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-