Book review: The Book Publishers Toolkit: 10 Practical Pointers for Independent and Self Publishers Vol. 1 (Independent Book Publishers Association, 2012)
If you are a self-published author who wants to sell more books, a new publisher looking for ways to market your content without breaking the bank, or a growing publisher searching for the latest tools to take your business to the next level, then “The Book Publishers Toolkit: 10 Practical Pointers for Independent and Self Publishers Volume 1,” will bring you the hands-on tools and techniques needed to navigate an industry where the only constant is perpetual change.
Whether you want to jump-start your marketing efforts, expand your social media outreach, get how-to ebook tips and much more, you’ll find hands-on tools in these pages. Written by a wide variety of talented professionals who generously donate their time, energy and expertise to IBPA, the not-for-profit Independent Book Publishers Association, each piece originally appeared in the “Independent,” IBPA’s monthly member magazine.
Publishing industry experts who contributed to this work are Kate Bandos, Kimberley Edwards, Joel Friedlander, Steve Gillen, Abigail Goben, Tanya Hall, Brian Jud, Stacey Miller, Kathleen Welton, and David Wogahn.
This is a collection of ten different short essays (or what have you) on the subject of publishing. If you’re interested in self-publishing, or have a small, independent publishing house, it’s a good choice for picking up a few pointers.
On the whole, though, I expected more from this book. After reading it, I didn’t feel as if anything particularly new had been revealed. Perhaps it depends on what else you’ve been reading before this, or how much you’ve been looking around.
If you know absolutely nothing about self-publishing, this is probably a good place to start. You’ll learn some things. If you already have a basic understanding of the business, I don’t think you’ll get as much from this book as you would hope.
Then again, if you want to source as much information from as many places as possible, this is definitely worth a read. Shame it’s rather short.
3 out of 5 tips.
