NYC videographer Jim Chan of Visualgnome.

In addition to general titles, IBPA was honored to display twenty-eight winners of the 29th annual IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards™. One of these books was Oaxaca Stories in Cloth: A Book About People, Belonging, Identify, and Adornment (ISBN: 978-0983886082), a beautiful photography book published by Thrums Books with an even more beautiful origin story. Oaxaca Stories in Cloth is representative of the quality work produced by independent publishers. Take a peek via the video below.

We didn’t just bring books onsite, of course, we also brought people. In 2017, IBPA ordered 146 badges for members who wanted to attend the expo. Most were free badges connected to displaying a book in IBPA’s cooperative booth. The rest were discounted badges saving members 100s of dollars off the general badge price. Honestly, I wish more members would take advantage of the free or discounted badge benefit. Experiencing BookExpo first-hand is still one of the best ways to understand how the traditional book industry works and stay connected to colleagues and others who can be a benefit to you (…and who you can benefit).

I, for example, held meetings with several organizations in my role as CEO of IBPA with the goal of helping level the playing field for our members. Here is the list of organizations I held meetings with:

• American Booksellers Association
• Authors Guild
• Book Industry Study Group
• BookLife
  
• Copyright Clearance Center
• Foreword Reviews
• Independent Publishers Group
• Ingram Content Group
• IngramSpark
• National Book Foundation
• NetGalley
• Publishers Weekly
• Smashwords

A consistent agenda item for my meetings with the organizations above was the introduction of IBPA's Industry Standards Checklist for a Professionally Published Book. In March 2017, IBPA's Advocacy Committee published the Industry Standards Checklist with the goal of providing book authors and industry professionals an at-a-glance gauge of the professional presentation of any book in order to help level the playing field between indie publishers and large-scale conglomerates. I'm happy to report the checklist was warmly received by those I spoke to. More about the checklist and the goals surrounding its publication is available online.

I could take all the meetings above in large part because of the amazing IBPA staff and volunteers who made sure the IBPA cooperative booth was covered. This year, three IBPA members volunteered their time to assist in the cooperative booth. Many thanks go to Don Stevens of Merge Publishing, Ebonye Gussine Wilkins of August Rose Press, and Kimberly Peticolas of Bigger Pocket Books for the numerous hours they spent on their feet talking with booth visitors about the IBPA member books on display.

In addition, I’m sincerely grateful for those members who purchased a private booth through IBPA. These members were:

— American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)
— Buddha's Light Publications USA Corp.
— Florida Authors and Publishers Association
— Solution Tree
— Total Printing Systems

Finally, it’s no exaggeration to say this program would not be possible without the incredible dedication and overall good cheer of Terry Nathan, IBPA Chief Operations Officer, and Joanne Kenny, IBPA Member Benefits Liaison. Thank you, Terry and Joanne, for all you do!

The IBPA cooperative booth team consisted of staff and member volunteers alike. From left to right: Ebonye Gussine Wilkins (August Rose Press - volunteer), Don Stevens (Merge Publishing - volunteer), Angela Bole (IBPA - staff), Terry Nathan (IBPA - staff), Joanne Kenny (IBPA - staff), and Kimberly Peticolas (Bigger Pockets Books - volunteer).

What about BookCon?

Again, BookCon, held Saturday and Sunday, is billed as a show connecting “fans with the authors and brands they love.” The fans are mostly teenage girls and the authors are mostly big sellers. If you’re trying to reach either a YA audience or readers in their 20s, the show could work for you from a business perspective. Or, I think it could be fun to attend as a fan girl or boy. Unless you're interested in one of these two options, however (i.e., reaching younger readers or participating as a fan), I recommend giving it a pass.

Looking Ahead

The show floor chatter about the health of BookExpo wasn’t positive. Many people speculated that ReedPOP may, in fact, be phasing out BookExpo in favor of BookCon. Bets were made as to how long this phase out might take and where the industry would go for its B2B interactions should it happen.

ReedPOP heard the grumblings and addressed them in a June 7, 2017 letter to exhibitors (copied below) where they reaffirmed their commitment to a BookExpo, BookCon combo. Even so, in its current form, BookExpo is much less inclusive then it used to be and the value proposition for smaller independent publishers and self-published authors is becoming harder and harder to see.

At its best, BookExpo is where the industry meets and reinvigorates itself, leaving attendees exhausted, but inspired. This could still be the case for IBPA members who attend the show in person and IBPA will promote physical attendance for 2018. I think there is still value in attending and getting a sense for what the traditional book industry is all about. In addition, through IBPA, you can participate in an author signing, record an author interview, and gain access to the educational sessions.

On the other hand, it’s becoming harder and harder for us to promote passive book display without physical attendance. Foot traffic is something unknown publishers with limited budgets depend on and BookExpo’s smaller attendance numbers mean less foot traffic. At the same time, those 7,425 people who did attend seemed to skip the traditional browsing that was such a part of previous shows in favor of jumping from pre-planned meeting to pre-planned meeting – a good enough use of time, I suppose, but not something that fosters the serendipitous discovery of new books.

The net outcome of all above is that the value proposition for passive book display alone simply isn’t there. It’s too early to know exactly how, but I can imagine IBPA’s cooperative booth to be a very different place in 2018 as we move to a focus on active opportunities (attendance, book signings, author interviews, educational sessions, etc.) rather than passive display.

Stay tuned for further details about IBPA programming at BookExpo and BookCon 2018. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below or email them to me directly at angela@ibpa-online.org. I’d be happy to hear from you.

Below, in full, is the recap letter sent from Brien McDonald, Event Director of BookExpo and BookCon, to all BookExpo exhibitors.

LEADING THE BOOK INDUSTRY INTO THE FUTURE

Dear Exhibitor,

Thank you for participating in this year's BookExpo and BookCon. Instead of the usual press release to recap the state of the show, I wanted to share my thoughts with you directly.

Like the book industry our event is in transition, but the story remains the same ...BookExpo is meant to create meaningful interactions in a focused professional environment while BookCon is built to directly connect fans with the authors and brands they love. They are both designed to energize and empower our industry.

As we just experienced, BookExpo and BookCon are powerful platforms to launch books to your most important audiences: trade, media and readers. We are proud of the work we are doing with BookCon as it provides value to our customers in a rapidly changing market, but these changes will not come at the expense of BookExpo's B2B environment. Serving the trade is more important and crucial than ever.

BookCon was created to support and celebrate the powerful position readers hold while continuing to drive value to BookExpo. These two worlds must coexist at our events just as they do in the market. One will not grow at the expense of the other; it's the combination of the two that make our events so invaluable.

Last week gave us a lot to celebrate as an industry. Attendance at our education sessions and author talks was exceptionally high and audiences engaged with a diverse lineup that showcased the new face of the industry and reflected a more modern readership. It was a week where booksellers and librarians grew connections through workshops, panels, luncheons and networking receptions. We connected exhibitors and attendees in new ways, some digital and some analog. We personally matched over one hundred exhibitors and attendees in our new Recommendations booth, hosted a roundtable for museum store buyers, toured key buyers through the show floor to introduce them to exhibitors and gave customers the tools to arrange meetings beforehand and capture data onsite.

Now let's talk about numbers. As many of you know our main goal for BookExpo this year was to curate a high-quality attendance of the people exhibitors told us they value the most. We did this through a professional application process that reviewed and qualified all non-buying categories like self-published authors, bloggers, digital service providers and consultants. The result was a solid group of 7,425 attendees comprised primarily of booksellers, librarians, retailers and media. All of these categories were up drastically from last year. This gave the right people the time and space for meaningful interactions on the show floor. For BookCon we're proud to say we hit our goal of 20,000 fans - an amazing community of passionate readers.

We do recognize that our choice to make the event more compact on the calendar created challenges for domestic and international exhibitors that seek only B2B interaction and we are actively addressing those challenges. Very soon you will see a strategy that is more productive for these communities and in line with our commitment to a robust trade environment and are eager to strengthen distribution, rights and international business at the show.

Ultimately, we know that creating strong connections between authors, brands, retailers and readers is critical for the health of the industry. We also know that an effective trade event that injects vibrancy and celebrates books in the publishing capital of the U.S. is equally critical. We are working hard to make sure BookExpo reflects both of these and evolves to meet the needs of an industry that has transformed significantly in the hundred years since this event was conceived. This evolution is not without its challenges, we know this and see it but we remain committed to refining the amazing core that is BookExpo and pushing our combined platform to new heights as the place to launch books in the largest publishing market in the world.

Thank you again for your participation and I encourage you to contact me with any questions or thoughts you have.

Brien McDonald
Event Director | BookExpo & BookCon

IBPA staff take meetings with rights agents in the IBPA cooperative booth at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair.

What’s the Big Deal?

It was clear that independent publishing was alive and well at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair, with indie publishers and authors commanding a larger presence than ever before. For example, two hundred and nine (209) individual books were on display in IBPA’s cooperative booth (up from 192 in 2015 and 179 in 2014). Keep in mind that this number does not account for the independent books on display in our partner booths – representing members who purchased their own private booth through IBPA. The books from IBPA's partner booths combined with the books from our cooperative booth easily exceeded a thousand new books for the international community to enjoy!

So what’s the big deal? Why are independent publishers and authors investing their time, resources, and energy in the Frankfurt Book Fair? Why was IBPA even there?

According to Publishers Weekly:

"The Frankfurt Book Fair...reported that total attendance at the fair rose modestly for the second year in a row. On the trade side, attendance was up 1.3%, with 142,300 trade visitors this year, compared to 140,474 in 2015. In total, including the public day of the fair, attendance topped 277,000, a modest increase over the 275,791 that attended last year."

277,000 visitors – is that a lot? To put this number into perspective, one could compare it to the London Book Fair (considered second only to the Frankfurt Book Fair), an event that welcomed 25,000 attendees from 124 countries earlier this year, and North America’s biggest event for publishing, BookExpo, which reported a total event attendance of 17,249.

Knowing everything above, you can understand why people describe the Frankfurt Book Fair as the mecca for all publishers, booksellers, rights agents, and media trend-spotters: they’re not exaggerating. The Frankfurt Book Fair, properly known as Frankfurter Buchmesse, is the place to be, or at least the premier event to have your book displayed, if you, your book, or both, are looking for international exposure.

IBPA at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair

IBPA supports members' books at the Frankfurt Book Fair in a few different ways. Many IBPA members purchase a single-title display in the IBPA cooperative booth ($185/title). In addition to the onsite, face-out display, those who sign up for single-title display are added to the show catalog which is sent to IBPA's exclusive list of 600+ international contacts. Other members opt for the full-shelf display, which accommodates 4-5 books along with catalogs or sell sheets ($700/shelf, including dedicated company signage).

This year’s onsite staff included myself and IBPA Chief Operations Officer Terry Nathan.

During the Fair, Terry and I met with over 75 foreign rights agents and publishers (up from 63 appointments in 2015). Each meeting lasts 15-30 minutes. During these meetings, we got a sense of the buyer's particular area of interest and what may be happening in their local publishing scene.

Interest areas are often quite specific. Sometimes we'll have many titles for the rights agent to consider; other times just a few. In rare cases, of course, we won't have anything at all. But, like everything else in the publishing business, it’s all about building relationships. For example, Terry met with a pair of publishers from Greece who explained that the Greek economy is a bit "upside down" right now and they were not at the show to acquire rights. Instead, they made the trip to maintain the relationships they've built over many years, including the relationship with IBPA. Next year, or perhaps the year after, they will be ready to buy again. When this happens, IBPA will be there.

Following the Fair, members displaying in IBPA's cooperative booth received a report of all of meetings held and any interest experienced in their particular book.

A complete catalog of titles represented in IBPA’s cooperative booth is available online. And, to take a look at each book displayed, check out the photo album on Facebook.

IBPA Chief Operations Officer Terry Nathan talks about the books on display in IBPA's cooperative booth with one of over 75 foreign rights agents.

There's Strength in Numbers

In addition to representing members’ titles in the IBPA cooperative booth, Terry and I were privileged to be joined on the show floor by those members who chose to purchase a private booth through IBPA. Together, our presence secured almost a whole aisle in Hall 6.0!

IBPA would like to give special thanks to Stephanie Beard at Turner Publishing, Sara Hartman-Seeskin at Sourcebooks; Maria Kjoller at Lerner Publishing; Bill Krause at Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd.; Dorothy Smyk at New Harbinger Publications; Brooke O’Donnell, Joe Matthews, and Paul Murphy at Independent Publishers Group; Sabine Weeke at Findhorn Press; Stephen Buda at J. Ross Publishing; Jim Schmelzer at Publishers’ Services International; John Atkin at Silvermine International Books; and Ethan Atkin at Cranbury International.

By signing up to host their own booth with IBPA, these members received free freight to the Fair and booth support on site. We look forward to hosting them again in 2017.

Sourcebooks' booth at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair.

The Frankfurt Book Fair Isn't All Suits and Ties

Two German girls dressed as the characters from a Japanese anime called Chobits.

From October 19-21, 2016, publishing and multimedia companies from all over the world were briskly walking from one appointment to another, either negotiating international publishing rights or exchanging information for future dealings. Each booth occupied by at least two individuals sitting across from each other around a small table; catalogs and books sprawled between them. These three days alone welcomed 142,300 trade visitors – professionals who attend the Fair for the purpose of doing business.

The last two days of the Fair, however, hosted a different crowd. Non-trade visitors — also known as the "public"— were invited to attend the Fair on October 22-23, 2016. This year, officials reported that over 84,700 non-trade visitors attended the two-day public event.

The majority of visitors were German locals looking to buy books in German or discover interesting English-language books. Many German teenagers came as Cosplayers, dressed up as their favorite characters from animated films, comics, books, and manga. For us, Saturday and Sunday felt like a completely different Fair!

IBPA at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair

Next year, the Frankfurt Book Fair will take place October 11-15, 2017. IBPA is happy to announce we will again host a cooperative booth at the Fair (our 32nd year in attendance!). We look forward to displaying your book.

More information is available here. If you have questions, feel free to e-mail us at info@ibpa-online.org or call our office at (310) 546-1818.

For the first time in 12 years, BookExpo and BookCon took root in Chicago, Illinois May 11-13, 2016 (BookExpo) and May 14, 2016 (BookCon) and, as always, IBPA was there to support our growing membership of independent publishers.

This was the 33rd year IBPA staffed a large cooperative booth on the BookExpo show floor. For kicks, here’s a photo of IBPA’s excellent Chief Operations Officer, Terry Nathan (left) with his mother, and IBPA founder, Jan Nathan (right) supporting Jamie Farr, the actor from M*A*S*H, at the 1994 convention.

From left to right: Terry Nathan, Jamie Farr, Jan Nathan.; IBPA’s Cooperative Booth (1994).

But I digress….

Helping Each Other Achieve & Succeed

Over the years, IBPA has learned a lot about trade show participation. For me, the most important lesson continues to be how the strength of collaboration can so often outbalance the pitfalls of competition. IBPA distributed 180 convention badges to members displaying in the 2016 show. Several hundred additional members secured badges on their own or through their distributor. With this much support onsite, independent publishing looked and felt alive and well in IBPA’s cooperative booth. It was a hive of activity and created a soft place to land for many of those new to the convention.

IBPA Members – Front and Center…

As many of you know, IBPA’s vision is a world where every independent publisher has the tools and knowledge needed to professionally engage in all aspects of the publishing industry. When it comes to BEA, this means an impressive, professionally staffed booth on the BookExpo/BookCon show floor where IBPA members can be seen and heard in equal measure to the “Big 5.” Through careful location selection, we make sure IBPA’s cooperative booth is strategically placed year after year. In 2016, IBPA’s booth neighbors included Sourcebooks, Ingram, Penguin Random House, and Harlequin, to name a few. This placement – as opposed to placement on the fringes of the show floor – ensures strong foot traffic from interested buyers, librarians, and bloggers.

…and Busy as Always

Spanning 50 feet and featuring 333 unique titles, IBPA’s cooperative booth was a active area for members and non-members alike. In addition to displaying our members’ books, IBPA staff facilitated thirty-eight in-booth author signings, hosted a networking cocktail hour, and recorded eight author interviews. We’re excited about these interactive elements because of how they help level the playing field for independent publishers by providing cost effective (in the case of the cocktail reception: free!) on-site marketing and networking opportunities.

The full catalog of member titles displayed during BookExpo/BookCon 2016 is available here. The full photo album is here.

Day 1: IBPA’s cooperative booth at BookExpo/BookCon 2016 all set up and ready to go!

From left to right: Kathryn Kemp Guylay hangs out in IBPA’s cooperative booth with fellow members Jackie and Todd Courtney.

This was the first year of BookExpo attendance for IBPA member Don Stevens of Merge Publishing. Here Don writes about his experience as a first-time attendee and why he thinks publishers need BEA.

On the flip side, IBPA member Elizabeth Turnbull of Light Messages Publishing has been attending BookExpo since 2012. Here Elizabeth writes about growing into BookExpo over five years of participation.

Many BEA activities require pre-planning. Because of being on the ball, IBPA member Kathryn Kemp Guylay earned an opportunity to pitch her book on the main BookExpo Selects Author Stage after applying and being accepted to the program in advance. Kathryn passed out book vouchers during her talk and dozens of happy professionals walked away with a copy of her book, Give It a Go: Eat a Rainbow.

In addition, several members of IBPA’s Board of Directors were invited to present educational programming from the uPublishU stage on the show floor and eight IBPA members recorded personal interviews from the show floor to use in promotional materials after the convention.

IBPA Board of Directors member, Brooke Warner, of She Writes Press talks about her book, GREEN-LIGHT YOUR BOOK, from the uPublishU stage.

IBPA member Michael C. Higgins, PhD (right) is interviewed on camera by IBPA CEO Angela Bole (left) about his book, EXPLORING WINE REGIONS: ARGENTINA.

The Move to Chicago

Regardless of whether they attended as a newbie or a veteran, IBPA members at BookExpo/BookCon in Chicago, Illinois experienced a departure from the normal Javits Center experience in New York City. Expectedly, the show was smaller. Press estimates say the exhibition space on the 2016 show floor was down nearly 20% from last year at the Javits Center.

It did, indeed, feel like a smaller show which translated to some as “more manageable” and to others as “slow” depending on their point of view. In a Publishers Weekly article, for example, Heather Doss, national accounts manager at HarperCollins, said she appreciated the roomier feel McCormick Place offered, as compared to the Javits Center. “I don’t feel like the aisles are as crammed,” she said. “It could be that there’s less traffic or fewer publishers [here], but it’s easier to get around. And all the bloggers and accounts I’ve talked to seem to be happy.”

And, in the same article, Michael Tucker, president and CEO of the bookstore San Francisco’s Books Inc., said he thought having the show repeatedly in New York was getting tiresome. It was becoming, he said, “a little too much like the horse coming back to the barn.” He then added: “I hope we see more booksellers from other parts of the country.”

Read:
BEA 2016: For Booksellers, Change of Venue Welcome. For the Big Houses, Not So Much

The Buzz about BookCon

2016 marked the third year of ReedPOP’s BEA add-on program, BookCon. In layman’s terms, BEA is the professional trade show and BookCon is the consumer show. General readers are not allowed to attend BEA. This keeps BookExpo more “business.” BookCon, alternatively, was built for readers, thus keeping it more “marketing.”

According to the BookCon website:

“BookCon is the event where storytelling and pop culture collide. Consumers and brands will experience the origin of the story in all its forms by interacting with the authors, publishers, celebrities, and creators of content that influence everything we read, hear and see.”

Over 7,000 consumers attended BookCon in Chicago. This was down from 18,000 in 2015 and 10,000 in 2014. This was too be expected in a smaller city like Chicago.

One of my favorite articles about BookCon remains the one published by Vulture just before the program launched in 2014.

Read:
Can a Comic Con Approach Work for the Book Industry?

Following a general analysis of BookCon’s pros and cons, the author concludes “there’s still a lot to figure out, and a fire or two to extinguish.” Two years later, things are a little more clear, but there’s still a lot to figure out about how publishers can best participate. As of now, consumers attend to hear celebrities talk about their upcoming books. When taking a break from this, they walk the show floor looking for free stuff. The environment doesn’t contain much for a self-published author or small press to grab onto. As of today, it is IBPA’s intention to skip BookCon in 2017.

In Appreciation

IBPA Member Benefits Liaison, Joanne Kenny, (left) with IBPA Project Coordinator, Mimi Le (right)

IBPA is a service organization and when we find good people committed to helping others achieve and succeed, we snatch them up!

This year, we were joined at BEA/BookCon by our new Member Benefits Liaison, Joanne Kenny. Joanne joined the IBPA team in February 2016 to help guide and develop our member benefits program. You can reach her directly at joanne@ibpa-online.org. Please don’t hesitate to reach out. I know she’s happy to help!

In addition, our Project Coordinator, Mimi Le, joined us for her second BookExpo. With a year of experience under her belt, she was able to provide an even higher level of service than before – if that’s possible! She managed the thirty-eight in-booth author signings with professionalism and kind regard. She also captured over 500 leads to share will all exhibiting members. Thank you, Mimi!

Of course, special thanks to the members of IBPA’s board of directors who helped spread the word about member titles on display and IBPA in general during educational sessions held throughout the convention. These board members were: Robin Cutler (IngramSpark), Brooke Warner (She Writes Press), Joshua Tallent (Firebrand Technologies), Karla Olson (Patagonia Books), and Elizabeth Turnbull (Light Messages Publishing).

And, I’m sincerely grateful for those members who purchased a private booth through IBPA. These members were:

— American Academy of Pediatrics
— Bookpress Publishing
— Boys Town Press
— Buddha’s Light Publishing
— Total Printing Systems
— Solution Tree

Finally, it’s no exaggeration to say this program would not be possible without the incredible dedication and overall good cheer of Terry Nathan, IBPA Chief Operations Officer. Thank you, Terry…again!

We’ll See You Next Year!

The large community of IBPA members (over 3,100 in total) truly embody our association motto: “Helping Each Other Achieve & Succeed.” It was a privilege to work along side so many of you at BEA/BookCon 2016.

We’re already planning for next year. We want to make the experience even bigger and better for IBPA members. Please send me your suggestions or leave them in the comments below. I’m happy to have them and hope to see you on the road sometime soon!

BookExpo 2017: June 1-2, 2017
BookCon 2017: June 3-4, 2017
Location: Javits Center, New York City

About the Author

Just before Angela Bole became IBPA’s CEO, she was Deputy Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG), which fosters conversation and consensus across all sectors of the book business. Before that, Angela served for two years as BISG’s Associate Director and two years as its Marketing and Communications Manager.

Angela also serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of IDPF, the International Digital Publishing Forum.

Months before the Frankfurt Book Fair, many IBPA members called the IBPA office and asked, “What is the Frankfurt Book Fair and why should I participate?”

One could pull the generic description from the Buchmesse official website and recite, “The Frankfurt Book Fair is a meeting place for the industry’s experts and the most important marketplace for books, media, rights and licenses worldwide. Be they publishers, booksellers, agents, film producers or authors – each year in October, they all come together and create something new.”

However, that doesn’t address the root of the question, which is: “Why should I (an independent publisher/self-published author) care about the Frankfurt Book Fair?”

As the book industry sees a growth in self-published and independently published books (according to Bowker, “self-published titles in 2013 increased to more than 458,564, up 17 percent over 2012 and 437 percent over 2008”), gaining traction – whether it be getting into more libraries and bookstores, receiving more interest by the media, or selling/buying foreign rights and licenses – proves to be harder than ever as the competition grows more fierce.

What makes the Frankfurt Book Fair so unique compared to other trade shows is that it provides a unique opportunity for publishers (both big and small) to trade rights face-to-face. Furthermore, it is a gathering place of the largest international professional crowd. Put these two factors together and you see why attending the Frankfurt Book Fair is so important.

IBPA understands though, that not everyone has the time and resources to attend, which is why we are happy to support members’ books on their behalf at the Frankfurt Book Fair. IBPA is pleased to offer members the opportunity to display their books in our Cooperative Booth, or to reserve a booth of their own at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair. Members can learn more about these options here.

IBPA at the 2015 Frankfurt Book Fair

On October 14-18, 2015, the Frankfurt Book Fair brought 140,474 book professionals to Frankfurt, Germany (a 2.3% increase over the 140,291 who were at the event last). A part of that total attendance was IBPA’s Chief Operations Officer, Terry Nathan, and Project Coordinator, Mimi Le. On behalf of IBPA, they crossed the Atlantic Ocean to represent one hundred ninety-two (192) member titles (up from 179 titles represented in 2014). This year marked IBPA’s 30th year at the world’s largest book fair.

During the Fair, Terry met with 40 foreign rights buyers and Mimi took 23 walk-in appointments. Each meeting with a foreign rights buyer lasts 15-30 minutes. The first thing to be done is to get a sense of a particular area of interest. Interest areas are generally very narrow. Sometimes we have many titles for them to consider; sometimes just a few. In rare cases, we won’t have anything at all. But, like everything else in this business, it’s a matter of building relationships.

A complete catalog of titles represented in IBPA’s cooperative booth is available online and will be sent in a follow-up email to all IBPA’s foreign rights contacts. To take a look at each book displayed, check out the photo album on Facebook. Members displaying in the IBPA booth recently received a report of all of meetings and interest experienced at this year’s show.

IBPA’s general counsel, Jonathan Kirsch, has also developed a sample foreign rights licensing contract for IBPA members. The contract is included in our official Membership Benefits Handbook, available upon request.

Supporting Our Partners

In addition to representing our members’ titles in the cooperative booth, we were equally privileged to have been joined on the show floor by those members who chose to purchase a private booth through IBPA.

Special thanks to Ethan Atkin at Cranbury International, Sabine Weeke at Findhorn Press, Brooke O’Donnell, Joe Matthews, and Mark Voigt at Independent Publishers Group, Stephen Buda at J. Ross Publishing, Maria Kjoller at Lerner Publishing Group, Bill Krause at Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., Dorothy Smyk at New Harbinger Publications, Jim Schmelzer at Publishers’ Services International, John Atkin at Silvermine International Books, and Valerie Pierce, Dominique Raccah and Sara Hartman-Seeskin at Sourcebooks.

By signing up to host their own booth with IBPA, these members received free freight to the Fair in addition to booth support on site. We look forward to hosting them again in 2016!

Beyond the “Trade” Visitors

The Frankfurt Book Fair isn’t only known for pulling in the largest professional crowd. This year, like many years before it, consumers were invited to attend the last two days of the fair. The internationally renowned publishing trade fair also offered free admission to refugees and provided guides who spoke their language, in light of the massive arrival of refugees in Germany. According to Frankfurt officials, consumers made up a little less than half of the 275,791 total attendance this year.

Walking down the exhibit halls, these “non-trade” visitors were hard to miss. Dressed in their favorite characters from animated films, comics, books, and manga, their presence transformed the book fair into a magical world similar to that of the books that were on display.

According to the official press release:

“The weekend proved that true fans of literature are not put off by cold weather. Visitors thronged in front of the Star Wars Poetry Slam in the newly designed Agora. In the heated Reading Tent, literary stars like Jenny Erpenbeck attracted such large crowds that the doors had to be closed for some periods. And the cosplayers in their imaginative outfits made sure that the Book Fair weekend will remain in people’s memories as a colourful and diverse festival of literature.”

Indeed, they did!

Final Thoughts

There was a lot of speculation going into the Frankfurt Book Fair whether this year’s Fair was going to see a decline in total attendance like the year before. Last year, Frankfurt officials reported that 140,291 trade visitors attended the 2014 fair, down from the 142,921 professional visitors attending the 2013 fair (a decline of less than 2%). With the release of this year’s official show report however, it is clear that the Frankfurt Book Fair is making a comeback and may see a steady increase next year.

Juergen Boos, director of the Book Fair, detected euphoria in the industry as a whole, stating in the official report: “2015 has been the busiest and most successful Book Fair for years! Exhibitors from all the different regions told me the same thing time and again in our personal talks.”

In Hall 6, where IBPA was located with other English-speaking publishers, similar talks were taking place as we experienced a good amount of traffic through our aisles. Terry was completely booked all four days with pre-arranged appointments while Mimi assisted everyone who stopped by the cooperative booth. We were happy to see a number of folks enter our booth, expressing interest in the titles on display!

Check out what some of the other industry folks are saying about this year’s fair:

Publishers Weekly
Shelf Awareness
More from Shelf Awareness

IBPA at the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair

Next year, the Frankfurt Book Fair will take place Oct. 19 – Oct. 23, 2016. IBPA is happy to announce our attendance at next year’s Fair and look forward to displaying your title in our cooperative booth! More information about IBPA’s Trade Show Exhibit Programs is available here. If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail us at info@ibpa-online.org or call our office at (310) 546-1818.

The 2015 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference brought 22,700 librarians, exhibitors, authors, staff, paraprofessionals, teachers, and friends to San Francisco on June 25-30, 2015. Attendance was up considerably over the previous year’s total of around 18,500. As mentioned in last year’s report, Las Vegas was an unpopular choice for 2014.

As in years past, IBPA staff traveled to the conference to represent member titles in our cooperative booth. We were privileged to display 198 individual titles and host 31 author signings. In the photo below, author Cindy Pon (right) poses for the camera with a fan during her signing of Serpentine (publisher: Month9Books).

The full catalog of titles displayed during ALA 2015 is here.

The full photo album is here.

As part of our mission, IBPA works hard to provide members with marketing and promotion opportunities that are truly professional and helpful. To this end, we were thrilled to receive the following feedback from Cindy Pon’s publisher, Georgia McBride of Month9Books, following the conference:

“I wanted to pass along a note of gratitude for making my authors exhibiting with IBPA at ALA 2015 feel supported and provided for. I heard nothing but great things about your staff, the booth set up, and accommodations. The location was great for discoverability, and your staff made my staff feel right at home. We will definitely exhibit with IBPA again.”

Thanks, Georgia! We look forward to seeing you next year!

The Benefits of Being There

As with most trade shows, the ALA Annual Conference is primarily an information gathering venture. This year, when librarians weren’t attending one of the over 2,500 educational programs, they were browsing the exhibit floor where the IBPA cooperative booth was located. Mimi Le, IBPA’s project coordinator, snapped the following picture of the cooperative booth just after set-up on Day 1. We were pleased with the eye-catching IBPA blue. What do you think?

As a benefit of displaying in the cooperative booth, IBPA members were entitled to a complimentary pass to the conference. Ninty-eight members received free badges through IBPA. It was great to meet many of them face-to-face onsite. Ana Costa Alongi of Sigillum Publishers let us know she appreciated the service she received as a displaying member in IBPA’s cooperative booth:

“We made a lot of important connections and we expect more networking in the next days. The staff working at the IBPA booth were very professional and have excellent PR skills. They represented us very well. I will definitely repeat the experience if I have the opportunity, and I want to thank IBPA for the great work you are doing to help us.”

Thanks, Ana! We’re happy to help!

Connecting with Librarians: Inquiries vs. Leads

Of course, IBPA members weren’t the only people stopping by the cooperative booth. Over the four exhibit days, IBPA staff scanned the badges of over 1,000 booth visitors and distributed over 200 catalogs. Most of the librarians visiting the booth discussed specific holes they needed to fill in their collection; they were looking for just the right fit.

Each IBPA member who participated in the cooperative booth will receive an Excel spreadsheet containing the contact information collected through badge scanning. This contact information can be added to the member’s marketing database for follow up over the coming year. If you were a displaying member and don’t have the list yet, please email terry@ibpa-online.org to request it.

To those who receive the list: don’t forget your Marketing 101! The contacts pulled during the conference represent inquiries, not leads. An inquiry is an expression of interest. A lead is a business opportunity. Before contacting anyone on a broad list of inquiries, it’s important to first qualify them as a potential lead. Not all inquiries are leads.

In other words, it would be a mistake to send a blanket message to the full list without making sure all the people you’re contacting might have genuine interest in your specific business.

The time taken to qualify a list of general inquires is always time well spent.

Special Thanks to Our Booth Partners

As in years past, in addition to booking inexpensive shelf space in IBPA’s cooperative booth, members with many titles to display could order booth space of their own. This dedicated space is booked alongside IBPA’s cooperative booth, ensuring a prime location on the show floor. In 2015, we were pleased to be joined in this way by Bitingduck Press and Tiger Tales.

Bitingduck Press is an independent press established in 2012 with the goal of providing high-quality, low-cost, highly accessible electronic and print books for anyone interested in science, mathematics, and the lives of scientists. They currently focus on science fiction and “science in fiction,” but will eventually bring forth a wide range of quality non-fiction and textbooks.

Tiger Tales is an independent publisher of imaginative picture and novelty books for children seven and younger. Whether the story is funny, whimsical, sweet, or sensitive, Tiger Tales books are designed to entertain and educate.

If you’re interested in reserving your own booth through IBPA for ALA 2016, please contact Terry Nathan at terry@ibpa-online.org.

A “Where Were You When” Moment

There are certain unforgettable moments in history that hold prominence in our collective memory. We can now add to these the SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage which occurred on Friday, June 26. That same day, in a timely address, attorney Roberta Kaplan’s discussed her new book, Then Comes Marriage: United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA (Norton), during the ALA Annual Conference’s opening session. And, of course, there was San Francisco’s annual Pride parade on Sunday, June 28. It’s hard to imagine a better place to have had our “where were you when” moment.

General News Roundup, Plus a Look to 2016

For those looking for deeper analysis of the general ALA Annual Conference program, here is a roundup of news stories published by the American Library Association.

— Cognotes: ALA 2015 Highlights Edition
— Rethinking Privacy at the LITA Top Tech Trends Panel
— Small Press Books from the Show
— Getting Graphics at ALA
— NYPL, CPL Wi-Fi Lending Pilots Progressing
— Academic Libraries Look Toward the Future
— Exhibitor News Roundup

The 2016 American Library Association Annual Conference will be held in Orlando, Florida, June 23-28, 2016. We again look forward to bringing members’ titles to the exhibit floor. I hope you’ll join us!

About the Author

Just before Angela Bole became IBPA’s Executive Director, she was Deputy Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG), which fosters conversation and consensus across all sectors of the book business. Before that, Angela served for two years as BISG’s Associate Director and two years as its Marketing and Communications Manager.

Angela also serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors of IDPF, the International Digital Publishing Forum. She lives in Redondo Beach, California.

The show floor felt kinetic – more kinetic than I remember it feeling in years past – so I wasn’t surprised to read in yesterday’s PW Daily that total attendance at BookExpo 2015 (May 27-29, 2015) rose 5.2% to 20,895, according to event director Steve Rosato. Couple this with an 80% increase in traffic for the second annual BookCon (May 30-31, 2015), and you can start to appreciate the vibrancy that was BookExpo/BookCon 2015 in New York City.

As in years past, IBPA was honored to represent many members in our Cooperative Booth. This was a growth year for us, as well. Our Cooperative Booth expanded from 40 feet to 60 feet – stretching across the aisle – and featured 409 unique titles, as compared to 339 titles in 2014. We also experienced growth in book signings. We scheduled 47 signings in 2015, as compared to 36 in 2014. We’re excited about this growth, of course, because it means more and more members are taking advantage of the opportunity to network and garner awareness of their work during this large national convention.

The full catalog of member titles displayed during BookExpo/BookCon 2015 is available here. The full photo album is here.

Most IBPA members know through experience or information gathering that although it can sometimes work to simply display a book on a shelf at BookExpo, to really benefit from the convention you, or someone you appoint, should be onsite to promote and advocate for it. As with all things business, it’s advisable to research opportunities in advance and plan accordingly. IBPA members attended BookExpo/BookCon 2015 for a variety of reasons, including meeting potential distributors, launching new titles, networking with fellow publishers in their genre, and familiarizing themselves with new technologies.

There were educational sessions, book signing opportunities, author interviews, and cocktail receptions. Barbara Brandt, an IBPA member and 6-time award winning author, pitched her book on the main BookExpo Author Stage because she applied, and was accepted, in advance. Barbara passed out book vouchers and 48 happy professionals walked away with a copy of Your Kids: Cooking! A Recipe For Turning Ordinary Kids Into Extraordinary Cooks.

The point is, if it’s going to work you have to work it. I’m happy to report nearly 200 members attended the convention using free or discounted badges provided by IBPA – 100s more attended via their distributor or because they are large enough to have purchased their own booth on the show floor.

This short video recaps some of what was experienced:

Bringing Back Author Interviews @ BookExpo

The recap video above wasn’t the only video to escape the convention. Last year, IBPA debuted Author Interviews @ BookExpo. We were excited to revamp this program for 2015 and record five new videos for members to use in their promotions.

Select videos are below. You can view them all on IBPA’s YouTube channel. Many thanks to videographer Jim Chan from Visualgnome for the fine video production.

The Buzz at BookExpo/BookCon 2015

IBPA board of directors member Jim Milliot, with reporting from other Publishers Weekly staff, did a great job of recapping BookExpo in his May 20, 2015 piece, A Lively BEA.

For my part, I heard people talking about lots of things at the convention, but mostly about BookCon and Chicago.

BookCon

BookCon was tacked onto BookExpo two years ago as a consumer portion of the convention meant to do for general books what Comic Con does for comic books. The 2015 program was largely heralded as a vast improvement over 2014. According to Publishers Weekly, “Reed, for its part, has been touting strong numbers and good reactions to BookCon. The company released final attendance figures of 18,000 for the two-day event, an 80% increase over last year (which was capped at 10,000).”

More than half of the 18,000 BookCon attendees were undoubtedly tween girls looking for futuristic fiction. As a former tween girl obsessed with Ursula K. Le Guin, I can’t say I minded much on a personal level! For more on this, check out Inside the Passionate “Girl-topia” of BookCon: Where Authors are Rock Stars and Geek-Chic Girls Rule on Salon.com.

Regardless of age or genre preference, however, most of the book professionals I spoke with said it was exciting to be among so many committed readers.

Since this was only the second year for BookCon, and the first year it didn’t overlap with BookExpo, 2015 was a year for experimentation. Coming in, no one really knew what to expect. Some booths were set up to sell books to the public, some were not. In IBPA’s Cooperative Booth, members gave away books during official book signings. Next door to our booth, long-time IBPA member Sourcebooks gave away 1,000-1,200 copies each day of 11 titles. The goal, they said, was to grow the readership for debut authors, and for a few authors with sophomore titles publishing in the fall.

One of my favorite quotes describing the BookCon 2015 book frenzy came from Mike Spradlin, Director of Sales & Marketing at Albert Whitman & Company. According to Publishers Weekly, Whitman’s strategy was to fill two bookcases with free overstock by “four or five” authors; on each copy’s back cover was a sticker promoting the author’s fall releases. “It was like a plague of locusts–but in a good way,” Mike said, gesturing toward the barren shelves. “They were friendly locusts.”

If you’re going to have a locust infestation…better they be friendly locusts!

According to ReedPop, the organization responsible for producing BookCon, the 2016 convention will be a one-day event, as it was when it debuted in 2014, and will move to Chicago along with next year’s BookExpo. BookCon 2016 will take place on May 14, 2016 immediately following BookExpo (May 11-13, 2016) at McCormick Place in Chicago.

Which brings us to….

Chicago

BookExpo/BookCon moves to Chicago in 2016. BookExpo continues a three day run (May 11-13, 2016), to be followed by one day of BookCon (May 14, 2016).

So, what to expect?

If you read the trade press, it seems many of the large New York-based publishers are concerned about having to pay to send staff to a different city. Not to be unsympathetic, but I think they’ll figure out a way to afford it. On behalf of indie publishers, I say: bring it! New York is one of my favorite cities in the world, but it sure isn’t cheap. Chicago will be much more affordable for IBPA members and I hope this means we’ll need to request extra exhibitor badges for all of you who want to attend.

Perhaps, you can image your book here?…

A panoramic view of IBPA's Cooperative Booth at before the show started

…If so, save the dates! We’ll be announcing registration of BookExpo/BookCon 2016 shortly.

Introducing New Members of the IBPA Team

IBPA is a service organization and when we find good people committed to helping others achieve and succeed, we snatch them up!

This year, we were joined at BookExpo 2015 by a new Vendor Relations Manager, Scott Harvey, and a new Project Coordinator, Mimi Le.

After only a short time on the job, we threw them both into the mix. In particular, Mimi helped members run successful author signings and answered community questions in the booth. I could share many compliments about Mimi, but I think I’ll let this piece of member fan mail cover it:

Welcome to the team, Scott & Mimi!

In Further Appreciation

It really does take a village. Before I close, I’d like to thank some other important people and organizations who helped make IBPA’s participation in BookExpo/BookCon 2015 possible.

Please join me in a heartfelt THANK YOU to the following IBPA members for volunteering in our Cooperative Booth:

— Paul Aertker
— Robin Bartlett
— Selene Castrovilla
— Jason Edwards
— Jack Estes

I also sincerely appreciate the hard work provided by the following people in the production of the onsite catalog:

— Patti Grasso, IBPA Executive Assistant
— Francesca Droll & John Webster, IBPA Graphic Designers
— Janice Schnell-Butler, Lightning Source

And my thanks to those members who purchased a private booth through IBPA, including:

— The Book Publishing Company
— Buddha’s Light Publishing
— Maven House Press
— Solution Tree

Finally, it’s no exaggeration to say this program would not be possible without the incredible dedication and overall good cheer of Terry Nathan, IBPA Chief Operations Officer. Thank you, Terry…again!

We’ll See You Next Year!

The large community of IBPA members (over 3,000 in total) truly embody our association motto: “Helping Each Other Achieve & Succeed”. It was a privilege to work along side so many of you at BookExpo/BookCon 2015.

Yes, we’re already planning for next year. We want to make the experience even bigger and better for IBPA members. Please send me your suggestions. I’m happy to have them and hope to see you next year!

We'll see you next year! From left to right: Angela Bole (IBPA Executive Director), Mimi Le (IBPA Project Coordinator), Terry Nathan (IBPA Chief Operations Officer), and Ebony At Peace (IBPA member and author/publisher of DEBT FREE BY 30 & BEYOND)

In 1985, IBPA was privileged to represent our members’ titles at the Frankfurt Book Fair for the very first time. Without looking back, we’ve continued to represent every year since. To give you a sense of time passing, here are a few other things that also happened in 1985:

• The first Blockbuster Video store opened in Dallas, Texas. Remember those?
• The Breakfast Club debuted in theaters. Without an iPhone for distraction, 10-year-old me spent hours trying to master the cool dance moves demonstrated right.
• Commodore’s Amiga 1000 is released. It sold for $1,295 dollars (without monitor). Only 13% of households in the United Kingdom owned a personal computer.
• Aldus announced its PageMaker program for use on Macintosh computers, launching an interest in desktop publishing. Oh, how far we’ve come!

The 80s were a glorious time for renting videos and dancing in detention, with just a hint of the personal computing and desktop publishing to come. Despite the technological advances that have occurred over the past quarter century, however, a simple truth about how people work remains the same: we enjoy doing business with people we know. It just feels better that way.

About the Frankfurt Book Fair

This simple truth is one of the main reasons over 140,000 book professionals traveled to Germany earlier this month to participate in the 2014 Frankfurt Book Fair, held October 8-12, 2014.

According to Mike Shatzkin in his blog, The Shatzkin Files:

“For the global book trade, and specifically for those of us in the English-speaking world that are the dominant players in worldwide publishing, [the Frankfurt Book Fair] is a unique opportunity to trade rights face-to-face, on metaphorical steroids. Books published in English can have anywhere from zero to a dozen or more foreign language editions which, cumulatively, can bring in very significant revenues. What Frankfurt has done for us for years is provide an efficient venue for those deals to get made.”

As it currently operates, the Frankfurt Book Fair is the largest global marketplace for books, media, rights, and licenses worldwide. In contrast to BookExpo America, where walk-up traffic can yield the majority of business in a booth, the Frankfurt Book Fair is a show driven by pre-arranged meetings. People walking by a booth in Frankfurt would be hard pressed to stop unless they had an appointment. This means many of the booths are “stripped down” without the bells and whistles of the showcase booths at BookExpo. A strong booth really only needs four things: (1) great books, (2) smart staff, (3) identifiable branding, and (4) plenty of wine for the 5 o’clock cocktail hour. It is Europe, after all!

IBPA at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Ensuring that IBPA’s cooperative booth included all of the above was our Chief Operations Officer, Terry Nathan.

Prior to the Fair, Terry arranged meetings with over 55 international rights buyers to whom we could present the one hundred seventy-nine (179) member titles represented in our cooperative booth (up from 133 titles represented in 2013). In the photo right I’m standing with Elva Wang of China’s Publishing House of Electronics Industry after our discussion of Chinese translation opportunities.

Each meeting with a foreign rights buyer lasts 15-30 minutes. The first thing to be done is to get a sense of a particular area of interest. Interest areas are generally very narrow. Sometimes we have many titles for them to consider; sometimes just a few. In rare cases, we won’t have anything at all. But, like everything in this business, it comes down to the personal relationship. Over the past 29 years, IBPA has become a trusted partner. Even if we don’t have something of interest one year, many of our contacts book again for the following year. IBPA’s consistency and professionalism matter.

A complete catalog of titles represented in IBPA’s cooperative booth is available online and will be sent in a follow-up email to all IBPA’s foreign rights contacts. To take a look at each book displayed, check out the photo album on Facebook. If you displayed your titles in IBPA’s cooperative booth you can expect to hear about any interest received by the end of this month.

Selling your rights to an international buyer can be complex, but extremely rewarding. For those interested in sharpening their skills in this area, we’ve arranged a special educational webinar with Cat Russo, President and Founder of RussoRights, LLC. Cat’s session, described below, will be held December 3, 2014 at 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern.

The Frankfurt Book Fair… So Now What Happens?
December 3, 2014 starting at 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the single largest international rights sales event in book publishing. Each year, many independent publishers display their titles and catalogs at the show in IBPA’s cooperative booth. Those who do look forward to receiving the collected leads, but then it becomes up to them, the publishers, to take the next step. So, how to proceed?

In this special IBPA webinar, rights specialist Cat Russo (photo left) will provide tips and advice on how to follow up from the Frankfurt Book Fair in order to move translation and other subsidiary rights agreements forward. She will also spend time answering your specific questions during a moderated Q&A. Cat Russo is president of RussoRights, LLC a small firm representing business and education publishers.

(Members who participated with IBPA in the 2014 Frankfurt Book Fair will receive a discount code for this webinar allowing them to participate free-of-charge. Other members pay only $19; non-members pay $39. If you don’t have your discount code, email Molly Farragher at molly@ibpa-online.org to request it.)

Supporting Our Partners

In addition to representing our members’ titles in the cooperative booth, we were equally privileged to have been joined on the show floor by those members who chose to purchase a private or shared booth through IBPA.

Special thanks to Ethan Atkin at Cranbury International, Sabine Weeke at Findhorn Press, Jennifer Lewis, Sara Pfeiffer, and Jenna Roby at Gryphon House, Jean Trumbull at Impact Publishers, Inc., Brooke O’Donnell, Joe Matthews, and Mark Voigt at Independent Publishers Group, Stephen Buda at J. Ross Publishing, Maria Kjoller at Lerner Publishing Group, Bill Krause at Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., Bruce Lansky at Meadowbrook Press, Dorothy Smyk at New Harbinger Publications, Jim Schmelzer at Publishers’ Services International, Donald Lessne at Rights & Distribution, Inc., John Atkin at Silvermine International Books, and Chris Bauerle, Sara Hartman-Seeskin, Stephanie Bowen, and Steve Geck at Sourcebooks.

By signing up to host their own booth with IBPA, these members received free freight to the Fair in addition to booth support on site. We look forward to hosting them again in 2015!

The team from Gryphon House await their first meeting during the 2014 Frankfurt Book Fair. From left to right: Jennifer Lewis, General Manager, Sara Pfeiffer, Rights Assistant, and Jenna Roby, Marketing and Research Specialist.

Getting to Know the “Non-Trade” Visitors

According to Frankfurt officials, 140,291 trade visitors attended the 2014 fair, down from the 142,921 professional visitors attending the 2013 fair, a decline of less than 2%. But that wasn’t all. Frankfurt officials also reported total attendance clocking in at an incredible 269,534 visitors. So, who were the over 125,000 “non-trade” visitors?

Most of them were Cosplayers. Cosplay is a contraction of the words ‘costume’ and ‘play’. Cosplayers dress up as their favorite characters from animated films, comics, books, and manga.

IBPA member Stephen Buda from J. Ross Publishing took a walk around the Frankfurt halls on Saturday, October 11 to meet some of the players and take pictures. He didn’t take notes so we have no idea who these folks represent. We wish we did! If you can identify them, please let us know in the comments.

We have no idea who these people are supposed to represent. They’re definitely cool, but mostly we’re loving the random guy in the background eating a sandwich.

These people are a mystery to us, as well.

Again, we have no idea! But, the guy wearing black seems to have had an unfortunate day…

Looking to 2015

The 2015 Frankfurt Book Fair will be held October 14-18, 2015. Back in April 2014, the organizers announced a new exhibition concept for the 2015 Fair. According to the official press release:

“With the international markets increasingly converging on each other, the Frankfurt Book Fair is placing renewed emphasis on the international exhibitors. In the future, they will be brought closer to the heart of the action and better integrated into the overall hall plan. The new infrastructure programme is intended to provide exhibitors and visitors with more attractive facilities, optimized visitor traffic flow and new opportunities to interact with fellow fairgoers.”

This means the English-language exhibitors, including IBPA and all our friends, will move from Hall 8 to Hall 6. To understand the implications of this move is to understand the vastness of the Frankfurt fairground itself. As occupants of Hall 8, the English-language publishers have been a bit removed. The full Frankfurt fairground is 578,000 square meters inclusive of 10 exhibition halls. It can take upwards of 20-30 minutes to walk from Hall 8 to some of the other locations on the fairgrounds.

Moving to Hall 6 puts us much closer the European halls, particularly the German-language publishers. This could be beneficial for business on Wednesday through Friday, but perhaps more disruptive than usual on Saturday and Sunday since we’ll be so much closer to the where the German cosplayers come to play.

In any event, we wouldn’t miss it. And we hope you’ll join us, as well! For those interested, more information about IBPA’s Trade Show Exhibit Program is available here.

We’ll be back next year! From left to right: IBPA member Deborah Parrish Snyder (Publisher, Synergetic Press), Angela Bole (Executive Director, IBPA), Terry Nathan (Chief Operations Officer, IBPA), and IBPA member Stephen Buda (Publisher, J. Ross Publishing, Inc.)

The 2014 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference brought 13,000 attendees and 5,500 exhibitors to Las Vegas from June 26 – July 1, 2014. This was down from the previous year’s 20,000 attendees, but up slightly from 2012’s 12,500 attendees.

Perhaps Vegas had something to do with the downward shift in attendance. It was hot. So hot! Anyone spending time outside the convention center or hotels risked melting into the pavement. The last time Las Vegas hosted the ALA Annual Conference was in 1973. I’m pretty certain Sin City won’t be placed back on ALA’s return list any time soon.

Luckily, your IBPA staff didn’t have to spend much time outdoors. Instead, for the 26th year, we were pleased to set up and host a cooperative booth for member titles on the exhibit floor. We proudly represented 223 unique books and hosted 15 successful author signings. In the photo below, author Sanjay Nambiar signs copies of his book, The Super Duper Princess Heroes: How It All Started, from IBPA’s cooperative booth. Sanjay also displayed books from his A Little Zen for Little Ones series.

The full catalog of member titles displayed during ALA 2014 is available here.
The full photo album is here.

Focus on Transformation

The theme of the 2014 ALA Annual Conference was Transforming Our Libraries, Ourselves. This theme was showcased in multiple ways during the conference. According to Library Journal (LJ), “While LJ staff could not get to more than a tiny fraction of the 2,500 program items offered, those that we did see were connected by an emphasis on embracing change; an expansive and interactive definition of libraries’ mission; and a focus on embracing technology and making it welcoming to all.”

One vendor told LJ that the mood of attendees was looking up. “People no longer start the conversation with “Don’t talk to me, I have no money,” he said. We experienced that same positive energy in the IBPA cooperative booth.

As with most trade shows, the ALA Annual Conference is primarily an information gathering venture. When librarians weren’t attending one of the 2,500 educational programs, they were “shopping” on the exhibit floor. We met many of them in our booth. In fact, over the four exhibit days, we spoke with nearly 500 librarians and distributed over 400 catalogs. Most librarians discussed specific holes they needed to fill in their collection; they were looking for just the right fit.

Each IBPA member who participated in the cooperative booth will receive an Excel spreadsheet containing the contact information of all the librarians we spoke to. These contacts can be added to the member’s marketing database for follow up over the coming year. Of course, when communicating with these types of leads it’s important to remember that they represent inquiries rather than leads/prospects. A soft sell is better than a hard sell! For example, a few weeks after returning from the May 2014 BookExpo convention, I found an information packet on my desk that I thought was especially well done. All’s fair in love and marketing so I’ve included a photo of the packet above. You can click on the thumbnail to enlarge it.

In addition to getting the tone of a marketing pitch right, it’s also important to remember how libraries buy.

How Libraries Buy

Libraries purchase books through such distributors as Baker & Taylor, Ingram Library Services, Emery-Pratt Company, and other book suppliers and wholesalers. In fact, two-thirds to three-quarters of book sales to libraries come from a jobber or distributor or wholesaler. In the coming months, we are hopeful IBPA members will see benefit from their participation in the ALA cooperative booth through one or more of their distribution channels. See ALA Library Fact Sheet 9 – Library Products, Services and Consultants for online and print resources which compile names of library vendors, including book jobbers, distributors, and wholesalers.

In the meantime, all books displayed in the cooperative booth were either given to conference attendees who specifically requested them or donated to ALA’s charity benefiting literacy. If your book was reserved and picked up by a conference attendee you will receive the contact information of this person. This will provide a great opportunity to revive the lost art of a handwritten thank you note!

If you have questions about the charity donation, please let us know. We’re happy to help.

A Spirit of Collaboration

One of IBPA’s much publicized mottoes is “Helping Each Other Achieve and Succeed”. It’s during a convention like the ALA Annual Conference that we truly see this motto in action.

To the left of IBPA’s cooperative booth, for example, five members came together to share booth space reserved for them by the IBPA office. By doing so, they were able to considerably cut the costs to display their own work outside of the cooperative booth. Many thanks to Red Rock Press, Pardey Books, Cooperative Press, Probitas Press, and Tiger Tales Books for participating in this way. In the photo below, Barb Knight, Sales Director of Tiger Tales Books, can be seen doing a fabulous job (wo)manning the Tiger Tales booth.

Not to be outdone, the cooperative booth was a helpful place, as well.

IBPA member Paul Aertker, self-published author of Brainwashed: Crime Travelers Series #1 (photo right), met the IBPA team on booth-set-up-day and organized the bookmark/postcard table for his fellow members. Thanks, Paul!

And, secure in the knowledge that a rising tide lifts all boats, IBPA member Cheryl Flippo of Humboldt American Press (publisher of The Sagebrush Singers) could be seen more often than not passing out copies of the full cooperative catalog to interested librarians. Great to see!

Finally, when it came time to break down the booth and pack up the supplies, IBPA member Kate Tews of Opsimath Press (publisher of Welfy Q. Deederhoth: Meat Purveyor, World Savior) stuck around until the bitter end, packing boxes and otherwise helping to close down shop. Kate is pictured below (left) next to me (middle) and IBPA Project Coordinator, Molly Farragher (right), on the final day of the convention.

Looking to 2015

The 2015 American Library Association Annual Conference will be held June 25-30, 2015 in San Francisco, California. We again look forward to bringing members’ titles to the exhibit floor. I hope you’ll join us!

More information about IBPA’s Trade Show Exhibit Programs is available here.

Nearly 20,000 industry professionals and 10,000 book consumers descended on New York City late last month for BookExpo America (BEA), held May 29-31, 2014 at the Javits Center.

As in years past, IBPA was honored to host a cooperative booth during the convention showcasing 339 unique member titles and hosting 36 book signings. IBPA member and author/publisher of ERAMANE, Frankie Ash (photo right), wrote a blog post recounting her adventures in book signing at the IBPA booth. You can read the post here. Frankie signed 30 books in under 15 minutes and had to hand out rain check forms to those who couldn’t get a copy onsite.

Member Titles on Display

The IBPA cooperative booth received a face lift this year. The 339 member titles were displayed within an open concept booth that embraced the teal and pink IBPA brand colors.

In addition, several of IBPA’s Benjamin Franklin Award winning books were featured in a special “hero case” (photo right) built specifically for calling attention to award winning titles from IBPA members.

The full catalog of member titles displayed during BookExpo America 2014 is available here. The full photo album is here.

Special appreciation goes to Terry Nathan, IBPA’s Chief Operations Officer, for seeing to every detail related to designing and setting up the booth and making sure all books, postcards, and giveaways made it to the show on time.

A Fresh Addition: Live Author/Publisher Interviews from the Show Floor

In addition to the activity occurring within IBPA’s booth, and thanks to a new partnership with the Mom’s Choice Awards, IBPA was able to offer nine members the ability to record branded interviews for use on their website and within multi-media PR packets.

This was the first year IBPA hosted the special author/publisher interviews, but it won’t be the last! You can check out IBPA’s booth in action and listen to one of the interviews, a talk with author/publisher Lynn Gaertner-Johnston about Business Writing with Heart, below.

The Buzz at BEA

The Benjamin Franklin Awards

To kick off BEA on the evening of May 28, 2014, IBPA hosted the annual Benjamin Franklin Awards ceremony. The packed room of 230 industry professionals was treated to an unrivaled view of downtown New York City featuring both the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. Photos below.

Among the books taking home Gold were The Old Man’s Love Story by Rudolfo Anaya in the category of Popular Fiction (publisher: University of Oklahoma Press), Brave the Unknown by Ushi Patel in the category of Poetry/Literary Criticism (publisher: Skywriter Books), and Tuesdays with Todd & Brad Reed: A Michigan Tribute by Todd Reed and Brad Reed in the categories of Cover Design and Interior Design (publisher: Todd & Brad Reed Photography).

Surviving Sandy: Long Beach Island and the Greatest Storm of the Jersey Shore (publisher: Down the Shore Publishing) received a great write-up in their local paper for winning more honors than any other book in the 2014 Benjamin Franklin Awards competition. Check it out here.

A complete list of Benjamin Franklin Award winners is available online here. Additional photos from the ceremony are available here.

New Products & Services

An important job for anyone attending a professional trade show is to learn as much as possible about new products and services coming to market. The IBPA staff met with several companies during the three days onsite and will be exploring opportunities for members to partner with these new services.

The new businesses that IBPA staff reviewed on behalf of members included:

FlightDeck — READ MORE
From the company: “FlightDeck delivers clear, actionable information to get your EPUB 2 and EPUB 3 files ready for sale. From validation and best practices, to retailer-specific information and metadata editing, FlightDeck reduces your Quality Assurance workload and helps you fix file issues quickly.”

SELF-e (powered by Library Journal) — READ MORE
From the company: “SELF-e is a collaboration between Library Journal and BiblioBoard that enables authors and libraries to work together and expose notable self-published ebooks to voracious readers looking to discover something new.”

Epic! — READ MORE
From the company: “Epic is the first subscription eBook service focused squarely on kids 6-12. The platform has many books for younger children, but the app is optimized for children who are readers.”

TapBookAuthor.com — READ MORE
From the company: “With the TapBookAuthor.com tool, you can create rich interactive apps without any assistance from technicians.”

In addition to the new business above, IBPA staff met with old friends from NetGalley, Ingram Content Group, Publishers Weekly, Papertrell, King Printing Company, Global PSD, Kobo, BookBaby, The Fisher Company, Smith Publicity, The Peter Beren Agency, Edwards Brothers Malloy, Freisens, and New Media Website Design.

Members interested in any of the companies listed above should contact IBPA Executive Director Angela Bole for more information.

The Dispute Between Amazon and Hachette

As one might expect, a major topic of conversation during BookExpo 2014 was the dispute between Amazon and Hachette.

During an American Booksellers Association (ABA) luncheon where James Patterson was presented ABA’s Indie Champion Award, the bestselling author spoke plainly about his support for publishers:

Although Patterson’s point of view was supported by many during the convention, according to Publishers Weekly, Patrick Hughes, Fulcrum’s marketing and sales director, didn’t agree.

Hughes told Publishers Weekly he appreciated what Amazon means to independent presses. “Amazon is our largest customer,” he noted. “One international corporate behemoth complaining about another international corporate behemoth… I have absolutely no sympathy.”

The Debut of BookCon

As important an issue as it is, an industry can’t talk about only one thing for three days. Business is more interesting than that!

In addition to picking sides in the Amazon/Hachette case, people were also buzzing about the first ever BookCon.

On Saturday, May 31, 2014, BookExpo America switched from a professional trade convention to a consumer book fair akin to what one expects from Comic Con.

For $30 a ticket, 10,000 book consumers gained access to panel presentations from authors and actors, face time with publishers and other industry professionals, and lots and lots of giveaways. According to the show’s website, “BookCon is the ultimate celebration of books, where your favorite stories come to life.”

Despite mixed reviews from industry professionals on the success of BookCon, BEA event director Steve Rosato (photo left) announced on June 13, 2014 that in 2015 the trade portion of BEA will be slightly truncated, while the consumer portion will expand. Rosato said this is a change he believes will “better serve the vast majority of those vested in either BEA and/or BookCon.”

Those with complaints about BookCon focused on overcrowding resulting in long lines and security issues. The separation of BookCon from the general trade show was also an issue for some. Publishers who wanted to showcase their books to BookCon attendees as well as the book professionals attending BEA needed to invest in a separate booth in the BookCon area. This led many to ask whether BookCon was simply a money grab disguised as a consumer fair.

Rosato addressed the grumblings on his blog, writing:

For those interested, Boris Kachka wrote an apt assessment of both sides of the BookCon issue for Vulture.com. His piece, entitled “BookCon’s Debut Was Chaotic, But Promising”, is available here.

We’ll see you next year!

There’s no rest for the weary! IBPA is already gearing up for BookExpo America 2015. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you there and to a successful twelve months for all in between.

[Reprinted courtesy of The Piedmont Post. Used with permission.]

Disruptive Technology, the New Publishing Landscape, and What It All Means for Readers, Writers, and Society

You don’t need an agent and publisher to publish your own book today.

You also don’t need a pile of cash or a Madison Avenue address to found a publishing house and launch a bestseller. You just might do it with a laptop in your apartment, or from your car if you have no other place to live.

What does it mean then that virtually anyone can publish a book? And why should those who don’t publish and write care? The short answer is that with fewer barriers to entry, publishing is enriched, enlivened, and democratized.

Independent publishers, unencumbered by the large bureaucracies of legacy publishing houses and uninhibited by conglomerate control and apprehensive legal departments, now can take more risks and tailor books to ever-smaller niche markets.

Readers and society at large benefit from the more rambunctious flow of ideas, the enhanced market competition—in price and quality—and the technological innovation that competition fosters.

Johannes Gutenberg would no doubt be speechless if he could behold how the publishing industry he fostered in the mid-fifteenth century has evolved just in the past five years.

Even industry professionals today are hard-pressed to keep up with the rapid pace of commercial change fostered by a plethora of new disruptive technologies that have made it easier for newcomers to break into publishing.

Digital printing, print-on-demand, and e-tailing (versus retailing) animate the new publishing universe, populating it with an array of products as strange and charming as the leptons, gluons, and muons of modern particle physics. No longer bound by the confines of the printed page, words and pictures now reach us as images on everything from eReaders, tablets, and smart phones to ordinary computers.

The stars of the modern publishing cosmos—ebooks, audio books, podcasts, interactive books, webzines—commingle in the marketplace with traditional trade books and millions of other non-traditional titles (self-published books, reprints of public domain works, and print-on-demand titles).

The technological changes, new products, and new sales channels have altered not only how books are produced, read, and sold, but how books are written, marketed, and publicized. In the hubbub, big publishers have had to reappraise their business models.

In this brave new world of publishing, one has to be brave in order to publish, so steep are the odds against commercial success. The average book published in the U.S. today, for example, sells about 250 copies a year. J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter notwithstanding, blockbuster books are few and far between. Yet impressive commercial successes regularly occur. A quarter of the top 100 books on Amazon in 2012 were “indie-produced”.

Examining all these trends and helping the independent publishing community flourish and make sense of them is the mission of the not-for-profit Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), which convened its annual Publishing University (PubU) at the Sheraton in San Francisco on March 21 and 22, 2014.

PubU brings together industry experts, independent publishers, and an entourage of printers, distributors, book designers, ebook specialists, and social media marketing consultants.

The association’s director, Angela Bole (photo right), sees the tremendous changes in the industry as good news for independent publishers. “There has never been a greater opportunity for success,” she said.

PubU’s keynoter, Ivory Madison — CEO of Red Room — an online hub for writers and books, made clear why even non-publishers should care about the publishing industry. “Books,” she reminded the audience, “transform individuals, and sometimes whole societies.”

While almost anyone who fancies being an author or publisher can make a book today, not every one can make a buck. As Christopher Kenneally of the Copyright Clearance Center put it, “If you want to make a million dollars in publishing, start with two million.”

That said, the stigma around self-publishing is fast disappearing, precisely because some self-publishers who pursue their mission with thoughtfulness, passion, and professionalism are enjoying great commercial success. There’s a catch, however.

“[A] flood of books are being released,” says San Francisco literary agent Ted Weinstein (photo left). Some 600,000 new books are published every year in the U.S., including those of independent publishers and self-published authors. How then does a book get noticed?

“Discoverability is the hardest mountain we all have to climb,” says Professor Dana Beth Weinberg, a sociologist at Queens College in New York City who studies the publishing industry. “The odds against you are really steep,” says Ted Weinstein. He said he’ll even try to talk prospective clients out of proceeding. If they can be dissuaded, he says, why bother? They don’t have the determination to succeed.

“The easiest thing in the world is to make a book. The hardest thing in the world is to sell it,” observed Christopher Robbins (photo right), the founder and president of Famillius, a “transmedia company.”

Publishing, like writing for that matter, is not for the faint of heart. The challenges are doubly hard at times for the independent publishers and self-publishers, who are often under-capitalized and not only produce their wares but market and sell them.

In this complex, competitive environment, gumption, vision, and passion as well as business acumen play a role in separating successful from unsuccessful publishers. The successful not only know their audience, experts say, but are also well advised to take the time to obtain consumer data on who is buying their particular kind of book and what the likes and dislikes as well as the demographics of those buyers are.

Even as publishers take advantage of market research and analyze industry trend data, some independent publishing is still raised by its own bootstraps and guided by selfless passion and heartfelt zeal to publish important books.

Tammie Stevens and British adventurer Jason Lewis of BillyFish Books (photo right – courtesy John J. Berger) are stars of independent publishing who had a powerful, important story to tell, and were determined to tell it their own way, no matter how difficult that might be. Indeed, Mr. Lewis was accustomed to surmounting great challenges. He is the only person to have ever circumnavigated the Earth entirely on human power alone. This heroic journey took him 13 years and led him to peddle a boat across both the Atlantic and Pacific, to bicycle over the Himalayas, and roller blade across the US.

His gripping trilogy is called The Expedition. The titles are Dark Waters, The Seed Buried Deep, and To the Brink (BillyFish Books). Even though penniless and homeless at times after returning from the journey, Lewis and his partner, Tammie Stevens, turned down a quarter million dollar book advance from publisher HarperCollins to avoid their commercial pressure and to publish Lewis’ inspiring story on their own terms. They have been very gratified with the artistic and commercial control they retained and their financial returns. (They have since earned far more than that advance and their books are still selling well.)

Writers often encounter many rejections from the traditional publishing establishment before either winning acceptance through skill and perseverance or giving up. Stevens and Lewis had their share. Resourceful and idealistic, they epitomize why people embark on independent publishing. As Red Room’s Ivory Madison pointed out at Publishing University, it is often because publishers believe that culturally important books need to be published, regardless of whether they make money.

For more information about IBPA’s Publishing University, visit www.ibpapublishinguniversity.com.

About the Author: John J. Berger, PhD is the author of the forthcoming book Climate Peril: The Intelligent Reader’s Guide to Understanding the Climate Crisis, with an introduction by ecologists Paul and Anne Ehrlich.

Berger started Northbrae Books in 2012 to self-publish his own books on climate change.