Each quarter Dan Blanchard, president of APSS-Connecticut (shown here), holds an in-person meeting for members to discuss marketing actions. This month it was a planning session to set the stage for quarterly follow-up meetings that will evaluate each person's progress toward achieving their annual goals.

The special-sales market is actually larger in size than the bookstore market. If you do not seek book sales outside of bookstores than you are missing half of your potential. Or, to look at it from a different perspective, you could double your sales with additional marketing effort directed to non-bookstore markets.

The quality of your book may be its most important factor. If it is not properly designed and produced it does not matter how well you communicate its benefits to librarians. A quality book has all the proper registration information, including a Library of Congress Catalog Number as well as an ISBN. A free LCCN is easily obtained online (http://www.loc.gov/loc/infopub/). Cataloging in Publication (CIP) data (http://www.loc.gov/publish/cip/ ) is a bibliographic record prepared by the Library of Congress pre-assigning cataloging information for a book that has not yet been published. The publisher should include the CIP data on the copyright page thereby facilitating book processing for libraries. Make sure the information you send them is complete and accurate. If they incorrectly catalog your title, it will be misfiled in every library across the country.

Bowker® Identifier Services provides you with the resources to make your titles more discoverable, whether you are a new self-published writer or an established author. Visit www.myidentifiers.com or contact Andrew Kovacs at Andrew.Kovacs@proquest.com

Success Story: APSS- Southern New Jersey vice president Deanna Adams said, “I entered my book, A Mother’s Survival: Finding Balance Through the Storms (written under the pen name Hope Brooks) in the Writer’s Digest Self -Publishing Competition. Judge number 44 rated me “outstanding” in all six categories of writing skills. I can’t begin to tell you what excitement I experienced when I received this email.”

“There are too many “good enough” books published by unknown authors every year for one to become a bonafide hit. Quality is a necessary but not sufficient attribute for success. What makes the difference? Exposure. People choose the familiar over the unknown.”

      Derek Thompson