I'm lucky enough to have a friend, Amy Holman Edelman, who is a book promotion genius as well as a corporate marketing guru. She's also a bestselling author (The Little Black Dress and "Manless in Montclair: How a Happily Married Woman Became a Widow Looking for Love in the Wilds of Suburbia."
Her new book promotion brainchild is IndieBooksellers.com. She just emailed me a letter that she's sent out to a few book publicists. If you're a book publicist and you haven't received a letter, you may want to read it -- so, with Amy's permission, I'm cutting-and-pasting the letter below. And, if you're a self-published author, or you know anyone who is, then take a look at IndieBooksellers.com. I think it's going to be a great opportunity for self-published authors and their book publicists. And I can attest to the fact that Amy is a brilliant publicist herself (ask her, sometime, how she happened to meet her husband...and what the New York Daily News had to do with it!).
Amy's letter, then:
Do you represent any self-published/POD books? If so, I’d like to tell you about a new website called IndieBooksellers.com (IB), like Amazon.com for self-published and POD books.
The reasoning? There are many great books that don't make it into the traditional publishing system. IB will be a place for self-published/ POD books to essentially "come out of the closet"...to shed the stigma that--up till recently--clung to that category. As Sundance has done for Indie films, IB’s mission will be to promote and legitimize independent books and authors. And with more and more Indie books finding mainstream success (think Lisa Genova's Still Alice, currently #9 on The New York Times bestseller list), the change has already begun.
In addition to visibility and a sales platform, the site will offer authors a website page with their own URL, which can be used to post reviews, promote their books, etc. The fee to the author for inclusion on IB is $149 per year but prior to going live (in about 7 weeks) we will be offering a discounted rate of $99 per year. All books on IB will be vetted prior to acceptance.
The IB Home and Author pages are attached. Please let me know if any of your clients would be interested in participating or send them to www.indiebooksellers.com to sign up. If you refer an author/ book, your company will get listed—at no cost—on our resource page. Please let me know if you'd like to discuss further.
Best,
Amy Edelman
IndieBooksellers.com
973/783-3052
ahedelman@comcast.net
