Happy Autumn.
The Days are getting shorter. In keeping with the spirit of the season, this month’s president letter will be shorter as well.
Saturday’s Meeting
I hope you enjoyed the discussion on Saturday. Vala Vincent did a comparison of Instagram and YouTube as platforms for promoting our books. A couple of salient points:
1) Know your audience. What’s the age and profile of your preferred reader? Vala offered a questionnaire that can help you hone in on the audience.
2) Instagram has wide appeal to the under 34 year old demographic; 18-24-year-olds are the platforms largest demographic.
3) Follow upstream. When choosing which Instagram accounts to follow, engage with users with more followers than you have. Share in their success to foster your own.
4) YouTube is the second most popular social media platform after Google.
5) YouTube primarily appeals to the 18-49 year old demographic.
6) The average viewer typically spends up of 11m50s viewing anyone video. Keep your post around this time frame for maximum engagement.
7) To engage with a YouTube audience, post at least one video per week.
If you missed Saturday’s meeting or would like a refresher, you can view Val’s presentation at https://bit.ly/VVincent
New Meeting Format
If you attended Saturday’s meeting you may have noticed a bit of a traffic snarl gaining access. We believe Zoom is in the process of instituting a mandatory wait and host-admission for attendees to join Zoom meetings, and so we initiated that practice for Saturday’s meeting. Unfortunately, it delayed our start.
We expect to have specific direction from Zoom by Sept 27 as to their waiting room policy. Checking into it after Saturday’s meeting we believe the waiting room will NOT be mandatory. If so, CIPA will change its meeting settings accordingly to allow meeting entrance by passcode only.
Saturday’s meeting was scheduled to begin at 9AM, but due to this waiting trickle did not commence until about 9:15. And yet as members came into the meeting, they were met with a lively impromptu discussion of members sharing recent successes and newly designed book covers.
What a nice time!
So, we are now planning for future meetings to start at 9AM with a 15-minute discussion time for members to chat and share and build community. At 9:15AM the gavel will drop and we will start our regular meeting.
So let’s plan for a 9AM MT gathering with a 9:15 MT meeting start.
Mountains & Plains FallCon
Starting Sept 28 through October 31, CIPA members can virtually attend Mountains & Plains FallCon book extravaganza. The virtual event replaces the live three-day event Mountains and Plains has held in the past where independent publishers and authors showcase their books to Mountains & Plains independent bookstore owners. It has always been a nice event for authors to pitch their books to independent bookstores’ buyers.
In addition to this virtual showcase, FallCon is still hosting a three-day concentrated event of webinars and presentations for all bookstore owners and publishers who are attending. The three-day event runs from October 8 through October 10.
For more information about both events and to register for any part of the FallCon go to https://fallcon.org. If you are not a bookstore owner, be sure to register by clicking the INDUSTRY: REGISTER NOW button (https://fallcon.org/industry-registration).
Lighthouse Writers Publishing Intensive
Lighthouse Writers Workshop is hosting an online Publishing Intensive Oct 12 & 13. There will be four sessions, two each day starting at 9AM and 10:45AM. Each time slot gives you three choices of classes to attend. The cost for the weekend is $165 for Lighthouse members and $175 for non-members.
On Sunday, October 13 CIPA’s Jim Ringel and Melissa Serdinsky will host a class on Sales and Distribution for the Self-Published Author. Find more information on all classes and times at https://www.lighthousewriters.org/workshop/publishing-intensive
Thanks so much for being a part of CIPA. Your feedback helps give us the direction we need to plan for the future. So please, fill out our on-line feedback and let us know what you’d like to know. You can access the form at https://bit.ly/CIPA-EVAL
See you at our next meeting on October 17, 9AM.
Jim Ringel
President