What Kind of Binding Does Your Book Need?

Today I have an interview with Martin Pugh, Director of sales and marketing for Houchen Bindery Ltd. based out of Utica, Nebraska. Houchen Bindery Ltd. has been in business since 1935 as a certified Library Binding company, and is now today one of only a few remaining certified Library Binding companies. Martin Pugh started in the catalog printing business in 1983, followed by a 5 year stint as...

Can’t Even Donate Your Book to a Library? – 5 Reasons Why

Rejection hurts! But don’t take it personally. Here are five reasons your book got turned down. 1. Donations of books aren’t “free” for the library It costs money to shelve books. Costs of shelving books include processing books for shelving, the price of the bookshelf itself, the labor involved in shelving books, utilities like heat and light, and the cost of the space a book takes up in the...

Get and Use Book Awards

Awards have always been important in book marketing. For example, the American Library Association offers numerous awards for print books. Try to win a library award, especially if you write for children or teens. The prestigious Newberry and Caldecott Medals are just two of the honorary awards from ALA for children’s books. Bookstores often feature books that have won these awards with...

The Myth of The Cheap Ebook

To my surprise many authors have embraced Kindle’s deep discounts of books. They are pricing ebooks at $9.99 or less. Apple and five of the biggest publishers created an alternative model that lets publishers set ebook prices. This model helps Apple build a competitive advantage against Amazon’s Kindle books, and it pays more to authors, yet many authors are not happy with it. The reason...

How Big is the Library Market?

Libraries are a HUGE market. According to the American Library Association factsheet #1 for 2011, there are 122,101 libraries in the United States. These libraries buy all kinds of books: print, large-type print books, ebooks, audiobooks, and even PDF books. Libraries spend billions of dollars on books each year. The Library Market The largest library market is school libraries (grades K-12)....