Social media platforms can be a great way to build your independent publishing brand and garner exposure for your books, but how do you turn all those followers on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and so on into lifelong fans of your books? Also, which are the most effective platforms for indie publishers to use? Lulu’s VP of Marketing Matt Briel visits “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA)” to share tips about how independent publishers can get the most out of social media, as well as advice about how to improve your newsletter.

Artificial intelligence has created many helpful improvements to book publishing, such as improving discoverability of books and finding copyediting errors in manuscripts, and there are many more to come as technology advances, but is there also a downside to some of these advancements? For example, will these advancements cost people jobs? Authors A.I. and BingeBooks co-founder and CEO Alessandra Torre joins “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA)” to discuss these issues, as well as some helpful AI programs currently available for publishers and new exciting ones on the horizon.

There are many considerations for independent publishers wanting to sell books in the government, education, and healthcare markets. How is selling into these markets different from the retail trade? How do you get started? What are some reasons independent publishers may or may not want to pursue these markets? What are some tips for doing this well? IBPA Board Chair Karen Pavlicin, publisher of Elva Resa Publishing and owner of Military Family Books, shares tips and insights from her 25+ years of navigating bulk sales, niche markets, and community advocacy programs as a primary business model.

If independent publishers and author publishers optimize their books properly for Amazon, it could lead to excellent sales, but likewise, if they don’t, it could hurt a book’s chances of succeeding. Also, advertising on Amazon can be a powerful tool, but it can be a complicated process. Don’t fret, on this episode of “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA),” we invited Greenleaf Book Group’s Marketing Manager Chelsea Richards to share her expertise with Amazon optimization and ads!

IBPA is always looking for ways to set up independent publishers and author publishers for success, so we partnered with PubWest and Portland State University’s Graduate Program in Book Publishing to research five key issues facing publishing distribution today. Portland State University’s Director of Book Publishing and Assistant Professor in English Dr. Rachel Noorda and Rachel Done, who is one of the talented students who worked on this project and a freelance publishing professional, visit “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA)” to discuss the findings of the project, which include ways for indie publishers to make their distribution more profitable, sustainable, and eco-friendly!

It’s a major goal of many independent publishers and author publishers to get their books carried in a bookstore, but as many have found, it can be a difficult market to break into. “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA)” invites Village Books & Paper Dreams Co-Owner and Steward Paul Hanson and Publishing Coordinator Chloe Hovind to share expert tips about how indie publishers can get bookstores to stock their books, and the reasoning behind why it’s so difficult to get their books carried in the first place.

Marketing books can be overwhelming and discouraging, and to make matters more difficult, there are a lot of dependable strategies out there that wield excellent exposure for books but that does not necessarily mean that they lead directly to book sales. Book Launchers Founder Julie Broad joins us on “Inside Independent Publishing” today to go over some of the best book marketing tactics available and to explain the results publishers can expect from those tactics.

The U.S. has thousands of libraries, so if an independent publisher can get their books carried in the library market, it can be great exposure for their books and a lucrative endeavor. But, how does an indie publisher get libraries to carry their books? On this episode of “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA),” we invited Founder and Former CEO at BiblioLabs and Senior Manager of the BiblioLabs Division at LYRASIS Mitchell Davis to share tips for how independent publishers and author publishers can get their books into libraries!

Social media provides independent publishers with many incredible opportunities to promote their books, but it feels like new platforms pop up every day, which can make it overwhelming to figure out which platforms are the best. Today, Founder and CEO of Write|Publish|Sell Alexa Bigwarfe joins “Inside Independent Publishing (with IBPA)” to give you the inside scoop on some of the most buzzworthy options available, including BookTok, Bookstagram, and BookTube!