Welcome to Sugarbeat’s Books!
Today I’m going to talk about a great organization that I’ve been involved with for the past few months – The Indie Book Collective (IBC). As the word Collective suggests, it is a group of people that work together for the betterment of each other’s careers. In this case, the members are all authors – with the exception of me, I think! I volunteer my time as the review co-ordinator. What this means is I keep track of all of the bloggers that want to review books for the IBC. Some of the bloggers are authors, some are not. This is something that takes up a few hours of my time each month, but allows me to organize the bloggers for the IBC events and allows the authors that are being featured in the event to be…. authors! If you are interested in joining us, drop me a note at sugarbeatbc AT gmail DOT com.
The Indie Book Collective hosts several types of events. Each month they have an event called Bestseller for a Day. This event allows for the promotion of one book (with a few companion books). The idea of this event is to promote this book through reviews on the blogs, promotion posts on the blogs, posts on Facebook and tweet and re-tweeting on Twitter. I find it fascinating how fast we can send the word about this event around the world using social media! We try to see how far up the Amazon rankings we can push this book over the space of one day. Our readers and friends have the opportunity to buy a book for 99 cents, and if they sign up for an IBC newsletter, be entered to win a kindle. How can you go wrong for 99 cents?
The IBC also hosts Blog Hop Tours with various themes. They are daisy-chain, multiple day type Hops with 15 or more books being featured and the readers are encouraged to move from one author blog to another in a step-wise fashion. Everyone who leaves a comment on an author or reviewer’s blog gets a copy of that particular book. Because reviewers are involved and are linked to, the potential reader can follow the links to a number of reviews and see what others are saying about this book. During these events everyone wins. The author gets lots of promotion for their book, the bloggers get lots of hits and potentially new traffic to their blog, and the reader gets a free book!
Tomorrow the event that is starting is Blog Tour de Troops. It will involve 50 books in a variety of genres. Come back tomorrow to get some details on some cool new reads!
The Indie Book Collective also helps authors (and others) with some of the things that mystify us all. Just to note, I’ve attended all but one of these seminars and they are awesome – my brain felt as if it would explode with too much information by the end of them.
Social Media for Writers by Rachel Thompson (@rachelintheOC)
– this workshop is held the first Tuesday of every month and although it is free, you need to reserve your spot in advance as this workshop fills up fast!
E-Formatting by Amber Scott (@amberscottbooks)
– this workshop is held every third Tuesday of each month and has a cost of $15.00
– this workshop will walk you through all the steps of formatting an eBook and publish it to Amazon and Smashwords
Amazon Optimization by Carolyn McCray (@craftycmc)
– this workshop is held every 4th Tuesday of each month and costs $15.00
– Carolyn is a social media and publishing consultant. She will show you how to optimize your digital sales platform to maximize your book sales.
IBC Radio Show
– this internet based radio show is every Tuesday at 4:30 and covers a wide range of topics.
The Indie Book Collective is a members helping members kind of an organization. They help with all aspects of publishing a book from preping your manuscript to selling your book and everything in between. If this sound like something that you would be interested in, please contact this wonderful group of people at indiebookibc AT gmail DOT com.
