Tag: libraries

My Experience as Featured Speaker at Indie Author Day 2016

logo-IndieAuthorDay-300pxGuest Post
by Debbi Mack

When I was invited to be the featured speaker on last year’s Indie Author Day at the Washington County Free Library in Hagerstown, Maryland, I was both honored and surprised. Me, a featured speaker? What had I done lately that merited that designation? While it is true that my first novel made the New York Times eBook bestseller list in 2011, it felt like forever since I’d enjoyed anything like that sort of “success,” at least in the traditional sense of that word.

However, I really wanted to do this event. As one trained in library science and a “frequent flyer” (borrowing-wise) at my own public library, I’m a huge supporter of libraries and books, in general. Continue reading “My Experience as Featured Speaker at Indie Author Day 2016”

Make Your Library Your Publicist

library arches-1853367_960_720Guest Post
by Jacob M. Appel

The American Library Association’s “Declaration for the Right to Libraries” describes libraries as “the great equalizer,” institutions that provide access to knowledge for any person — of any age, background, class or creed — endowed with intellectual curiosity. Libraries are among the only places on earth that truly welcome everyone. As a lifelong public library fanatic — I have visited nearly one thousand in forty-nine states — I certainly appreciate the joy of walking into a two-room Carnegie library in an unfamiliar town or a sleepy branch library in an alien metropolis and suddenly feeling at home. But for small press authors, public libraries serve as equalizers of a different sort too. In an era when the “Big Five” publishers dominate the literary marketplace, rendering a book review in a major newspaper or even shelf space at Barnes & Noble a pipe dream for many talented authors, the local public library offers a welcome opportunity for partnership. Continue reading “Make Your Library Your Publicist”

How to Get Paperback Books into Libraries

worldcat logoIndie authors and publishers think a lot about getting books into libraries. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s a rite of passage, or a holdover of the older, traditional publishing industry. Or maybe, as in my case, it’s the awkward silence when asked, “Can I check out your book from the library?” Real books are in libraries. Right? As Melissa Bowersock and Laurie Boris explained,  there are a couple of avenues for getting indie eBooks into libraries, but what about paperbacks? Continue reading “How to Get Paperback Books into Libraries”

#IndieHero Mitchell Davis

indie heroes logo darkBack when we first started batting around this Indie Heroes idea at the IU water cooler, the very first thing I thought of was the fact that, to my mind, CreateSpace has revolutionized the publishing industry. Many of you will know that CreateSpace was not an Amazon creation out of whole cloth, but was a very successfully streamlined idea that grew out of an earlier revolutionary concept, BookSurge. Created in 2000, BookSurge was the brainchild of Mitchell Davis and friends, and was the world’s first integrated, global print-on-demand publishing platform. Now, all of our brains work a little differently; mine works in stories, planting them and then growing them in my head until I have to write them down. I doubt I could ever come up with a new idea for a business, and certainly not one that would change an entire industry. Mitchell Davis’ brain, however, does just that. I decided to do a little literary brain surgery to find out just exactly how he developed his idea that has freed so many writers from the paralyzing grip of traditional publishers.

Mitchell, first of all, thanks so much for agreeing to talk with me. I have to admit, I feel a little like I’m sitting at the feet of a giant, so if I gaze up at you adoringly, just ignore that. My questions will be two-pronged, first about how you came up with your idea and then about how that idea has changed the world we know. Continue reading “#IndieHero Mitchell Davis”