IBPA PUBSPOT ARTICLE published Monday, January 01, 2018 By: Kelly Abbott When it comes to writing, it’s not enough to be good. Often, what differentiates a good writer from a great one is the hustle, or relentless pursuit and promotion of one’s craft. 1. Social Media From LinkedIn to Facebook to Snapchat, leveraging social media is a necessity for writers wanting to engage with readers, fans, and people in the industry. From follows on Twitter, to exchanging witty banter on F

IBPA PUBSPOT ARTICLE published Wednesday, June 01, 2022 By: Erin Wright As an author contemplating their overall publishing career, a lot of time is spent figuring out how to diversify by creating print versions of a book, or selling merch from a website, or translating the catalog into another language. Too often, people overlook a simple, low-key income stream that is available to every author with a website: affiliate income from bookstores. Every major e-book storefront (

IBPA PUBSPOT ARTICLE published Friday, October 04, 2024 By: Alexa Schlosser I recently had a chance to connect with IBPA member Samuél Lopez-Barrantes about his use of Substack. If you’re unfamiliar, Substack is a platform that allows writers to publish newsletters directly to their subscribers, offering a space for creators to share content and build their audience without intermediary algorithms. Lopez-Barrantes has successfully utilized Substack to share his creative expre

IBPA PUBSPOT ARTICLE published Friday, October 04, 2024 By: Brian Jud Publishers limit their book sales when they see bookstores—bricks and/or clicks—as the only place through which to sell their books. If you want to sell 10,000 books through any retailer, you must get 10,200 people (with a 20% return rate) to go to Amazon.com or your website and buy one. But if you want to sell 10,000 books in non-retail markets, you can find one person to buy 10,000 of them—nonreturnable a

IBPA PUBSPOT ARTICLE / February 14, 2025 By: Jeniffer Thompson Reaching your audience (and selling more books) is perhaps the crux of every publisher’s journey. This is why publishers look to an author’s platform as a measure of how many books they will sell. If the author has visibility and a built-in audience, an editor is more likely to say “Yes, we’ll publish this work—we’ll invest time and money because we believe it will sell.” For the most part, the burden of platform-

Set in Japan in 1906, this story follows a young English boy and his Japanese friend. Their innocent missteps lead them to discover a shared sense of duty and discipline across cultures. The piece explores the Edwardian ideal of honor and the quiet moral codes of two civilizations meeting in a rapidly changing world. James Hogan is a published author of historical fiction and travel writing. His novel “Love Through All Strife” was published in 2019. He has also contributed ar

If you love historical fiction, try this list out for your 2026 to-read challenge: If you love opera and the canals of Venice, you’ll love ‘ Poinsettia Girl’ by Jennifer Wizbowski; If you love ‘Poinsettia Girl’ you’ll adore more Italian opera history with ‘Viva Violetta & Verdi ’ by Howard Jay Smith; For more inspiring Italian historical fiction, and if you loved ‘Viva Violetta & Verdi’, you’ll want to set your calendar for the release of Mary Thurlow’s art-inspired novel ‘