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-

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 ‘