Colorado Independent Publishers Association 1

An e-Publication of the Colorado Independent Publishers Association

Saturday, November 17

“Breaking the Amazon Bestseller Code (and a FOREIGN RIGHTS BONUS)” 8am to Noon

Register HERE

Saturday, December 1 “CIPA’s Holiday Party” 6:30pm to 8:30pm RSVP HERE

Thursday, November 15 Friday, December 7 Saturday, December 15 Book Signings for a Cause

Monday, January 7 That Book Inside You Group Coaching, a six week teleconference

Inside— President’s Letter November’s Monthly Meeting

Book Selling with LinkedIn and SM

Member News

Upcoming Events

CIPA Holiday Party

Join or Renew with CIPA

CIPA Board Members

November 2010 November 2012

President’s Letter

The Engine Behind Independent Publishing By Brian Schwartz [Editor’s note: Read the full un-edited letter here.]

I contend that if not for Amazon.com (and the Internet that ena-bles Amazon to exist), self-publishing (or independent publish-ing) would remain a tiny sliver of the pub-lishing industry. In-

stead, independent publishing now dom-inates the market! More books are self-published every day than traditional pub-lished books. But what about sales? How do our sales as self-publishers compare to those of traditional publishers?

What are other independent publishers doing to close the gap in marketing be-tween self-publishers and traditional publishers? Many are focused on a mar-ketplace where they can compete – and that's Amazon. Amazon doesn't favor traditional publishers. With infinite shelf space, there's no 'selection committee' in deciding what gets sold. Without the gatekeepers that exist at traditional bookstores (limited by shelf space), all of us have a fair shot at getting our books in the hands of readers at Amazon. Add in the explosive demand of the Kindle, and many authors and publishers have dis-covered a very accessible source of read-ers.

On Amazon, readers around the world can get any book they want at an afford-able price, quickly. Did you know there are over 20 million titles in Amazon's

www.CIPACatalog.com Colorado Independent Publishers Association

6635 S Dayton St, Suite 200 Greenwood Village, CO 80111 Phone: 303-365-CIPA (2472) Admin@CIPACatalog.com

©2012 Colorado Independent Publishers Association

catalog? To see for yourself, just go to Amazon, change the search category to books, leave the search bar blank and hit the 'go' button.

While it's incredible that you can find that many titles in one place, it's also a clear indicator that being discovered among those 20 million titles as an au-thor can be a significant hurdle. But there are authors who are doing ex-tremely well on Amazon, despite what appears to be a highly competitive space. So what are these authors/publishers doing to stand out in the largest bookstore on the planet? On November 17, you are going to get the opportunity to find out. We have assembled a super-star panel of authors/publishers who've made it to the top spot on Amazon, to share what's worked (and what hasn't). It's important to highlight the fact that the two ladies who will be on the panel both took their books to #1 in the last 6 months, not 10 years ago.

Did you know that foreign rights licen-sees represent a significant source of income for the big publishers? And when you produce high quality work, those seeking to translate and publish books in other languages will seek you out! As a bonus at our next meeting, Donna DeNomme will be sharing her insights on how she managed to secure a lucrative rights deal as her book has been translat-ed into several other languages.

I look forward to seeing you at our next meeting!

Here's to your self-published success!

Brian Schwartz

CIPA 2012-2013 President

Find us on:

Important Dates

2 Colorado Independent Publishers Association

Amazon Bestseller! If you’ve been in the authoring/publishing business for any length of time, you have probably heard that term. It seems like one of the Holy Grails of book marketing.

It can be. But do you know how it really works?

Telling people you’re an “Amazon Bestseller” is great publicity. It gets your book noticed. But there are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about the whole process.

We have two authors who have Amazon Bestsellers. They’re going to give you some insight on how to do it and what it means to your book and its success.

Here’s what we’re going to start with:

What it takes to make it happen

What it means on Amazon

How much work it takes to do it

Any ideas or misconceptions people have about the process

Assessing whether it is the right move for your book or not

That should be plenty to get our group going! There will be plenty of time for questions—so mark your calendar!

Meet our Two Presenters who will help YOU become an Amazon Bestseller

Marcia Reece—Marcia just completed driving her book, Secrets of the Marriage Mouse, to #1 Best Seller on Amazon.com. She will share how she built her best seller campaign, what she learned that worked and what she will not repeat during her next campaign. Marcia helps authors take their books to best-seller status and is offering a class to CIPA members so they can also take their books to best seller status over and over again. Secrets of the Marriage Mouse is #1 in Marriage, #1 in Personal Relationships, and #1 in Health.

November’s Monthly Meeting

Andrea Costantine—Andrea inspires others to make a differ-ence in the world by getting involved and creating community through compassion, contribution and connection. She believes that when we come together, change can be made. With a sense of community, separation dissipates, leading to happier, healthier, more compassionate human beings, who can then contribute back to others. Discover more about Andrea’s work here. Andrea's book Speaking Your Truth Volume 1 is #1 in Movers & Shaker’s, #3 in Motivational/Self-Help; Volume 2 is #1 in Non-fiction/Women’s Studies, #4 in Motivational/Self-Help; and Volume 3 is #9 in Self-Help Motivational.

BONUS FEATURE: FOREIGN RIGHTS and What they Mean for You

Instead of having round tables this time, we’ve been able to bring to you another incredible speaker, Donna DeNomme who is going to tell us, “How I Grew a Thicker Skin: 7 years in pub-lishing from Golden, Colorado to New Delhi, India.” Donna DeNomme is a conscious energy teacher, licensed spiritual coach, and ceremonial facilitator. She is the award-winning, internationally-published author of Turtle Wisdom: Coming Home to Yourself, now being published in seven countries and soon-to-be-released worldwide in Chinese.

So come to the CIPA meeting on November 17 and get closer to becoming an Amazon Bestseller!

CIPA Members pay just $20 until 9pm, Friday, 11/16 Regular Price is $30

Nonmembers and Guests: $30

*CIPA is not affiliated with, nor does it endorse, the Church of Scientology.

Breaking the Amazon Bestseller Code (and a FOREIGN RIGHTS BONUS)

Saturday, November 17 | 8:00am to Noon Church of Scientology*

2340 Blake Street Denver, CO 80205

Marcia Reece

Andrea Costantine

Donna Denomme

Colorado Independent Publishers Association 3

Sell Your Book with LinkedIn and Social Media By Marketing Coach Carol Naff

Should I or Shouldn't I Use Social Media? This is a question repeatedly asked by my clients and alliance partners. Actually, we should call it business social media. Just notice that all the 'big guys' are using social media. Name one major company that does not use Facebook,

LinkedIn (187M members), or Twitter. And Pinterest is the newest kid on the block exceeding all of the social media sites in monthly hits.

According to Jeffrey Gitomer, "Social Media is the new cold call." In his latest book, Social Boom, Gitomer states,

Business social media is the best, least expensive, most direct way of communicating with your customers to be discovered in the last 100 years. By taking complete ad-vantage of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube, you can promote and propel your business beyond the next level, beyond your competition, and beyond the economy. Now is not the time to go slow. Now is not the time to worry about a few negative comments from customers. Now is the time to capitalize on the opportunity … and become the market leader. Business social media will build your brand, your reputation, and your business with an online professional identity.

Business social media is valuable to:

Find clients and customers Drive traffic to your website Personalize your brand Develop and expand your professional network Get back in touch with contacts Fill classes and seminars And sell your books

Book Selling with LinkedIn and SM

LinkedIn:

Enables people to connect and reconnect with you.

Allows introductions and connections to people and companies.

Represents your career accomplishments and opens the door to new opportunities.

Discovers quickly the most popular discussions in your professional groups and allows you to partici-pate.

Follows the most influential people in your groups by checking the Top Influencers board or clicking their profile image to see all their group activity.

Creates an Internet presence with or without a web-site.

People can use business social media to get to know more about you and your book. Yes, it does take time and expertise to set up all the options, but once it is in place, you can update most of it in a short time. Be sure to manage your privacy settings on your LinkedIn Profile Page for content and visibility

LinkedIn, Facebook, and Pinterest are the #1 Professional Net-working tools on the Internet. Most books are sold on the In-ternet. Are you driving readers (traffic) to your book with busi-ness social media?

Carol Naff is an expert in Marketing for authors with Publicity, Public Relations, Business Social Media, Coaching, Consulting, and Marketing Copy Editing. Help is available for sales of your book. Contact Carol for more information:

linkedin.com/in/carolnaff | Solobizmarketing.com/authors

Carolnaff.me | Pinterest.com/CarolNaff

4 Colorado Independent Publishers Association

Member News

CIPA Member’s Book Featured in Psychology Today Amid heated controversy about the obesity epidemic, Toddlers and Tiaras and bans on large-sized sodas, Karen Kataline shares her real-life experiences with child beauty pageants and restrictive diets in her new book, FATLASH! Food Police & the Fear of Thin. With a Master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, Kataline applies her professional insights to her compelling memoir and conveys a powerful message about what not to do.

Kataline’s book was featured this month in a Psychology Today article by Martina Cartwright, Ph.D., RD who also wrote the Foreword for FATLASH! Dr. Cartwright was recently credited with coining a term to explain parents who parade their chil-dren in beauty pageants: “Princess by Proxy.”

FATLASH! Food Police & the Fear of Thin is for general audienc-es and is available in paperback on Amazon here and later this month as an eBook. For more information, visit the author’s website here.

Colorado Author’s Tattered Cover Book Signing Nearly Sells Out Journey From Little Left, Gary Michael's adventure novel, follows a band of prairie dogs as they search for a safe place to burrow when human intrusion threatens their town. Along the way they face external threats—hawks, dogs, a swift river, and a nasty badger—as well as dissent in their ranks. The story has themes of friendship, maternity, and cooperation. It can also be read as a primer on leadership. More than 100 people attended Gary's book reading and signing at the Colfax Tattered Cover Sep-tember 12. That night, the store sold 49 of the 50 books they or-dered for the event. More infor-mation here.

Have You Ever Wondered How Your Family Came to America? In A Fortunate Passage: Two Families’ Journey into the Heart-land, author Grady T. Birdsong writes of his grandparents jour-

ney from opposite ends of the globe into Amer-ica’s heartland. Displaced by heart-wrenching circumstances and orphaned at age five, his grandfather found his way from devastated Georgia and its Civil War aftermath – to an ear-ly Kansas frontier. His grandmother, the young-est daughter of Volga-German immigrants, struggled with a settler’s existence on an arid, primitive, high plateau of the “Great American

Desert.” They meet early in the century, and together they raise a family in the midst of a world at war. From their austere be-ginnings, both earnestly strive with courage and purpose to do what is right during their passage through life. This story of their chaotic beginnings and continuing life challenges paints a poignant picture of life in an early 1900s society during this most “Fortunate Passage.” Order your copy here.

CIPA Member Publishes Riveting Novel Based on the BP Oil Spill THE SIMPLE TRUTH: BP's Macondo Blowout, written by J.A. (John) Turley: In April 2010, leaders aboard Transocean's

Deepwater Horizon drilling rig ran tests and declared BP's deep oil well secure. They were wrong. The resulting blowout killed 11, sank the rig, and left behind mourning families, an epic environmental oil spill, and questions about what caused BP's blowout.

The Simple Truth, narrative nonfiction, drama-tizes the drilling of BP's 3-1/2-mile-deep Ma-

condo exploration well at the hands of fictional characters—surrogates for survivors and the 11 who died that night. You are invited to join the crew and share their lives as they drill ever deeper, and the clock ticks down. But remember the rule—offshore there's nowhere to run. For more information, visit petroleum engineer, career-offshore-drilling-expert, and expert, John Turley's website. His fact-driven book is available as an eBook or a 350-page Paperback.

Colorado Independent Publishers Association 5

Book Signings for a Cause CIPA EVVY award winner, Carol Sue Shride, has three upcoming signings for her book, Lucy Dakota: Adventures of a Modern Explorer Book 1 - Rocky Mountain Be-ginnings. Each supports a different organization.

November 15, 2012—Supporting D'Evelyn Jr/ Sr High School's library

Barnes & Noble West 4:00pm - 8:00pm

Denver West Village, 14347 West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood. Carol will be giving away Lucy T-shirts, water bottles, and a

couple of Travel Journals!

December 7, 2012—Supporting Colorado Youth at Risk Barnes & Noble Downtown

11:00am - 1:00pm 500 16 Street, Denver, CO 80202.

Giving away water bottles, baseball caps, and a couple of surprises!

December 15, 2012—Supporting Girl Scouts of Colorado Girl Scouts of Colorado

10:00am - 12:00pm 400 S Broadway in Denver.

Giving away water bottles, baseball caps, and T-shirts!

That Book Inside You Goes Teleconference CIPA member Tere-sa R. Funke would like to announce the new session for her That Book Inside You nationwide group coaching program starting January 7, 2013. The program will take place on Monday eve-nings via teleconference for six weeks. Teresa will teach writers of all levels and genres how to take an idea through the writing and publishing processes, and on to the promotion process. Teresa is the award-winning author of six novels for children and adults and is a popular speaker and writer's coach. Her cli-ents have published books, articles, essays, shorts stories, and poems. The group coaching program is an extension of her pop-ular all-day workshop That Book Inside You: How to Write It, Publish It, Sell It and includes Teresa's highly rated workbook and a free one-on-one coaching session. To sign up or learn more click here.

Attend CIPA’s Holiday Party Sponsored by the CIPA ELF!

CIPA Members, Nonmembers, and Guests - Join CIPA for this year's holiday party on Saturday, December 1 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at The Horizons at Rock Creek Clubhouse in Superior near the Flatirons Shopping Mall off of Hwy 36. The address is 2200 S. Tyler Dr., Superior, CO 80027. For directions click here (then enter your address below the map on that page and click on Get Directions). The CIPA Holiday party is sponsored by the CIPA ELF (Education and Literacy Foundation).

This will be a Potluck party with a White Elephant Gift Exchange. Here's how we've divided up who should bring what...

If your last name begins with:

A-G HOT APPETIZERS

H-J PLATES, CUPS, NAPKINS, PLASTIC UTENSILS

K-M COLD APPETIZERS AND BREAD

N-R BEVERAGES

S-Z DESSERTS

There is no fee to attend the party but members are encour-aged to bring a gift for the CIPA ELF such as a new children's book or cash donation to be donated by ELF to Colorado ele-mentary schools. Our very own CIPA ELF will be there to collect the gifts! Members should also bring a White Elephant gift val-ued at no more than $15 for our fun gift exchange. The Hori-zons at Rock Creek Clubhouse has a grand piano, fireplace, full kitchen and free parking to make for a comfortable party loca-tion.

Saturday, December 1, 2012 6:30pm - 8:30pm

The Horizons at Rock Creek Clubhouse

Upcoming Member Events Upcoming CIPA Holiday Party

6 Colorado Independent Publishers Association

Have you renewed your membership? Are you wanting to join CIPA?

Membership, along with active participation in CIPA programs, can open doors to many opportunities and can save you thou-sands of dollars in costly mistakes.

Some of the Member Benefits include:

Informative monthly meetings that include free ad-vice from our expert Roundtable Hosts, valuable net-working, and a keynote speaker from the writing and publishing industry

Dynamic website filled with information and im-portant links

List Your Book in our Online Book Catalog

Library eBook Partnership

National and regional trade shows

Annual CIPA EVVY Book Awards Competition

CIPA Education and Literacy Foundation (ELF)

Young Authors League (YAL)

Memoir Preservation Program

Affiliation with other recognized trade organizations

Add your news, awards, and events to CIPA’s eZine Signature and our blog, the CIPA Bookshelf

Showcase your work with your own author page, or for service providers, be listed in our Resources area online

And so much more!

Successful publishers and authors belong in CIPA!

Contact memberships@cipacatalog.com should you have prob-

lems joining or renewing your membership.

Join or Renew Today

Regular Membership (Authors, Publishers) — $65 Until 12/31

Individuals who support the purpose of CIPA including authors,

publishers and other interested individuals. This membership

is for individuals that do not directly offer products or services

to other members. Pricing goes up to $75 on 01/01/13.

Associate Membership (Service providers, Publishers with multiple authors) — $110 Until 12/31. Individuals or compa-nies who support the purpose of CIPA and who desire to di-rectly offer products and services to other members. Compa-nies may designate up to five individuals per membership. They can attend events at regular member rates. Note: Individ-ual designees are not entitled to enter the annual EVVY awards; they would need to join as regular members. Pricing goes up to $120 on 01/01/13.

Affiliate Membership (Writers groups, Larger publishers) —

$125 then just $10 per Affiliate Member Until 12/31. Groups

or companies desiring access to CIPA resources, primarily out-

side the Greater Denver area (writers groups and other writ-

ers/publishing associations). Affiliate members can enter the

EVVY awards. A large publisher could also apply to become an

Affiliate. Affiliates are approved on a case-by-case basis. There

is an additional, one-time, $150 application fee for the Group.

Pricing goes up to $150 on 01/01/13.

Membership year is from 10/1/12—9/30/13. Members joining

after 4/30/13, and paying the new dues, will be given member-

ship credit from the date joined to September 30, 2014.

Categories & Pricing

Colorado Independent Publishers Association 7

Brian Schwartz

President

Dr. C. Daniel Miller

Immediate Past President

Rod Collins

Treasurer

Joyce Miller

Secretary

Mary Walewski

Marketing Chair

Maryann Brown

Co-Marketing Chair

Herb Tabbak

EVVY Chair

Joe McDaniel

Co-EVVY Chair

Dr. Patricia Ross

Program Chair

CIPA Board 2012-2013

Mike Daniels

CIPA ELF President

Veronica Yager

Membership Director