November 2024
To our esteemed authors,
We hope you are all settling into a wonderful holiday season with you and your loved ones. Our Author Holiday Primer is available to help you prepare for next week’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales from our online platforms. I also wanted to get everyone on the same page regarding my role within the company.
As some of you may know, the last two years have been a challenge for myself and for our family. After the death of my father, I was met with health challenges. After two years of doctor’s appointments, blood tests, etc, the last two months were the toughest as a routine procedure led to a biopsy. In a twist of fate that only writers would understand, I received my biopsy results the day after the election. What came back was good news - for me, at least. After taking some time to process, I am grateful that I am healthy enough to move forward for what lies ahead post-election.
As a small publishing house, we have seen a lot in our ten years - the early years of growth, the global pandemic, the death of one of our beloved authors, and the rise of anti-intellectualism and economic struggle leading to low book sales, in-person confrontations, and overall apathy - all of which bruises indie publishers. We have worked through it all: major life events, a challenging pregnancy, and highly stressful situations, losing sleep, money, and/or our footing. Luckily, our belief in what we do has sustained us through these times.
We have many wonderful plans for our ten year anniversary that will honor your work and the work of our team. We have also been building community and contingency plans post-election. I cannot promise that we are ready for everything that will be thrown at us, but we will do our best. Solidarity, clarity, community, and grace are at the forefront of everything we do and this situation, as complicated and unknown as it seems, will not change our value system.
With that being said, I am going to slowly move away from my role as editorial director over the next few years and focus more on my role as publisher. It is important that we keep ourselves at the ready for any changes that may occur during this time. If I am working with you on a current project, there is no need to worry. I will make a clearer announcement on our editorial direction later on in 2025.
Also, I am creating a new section in the Author Dashboard with resources for digital protection (it is expected that doxxing will increase), and anything that can protect authors in the coming years. Read Furiously stands behind our mission statement to lift up and celebrate the beautiful voices of our authors. We will not allow anyone to diminish this light.
Thank you for your understanding and patience as I navigated my health concerns and for your continued support. As always, thank you for trusting us with your words.
Take care and talk soon,
Sam
July 2024
To our esteemed authors,
We hope you all had a wonderful first half of the year. We wanted to check in regarding with a few updates:
Royalty updates: We have included the “Royalties Report Memo” to the Author Dashboard. It contains information on our second half of royalties, including the dates, and any changes to procedure. Looking to 2025, our new royalty process will be complete and more streamlined. We thank you for your patience and support as we make these changes. Also, beginning in 2025, everyone will be on the January/July schedule moving forward.
New landing pages: To streamline the process for everyone’s respective sales and readership, we made a few changes to the Author Profile pages on our website. Readers will now be able to view 1) your bio and author photo; 2) purchase your titles with Read Furiously; and 3) read about your recent news. Please visit your author page [https://readfuriously.com/pages/our-creators] to make sure your information is up to date. To make any changes to your bio or author photo or send over any recent news, please use the resources in the Author Dashboard under “AUTHOR HOUSEKEEPING”
Author Dashboard changes http://author-dashboard.readfuriously.com We have made changes to the Author Dashboard so as not to crowd your inboxes with many different emails. We still plan to send out emails every quarter; however, resources and promotional materials will be updated regularly - at least once a month. The new sections are organized as follows:
Publisher Updates: a copy of these update emails
Author Housekeeping: author business resources, bio/photo updates, event information, etc
Knowledge Center: resources for current industry news and trends and author marketing tools
Promo Materials: promotional graphics and photos for the upcoming holidays (in progress), publisher promos, etc.
Publishing Glossary: a list of industry jargon/terms and their definitions for your reference
2024 Holiday Season: We are in the first stages of the season! We will have a folder in the Author Dashboard with resources as they become available from our sales team. Right now, the two available resources are “our holiday picks from Bookshop.org” form and “our favorite bookstores” form to help bring awareness to your author brand and your titles this holiday season. We would love for you to participate, if you are interested and able. The deadline is August 30th. You can find them under “AUTHOR HOUSEKEEPING”
Next year will be Read Furiously’s ten year anniversary. Moving into this new decade, there is a lot of reflection. We started with very small beginnings and many of you were a part of that early journey. Now, we have reached publishing house status and our roster and readership keep growing. Our primary goal with Read Furiously has been to create a sustainable, equitable reading experience and we thank you for taking this journey with us that combines publishing books with literary activism and supporting various people and places throughout the independent publishing community. We are so grateful for your commitment to this journey.
Throughout these ten years, we also watched many wonderful colleagues in this industry close their doors. Independent publishing is a very difficult industry and we feel very fortunate that we are still around. We have a lot of changes in the works that will streamline our internal systems and provide additional levels of visibility for your books. We also plan to celebrate with as many Read Furiously events - both in-person and virtual - as possible. As of now, these are all works in progress, so we are adding a new section to the Author Dashboard titled, “Ten Year Anniversary News.” Whenever we make our new posts to the Author Dashboard, we will include any updates at this time. This way our authors will be the first to know before we make any public posts. We plan to be around for a very long time!
Take care and talk soon,
Samantha and Adam
November 2023
Dear esteemed authors,
We cannot believe we’re writing this, but another holiday season is upon us (where did the year go?)! Before we get into our holiday marketing plans, we wanted to share a few new updates from the Read Furiously offices:
For starters, we are building a small, but mighty, sales team that will be assisting us in selling both frontlist and backlist titles. Aside from assisting with the deliverables on any marketing launch plan and running the Sequential Underground (our new online bookstore that we recently acquired), Read Furiously will now participate in pop-up events and build out our wholesale market. Aside from bookstores, some of our titles are now in independent retail shops that carry more than just books. This will help us live by our principles of shopping small and supporting independent business owners and we are so excited to begin this journey with your books at the forefront!
We are also in the process of changing our administrative systems due to the incredible amount of titles we’ve acquired - and continue to acquire - in our short time. The plan is to streamline the process so our team can help us expand our reach as a publisher. With that in mind, we will be updating the Author Dashboard with resources quarterly (4x a year for 2024 - January 8th, April 22nd, July 15th, and October 14th). This does not include any important news related to the company or your books - any major correspondence will be sent via email and also updated later on to the Author Dashboard. These dates are just for quarterly industry news, selling resources, etc.
Between the systems update and our sales team training, we appreciate your patience as we devote every minute we have to the holiday shopping season. Once January arrives, we will begin the new process of editorial for our 2024-2025 roster. This attention to sales, especially during the holiday season, is an important component to sustainability as a publisher. In a world where many indie presses and imprints are struggling to make ends meet, we want to ensure we will be around for a very long time.
Looking at the industry as a whole, we are now seeing studies that are comparing individuals' pre and post pandemic habits. In a recent survey conducted by the NEA they found that in 2022, 53 percent of U.S. adults read literature and/or books of some kind (compared to 57.1 percent in 2017), a drop that seems to be affecting all genres and platforms. While this information is still being studied, there are several factors that seem to play a part in these drops.
With the worst of the pandemic behind us, people are reacquainting themselves with their pre-pandemic lifestyle - many are back commuting to the office or spending more time away from home recreationally, taking away from the time many people spent reading during the pandemic. People are also seeing a decrease in their overall disposable income available to them as inflation has forced more of their finances to be dedicated to the everyday essentials.
Given all of this though, we’ve found from an anecdotal perspective (during our time talking with folks through our pop-up season), that people do still have the desire to read. Seeing this is a reminder that people will always want to read, we just have to make sure we are representing them with the opportunities they need to do so.
Our pivot to marketing diversification will allow us to become more independent outside the “standard” components related to publishing. As a traditional publisher, we have wider opportunities to find new ways to market our company and your books, compared to hybrid and vanity presses. Unfortunately, 2023 saw a drastic dip in bookstore author signing events - they are no longer the well-attended, prioritized aspect of launching a book or backlist promotion. Bookstores are offering them as courtesy to authors and/or publishers they have long-standing relationships with; however, many bookstores do not have the financial means to organize and take the risk that comes with book costs, employee overtime, and low attendance. Over the course of this year, Samantha has been meeting with PR companies, members of the industry, including our contacts with IBPA and CLMP, and our new business manager in order to create a new planning series for both frontlist and backlist titles. We are hoping for an update on this toward the end of Q1 in 2024.
With that in mind, looking at the holiday season, below you will find the important dates to be aware of:
Our entire catalog via publisher-direct will be 15% off from now until Cyber Monday, November 27th
The last day for orders via our publisher-direct website is December 15th
For those of you who sent over Bookshop.org reading lists, we will announce them over the week, right before Black Friday. If you wish to direct anyone to Bookshop.org to purchase your books, you will have the link to do so.
Our sitewide $10 book sale will be January 21st-27th. This is an important sale for us since it allows us to create an equitable opportunity for readers who may not have the means to purchase a book at full price.
Finally, if you wish to sell your books during the holiday season, we recommend choosing one landing page to direct your readership audience. Statistics have shown that readers tend to order from one specific shopping link rather than multiple ones. It is best to consider where your readers shop in order to choose the proper link. The publisher-direct landing page for your book contains all of the multiple options and this could work if you are unsure which is the best choice. In addition, BN.com and Bookshop.org do offer Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales that will work well for this. They also offer shipping a bit longer than publisher-direct.
As always, if you need any assistance with how/when/where to sell your books, we are always available. Please reach out with any additional questions or concerns.
From our family to yours, we wish you all a happy and healthy holiday season and a happy 2024!
All the best,
Samantha, Adam, and the Read Furiously team
April 2023
Dear esteemed authors,
We hope you are all doing well as the weather gets warmer and spring is on its way. As Q1 closes and Q2 begins, we wanted to share updates from the offices of Read Furiously.
To begin, our next royalty payment will be July 20, 2023 and will cover January 1, 2023 to June 30, 2023. If your book is released this year, starting in March 2023 and beyond, there is a three month delay in getting numbers from Ingram. Meaning, there will be a month delay in your royalty payment schedule. We will contact everyone directly affected by this with more details. If your title is backlist or has a frontlist date of February 2023, you will receive your royalty payment as scheduled. If you have the older contract and have not filled out the addendum, the final date to do so is April 30, 2023 or your royalty schedule will stay at the release at $100. Please contact adam@readfuriously.com to get on the new royalty schedule.
Next, Read Furiously has acquired the Sequential Underground, an online Aerio bookstore that specializes in cultivated graphic novel reading lists. Sequential Underground will now be part of Read Furiously and will serve as a section on our website for curated reading lists. We will combine our Read Furiously titles with books from other publishing and artistic partners to add another layer of conversation to our already wonderful books. This is a great way to attract new readers, build our metadata on all of our titles (rather than just the frontlist), and place your books within a larger literary conversation. Integrating Sequential Underground into our company will not change anyone’s landing page or availability, but will serve as another possible way to sell your books and build author and publisher royalties.
Throughout this year, we are embarking on a major change in our titles roster and how we approach backlist and frontlist titles. While our frontlist titles will remain within the industry standard of the six month launch timeline, we are also working on administrative protocols that will increase our backlist titles’ visibility. Since every story has a different readership and purpose, we will be reaching out to you individually as these opportunities present themselves.
Finally, COVID has continued to complicate the relationship between publisher and bookstore. Unfortunately, many indie bookstores are struggling to stay open, to pay their employees, and to keep titles on their shelves. You may notice that many bookstores are not as enthusiastic about hosting events as they had been before the pandemic. From my numerous conversations with the bookstore cooperative, CLMP, and IBPA, this is not a reflection on anyone’s book. While Amazon is starting to lose its foothold on bookselling (a big thanks to Bookshop.org for this!) and we are entering a semi-new normal after the pandemic,we still have a long way to go before indie bookstores feel financially stable again. In terms of author events and/or in-person visibility, we recommend keeping to your comfort level. We will also post new resources to help with any bookstore outreach as they become available to us.
With that in mind, please remember that you are an author with a publishing company behind you. Many indie bookstores are using self-published books as a way to filter out the hundreds of requests they get a day to carry someone’s book. If you choose to approach a bookstore for a possible event or for the bookstore to stock your book, please remember the best practices as a small press author:
Always have your sell sheet with you - this is publisher-branded and sets you apart from any self-published authors
Introduce yourself as an author with the small press, Read Furiously Publishing
Tell booksellers that your book is available via Ingram and/or your publisher works with indie bookstores directly. They can contact us at sales@readfuriously.com
If you get a name and contact, please forward that information to us so we can follow up as your publisher.
We have a great number of bookstore contacts; however, we do not know every single bookstore all over the world. We welcome any new contacts to add to our rotation and will do what we can to champion your book on your behalf.
As always, please contact us with any individual questions and concerns. We hope you are all reading great books and finding time to be creative and joyful.
Talk soon and take care,
Samantha and Adam
February 2023
To our esteemed authors:
We are steadily working through the beginning of the year (Q1) and as always, we have lots to tell you!
Housekeeping Items
To begin, there have been changes to the U.S. Copyright board as of 2023, so we wanted to create a primer that explains the often convoluted process. TL;DR: Your book is automatically copyrighted the minute it exists in some physical form and as your publisher, Read Furiously takes the necessary steps to ensure your work is protected, including filing your book with the Library of Congress. To read in detail, you can find the “Copyright Primer” in the Knowledge Center under “Read Furiously Resources.”
Next, we’ve posted information regarding taxes (‘tis the season!). For many authors, their book is a business, so we wanted to make sure you had the necessary resources if you are reporting your author earnings on your taxes. You can find the “Tax Primer” in the Knowledge Center under “Read Furiously Resources.”
Our third note of housekeeping focuses on royalties. In January, we sent over royalties to everyone who made the biannual change with us (Note: if you have signed our most current contract, dating 2022, then you are already set for biannual royalty payments). The next royalty pay date is July 20, 2023. If you are on the older contract and have not made this change, we highly recommend it. As an author, you will receive a report with your author royalty payment that details your current sales for that year. If you are on the older contract and choose not to make this change, royalties are still set at the $100 sales mark.
To make the change for biannual royalty payments, be sure to email Adam [adam@readfuriously.com] with the signed addendums.
Bookshop.org News
Finally, some awesome book news (much needed as we settle into a new normal post COVID): IndieBound.org will now switch over to Bookshop.org, cementing Bookshop.org as THE ethical alternative to Amazon. As Bookshop.org celebrates its third year, this is a momentous occasion for everyone who believes in their mission. To date, Bookshop.org has given away $24 million to indie bookstores through their book sales. With this new IndieBound change, consumers will be able to purchase indie books published by indie authors and support indie bookstores - all at the same time!
Bookshop.org works closely with bookstores, including sharing data of books purchased through them. If you choose a specific bookstore and use their Bookshop.org link as your book’s landing page, the bookstore will receive the data of those online sales. If a book continues to do well via their Bookshop.org link, the bookstore is more likely to carry that book on their shelves in store. Shelf space is highly competitive now, so having a professional relationship with a specific bookstore will encourage restock sales for your title.
Another Bookshop.org option: create your own affiliate page, sell your book there (along with your TBR favorites) and use this as your book’s landing page. It’s a nice way to get a little extra money from your book sale, besides royalties from the publisher. We have the Bookshop.org affiliate resource in the dashboard’s “Knowledge Center” under “Author Resources.”
Samantha has been working with Bookshop.org to make sure we properly utilize their resources via our bookstore page. We will have more to report in the coming months.
The year is just beginning and we will have a lot more changes on the way. Until then, please reach out to either of us with any thoughts/questions/hellos.
Take care and talk soon,
Sam and Adam
Hello everyone,
Thanks for taking the time to pop over here to read my full message on the Read Furiously website. Between planning, design, and development, this is something Samantha and I have been working on for almost a year now, so we are very happy to share the results with you. It's a complete facelift for the site, giving a more streamlined, easier to navigate look and feel. But more importantly, it's a huge technical upgrade as well. The old site served us well, and Blogger will always have a special place in our heart for giving us our start, but gone are the days of me trying to hack together functionality with the assistance of Google and my limited technical knowledge. This new site has a lot to offer, and it'll be a big part of how we grow as a company going forward.
So just to walk you through some of the major changes you'll see.
1) Easier Browsing - As you can probably see from the new layout, we made a conscious effort to make the website easier to navigate. We want to showcase the work you guys are doing, so things like the Reading Furiously Podcast and upcoming Events are now easier to find. So if you have anything coming up, or just any exciting news to share that's relevant to your book, always send it along. Even with this new launch, the website is always a work in progress. So as we have new things to announce for people, we'll find new ways to feature them.
2) The Big News - The Read Furiously website is now officially integrated with our fulfillment services, meaning the online store and the publisher website are now one. This was something we went back and forth on for a while, trying to determine what made the most sense for the long term plans with Read Furiously and The Furious Reader Bookshop. But ultimately, after a lot of research, we found the benefits of combining the two were too great to ignore. Since COVID, many publishers are making the change to direct-to-consumer sales and you'll find that publishers offer an opportunity to purchase from their site or links that direct the reader to the main distributor sites (i.e. B&N, Bookshop.org, and even Amazon). Publishing is officially a digital domain and to stay relevant and competitive, The Furious Reader Bookshop will play a role in this. This new site will make it easier for independent bookstores and libraries to purchase copies directly from us if they wish to avoid Ingram as the middle man.
3) More Than Just Books - One of the things we always wanted to do with Read Furiously is lift up creators and showcase the amazing work they're doing. With this upgrade, we've been able to expand the items we offer in our online store and now feature new works. We've partnered with some incredibly talented artists and makers to offer some Bookish Accessories we think our Furious Readers would love. And with that in mind, we are always looking to expand these items. So if you have a fun book related side-hustle that you think might fit well with what we are offering, let us know we can work out a consignment or wholesale agreement.
4) The Stuff Under The Hood - With the new website, we have added functionality that will help us grow and support our titles beyond just bookstores. The site integrates with wholesaling companies that can help get our books into lots of other new online and brick and mortar retailers. So we're excited to explore what this opportunity has in store for us.
5) We'll Keep Growing - Piggybacking off that last idea, we're only just beginning to explore the functionality the new site has to offer, so we're already planning for how this site can help us expand and grow Read Furiously in the years to come.
Till next time,
Samantha and Adam
December 2022
To our esteemed authors,
As we wrap up the busy year that was 2022, we wanted to take the time to thank you for being a part of Read Furiously. Since the pandemic, we have experienced many changes to our indie press and to the publishing industry, but we’re happy to say that these changes are all for the better.
We have added a few more resources to the Author Dashboard and will continue to do so every month in the new year. Our goal is to give you the tools and resources to share your beautiful books with the world. As always, we are here to offer our support and own resources when we are able.
In January, we will hold a publisher-direct book sale to generate interest in our frontlist (this includes preorders) and backlist titles. The “Jumpstart Your TBR Sale” will offer all of our titles for $10 (this does not include the One ‘n Done series since they are already $9.99 and our NJ Anthology series which is bundled already). Since books are already so expensive, this is a great opportunity for readers to shop for new books without worrying about their monthly finances. The sale will run exclusively on our website from December 31, 2022 to January 31, 2023. This is our first big sale via our new website and we are excited to bring in new readership and also continue to donate proceeds via Read Furiously titles to our charities.
The new updated materials:
New article added: “18 book marketing tips from the trenches” (as your publisher, we can help with any of these tips - just let us know any thoughts or ideas)
New video added: “Bookshop.org provides an ecommerce edge for independent bookstores” (this year, we have been working with Bookshop.org to build our visibility through their ecommerce site. More on this in 2023!)
New resource: “8 self-care tips for writers”
In the coming weeks we’ll be adding new images: contains graphics for our January publisher sale, cover images, and lifestyle photos from our professional session this year (we will have more of those in 2023)
We wish you all a happy and healthy 2023!
Best wishes,
Samantha and Adam
October 2022
Hello, everyone,
We want to begin by thanking everyone for their kind words following the events of the summer. This is a difficult time for our family and we appreciate your patience and continued support.
A quick reminder before we get into this month’s news, for those of you who haven’t sent back the updated royalty scheme, be sure to email Adam [adam@readfuriously.com] with your signed addendums. If we do not have those by November 15th at the latest, we will not have time to process them with our finance person and you will be locked into the old payment scheme for the next six months. The new payment scheme allows us to pay everyone more regularly, so we want to make sure we are able to do that for all of you.
We are officially in the holiday season! As of October 17th, we have ten weeks left in the year. I know this is a very busy time for everyone, so we are going to try our best to make it easier in terms of providing resources to help promote your book for the holidays.
From now until the end of the year, we will be updating the Author’s Dashboard weekly with new resources for holiday planning, planning in the new year, etc. We will continue the monthly messages; however, we do not wish to crowd your inbox or the message folder in the Dashboard with weekly messages.
In even more exciting news, Read Furiously is now a proud member of CLMP, Community of Literary Magazines and Presses. Similar to our membership in IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association), being a part of CLMP will allow our titles additional visibility to reach new audiences.
We are officially in Q4 and we are so proud of what we have accomplished in terms of our talented roster of titles and our administrative protocols. As we enter 2023, we will be:
Slowing down our new title production and putting our focus behind building visibility for our backlist. Right now our roster is planned through 2025 and after these titles have been completed, we will plan the next stage of our creative direction.
Developing our partnership with Overdrive, working through the next year to get all of our backlist titles onto their digital platform via the Libby and Hoopla app which is available for most, if not all, libraries (more on this to follow)
Building our partnership with new wholesalers to allow for further reach to independent retailers beyond bookstores
Filling the demand for our two anthology series (more on this to follow)
Focusing on a new format for our podcast which will bring together another level of readership to our books
Building on the momentum of our new website and online bookstore which has provided an in-depth look at our titles, created a more streamlined, user-friendly approach, and better engagement with readers for both industry and social proof.
It’s quite the list, but we are really excited for Read Furiously’s next stage in 2023.
We wish all of you a wonderful, stress-free holiday season with your loved ones.
Take care and sending well-wishes from the great state of New Jersey,
Samantha and Adam
July 2022
Hello everyone,
So we have a few admin things to check-in on this month, but we'll try to keep it as short as we can.
First up, as a reminder the old Furious Reader store will shut down on July 10th. Please make sure any links you've posted, or links posted by anyone you've worked with are updated prior to that. We are still seeing some orders come in through the old website, and while this isn't an issue for the next few days, those links will no longer work after the 10th. If you have any questions about any of the old links, just reach out and we can help.
Next up, hopefully everyone has had a chance to browse through the new website a bit. We'll be rolling out new features monthly. Some will just be backend enhancements to facilitate new sales channels, optimizing the site's performance, SEO ranking, etc. For the most part, those will probably go unnoticed. Others will be features to help highlight you and your work. The first of those updates was just rolled out earlier this week.
The release included additional links on books' landing pages to help facilitate easier ordering for the EU/UK, and we also added a call-to-action we're particularly excited about. As a way to help foster your relationships with your favorite bookstores, we've added a Shop Local link to each book's landing page. This will allow each of you to pick a local bookstore and link directly to the product page for your book on their site - hopefully encouraging folks to buy your book from them and letting your local booksellers see the interest in your work.
Right now the links are defaulted to some of the stores we've worked directly with in the past, but we encourage you to pick a local bookstore in your area we can switch out. There's a form here on the dashboard where you can submit your bookshop of choice.
A quick note on international sales: the pandemic, the war in the Ukraine, and other factors have created a few challenges with the printers in Europe and shipping throughout the EU. The links we've included may help with this. However, if a customer is looking to purchase your book and cannot use those links, it is best to use Amazon in their country. If an international bookstore wants to order copies of your book, provide them with the sell sheet which contains information to order from Ingram. They will get the discount and Ingram will use the closest printing facility available. However, expect international delays for awhile.
We've also added a Recent News feed to your author's page. It'll feature the top five most recent posts about you or your work on the site - whether it's news announcements, events, or new podcast episode. There's now a place where people can go to stay up to date with what you're doing. With that, please make use of the Events forms here on the dashboard to keep us up to date of any goings on.
And lastly, here on the dashboard, we've added a glossary of publishing terms you'll likely hear us using as we discuss your book. We'll be building this out as we have time, but we want you to be as informed as possible, so the more tools we can give you to understand the publishing world and your book's journey though it, the better.
That's about it for now. We've been working hard on compiling some branding materials to help you establish and grow your author platforms. So we'll be looking to share that next month.
Till then, all the best!
Samantha and Adam
June 2022
To our esteemed authors,
We hope your summer is off to a promising start! As we check-in this month, we have some wonderful news: the Read Furiously website is getting a much-needed makeover. We have been working around the clock to meet the deadline for later this month and when it is ready to go live, we will send out an official email.
The new website will have some very important changes:
It will blend our publishing, community, and commercial initiatives, making it easier for people to learn about what we do (and why) and where they can purchase our books.
The Furious Reader will now be in the same place, giving us a direct retail space (similar to the larger publishing companies). With the Furious Reader Bookshop in a rebrand, we will be able to connect the Read Furiously publishing brand with our books and new sidelines, allowing the reader to associate our logo, our books, and our mission statement as a seamless entity.
We will also have an opportunity to promote our frontlist AND our backlist at the same time.
As we mentioned before, we have a lot of changes in the works and the new website is the first start. In the coming months, these changes will streamline our process and allow for a wider, cleaner distribution and brand recognition. Currently, Samantha is working with Jeniffer Thompson who has been providing amazing mentorship with regards to building our why as a company, connecting our titles using a single branding narrative, and offering insight into how to make ourselves heard over the noise known as the digital domain.
We also attended the IBPA conference (April) and the U.S. Book Show (May). We are planning to attend the Small Press and Publisher Conference this month, giving us more insight (and homework!) as we make these big changes.
As we sit in on these industry meetings and conferences and speak with publishing colleagues, we are focusing on the same big conversation: publishing is officially a digital domain. While author events and word of mouth are still prominent, the touch points that sell a book have been digitized. Bookstores and readers are seeking out authors and their digital footprint. There is a need for connection among the social media noise and while publishers continue to do the work in the background, it is the author that is now in the spotlight. Similar to the celebrity circle, readers and bookstores want to hear from the author first. In marketing theory, consumers make seven touch points before they make a purchase. With that in mind, the touch points for each title should be spread out among author, publisher, and readership.
There are a few ways to make this work:
If you haven’t already done so, review your author website and make any necessary updates. As we all know, an author website is necessary for optimization in selling and promoting your work. Your bio page and home page should always have the “call to action” - whether it’s a “buy” button or a picture of your book and where the reader can purchase it. Focus groups within the industry have discovered that authors have a more successful brand recognition compared to publishers (meaning, readership will recognize the author's image or book cover before they recognize the publisher logo).
Authors are being asked to be champions of independent bookstores - this can be as simple as following them and interacting with them online. Booksellers are very loyal to their favorite indie authors and seeing you as a champion and patron of their store will increase the likelihood of restocking your book. (Plus you can walk away with amazing recommendations.)
For your social media, website, newsletter, email signature, etc, be sure to have a consistent link for your book. Our books are sold everywhere; however, not every link is created equal. By nature, books are a singular purchase, so the restock in a bookstore (specifically an indie bookstore with a smaller space and booksellers to hand sell to customers) offer a stronger, more sustainable option rather than Amazon and, even B&N (which changes out their stock depending on the highest bidder of the Big 5 - most of them “rent out” the shelf spaces for thousands of dollars). Consumers usually do not buy more than one copy of a book, but they do recommend books to family, friends, and social circles. The same goes for independent booksellers.
Finally, new resources have been added to the Author Dashboard and we will continue to update with our findings every month. We are always here to support you, so let us know what you need.
Happy writing and reading!
Take care and talk soon,
Samantha and Adam
May 2022
To our esteemed authors and creators,
We hope your first quarter of 2022 was healthy and full of creative endeavors. As we continue into our year, the publishing industry is still navigating the liminal space of a pandemic and we recognize that there are still challenges and changes to come throughout this year. However, there are major changes in the works for Read Furiously and as they become more tangible, we will update you all accordingly.
Our first set of big news: We now have a resource drive for our authors that will help demystify the indie publishing process and book promotion (not to be confused with self-publishing or the “Big 4” publishing. The resource drive will also include updates to any industry standards, bookstore connections, and industry news. We will also post our messages to you in this resource portal (to cut down on email clutter). New content will be posted the second Monday of every month.
The resource drive is here: https://sites.google.com/view/read-furiously-dashboard
Please bookmark this link in some way so it's easy for you to check on the site periodically.
Next, a Covid-19 update: In the first industry meetings of the year, our printer and distributor, Ingram, shared the many changes facing the book trade. Covid-19 exposed a fragile ecosystem of print and supply chains that are beginning to stabilize. Thanks to our POD model, we did not see any issues with supply, but printing delays are still happening. With that in mind, we are moving forward to earlier proof creations and longer preorder time periods. The growth of online bookselling and digital marketing will obviously help with this, making it easier to share with our readership. Ingram has increased its printing facilities and there are now facilities around the world, cutting down on delivery time.
Finally, bookselling update: Our independent bookstores and booksellers are still seeing a struggle in customer traffic and book sales. This is for a variety of reasons:
An immediate pivot to online sales due to Covid-19. Many bookstores did not have the capital or technology to do this, creating an inequity in specific areas
Amazon’s attention to its KDP publishing/self-publishing, pushing out smaller and indie publishers in favor of exploiting self-published authors for profit
Naturally, printing and supply chain issues that are plaguing everyone in the industry.
Trade sales are always slower in the first quarter; however, our booksellers are in desperate need for champions.
This leads to the biggest change in the publishing industry: reader-center business models. Traditionally, the publishing industry relies on retailer/wholesaler relationships. However, the pandemic encouraged more author-reader interaction on social media, including the rise of Instagram stories and BookTok. As authors, your role is to share your book with the world - you wrote a book! Shout it from the rooftops! As your publisher, our role is to supply the world with your book and help with any contacts. Once you’ve made contact or find a place that you feel is a good fit for your books, we can follow up with a book box, promotional treats for the booksellers, and discuss a potential relationship or distribution via Ingram.
Our community efforts are going well and we’ve added another component via a Little Free Library in Banchoff Park in West Trenton, NJ. This allows us to provide free books to the Mercer County community and as stewards, we are able to help out other Little Free Libraries around the country, including the Read in Color initiative and LFLs dedicated to providing anti-racist or banned books in areas that are struggling to read freely.
Until then, read often and read well!
Samantha and Adam