Joan Sisson Baird and Kirsten Tombar help Terry Nathan read some of their Independent Book Publishers Association triumphs. Photo by Robb Fulcher

Renee Raab Whitcombe of Manhattan Beach used Independent Book Publishers Association’s help to become a high-sales indie author of distinctive children’s books. Photo by Robb Fulcher

From a quaint house in Manhattan Beach they help the nation’s tiny book publishers and indie authors compete with the big boys

by Robb Fulcher
Before Renee Raab Whitcombe became an award-winning author, she was an unknown but ambitious writer with a manuscript for a distinctive children’s book, and a notion that self-publishing might be her route to reach a mass readership.
As serendipity would have it, Whitcombe turned for help to a national organization that happened to be headquartered close by her new Manhattan Beach home, with the deep knowledge, practical insight and industry clout to help self-publishers and small independent publishing companies realize their dreams.
The Independent Book Publishers Association, run out of a quaint, converted house in Manhattan, aided Whitcombe as she guided three books into print and then found the right marketing strategy to place them before enthusiastic readers.
“An organization like the IBPA fully understands the small, specialized publisher or author,” said Whitcombe.
Her books, Look Who’s Going to be a Big Sister, Look Who’s Going to be a Big Brother and Look Who’s Moving to a New Home, have sold 30,000 copies in the past five years, a remarkable number for a self publisher.
Whitcombe is one of thousands of authors and small publishers aided by the nonprofit association, which was born in Manhattan Beach 26 years ago and has grown into a 3,500-member powerhouse from its beach-friendly headquarters.
About 80 percent of the Association’s members have fewer than six books in print at any time, and many of those members are self-published authors.
The independents must float their titles onto a sea of 400,000 books that are expected to be published in the U.S. next year, said Terry Nathan, the IBPA’s executive director. To help offset the long odds, the IBPA works for its members in many of the ways that the big publishing houses work for their authors.
Association success stories include Jeanne Lindsay of Morning Glory Press, whose book “Do I Have a Daddy?” did so well that she quit her day job to write more than a dozen books about teenage pregnancy.
The Atascadero-based Impact Publishers has sold more than a half million copies of The Assertive Woman by Stanlee Phelps and Nancy K. Austin, and pushed to a fourth printing Your Perfect Right: Assertiveness and Equality in Your Life and Relationships by Robert E. Alberti (a past president of the association) and Michael L. Emmons.
Another of the association’s small publishers, who specializes in books about Alaska, had a biography of Gov. Sarah Palin among its roughly 20 titles, when all of a sudden she was tapped as a vice presidential candidate. As Palin blew up nationally, so did the publisher, Epicenter Press, which shoved Palin onto bookstore shelves before large publishing houses could get themselves in gear.
“Independent publishers can react to the industry quicker than big publishers sometimes,” Nathan said. In this case, the small publisher didn’t have to wait for its Palin biography to clear the corporate bureaucracy hurdles that could slow a hot book at one of the big houses.
In addition, Epicenter had more freedom to choose its subject matter than would a large house, making the publisher’s interest in Alaska more than just a personal sidelight.
Epicenter has since sold the rights to the book to a larger company.
“He made a sweetheart deal,” Nathan said.

Manhattan west
While giant publishing houses cluster in New York, South Bay native Nathan, a youngish 45, squeezes with seven other IBPA employees into the book-lined confines of the converted house, in a mixed-use area near the Redondo Beach line.
The association was founded when 15 small publishers approached Nathan’s mom Jan Nathan for help with collective marketing. Jan Nathan, who had worked in the magazine publishing industry and written restaurant reviews for The Beach Reporter, led the association as its membership mushroomed. She passed away two years ago and her son, another longtime association employee, took the reins.
Authors and publishers who join the IBPA pay annual dues starting at $119 to get a meaty, monthly newsletter, and discounts on publishers liability insurance, marketing, printing, mailing, telephone and copying services. The association also can connect little publishers with vital editing services, and its webinars have become popular as well.
Members can target their use of association resources to fit their needs. Many members currently seek help with “web 2.0,” as Nathan puts it, to learn how to market their books in an online world where potential customers are increasingly linked by social networks.
The internet, with its ubiquity and rapid permutations, is among the factors that keep the IBPA administration hopping.
“We used to be able to send our catalogue out to newspapers and magazines and be pretty sure we would get reviews. But the landscape of marketing books is changing at light speed right now and we are moving right along with it to stay ahead of it,” Nathan said.
And the IBPA has clout. If a book distributor treats one of the little publishers unfairly, Nathan can call up on behalf of 3,500 united publishers at once.
“We are the voice of independent publishing, basically,” he said.
The association uses attorney Jonathan Kirsch, who is also an accomplished author and literary reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, to stay on top of issues affecting the pocketbooks of writers and publishers. The web has brought its own legal complications, such as those involving Google’s book search function, which was the subject of a recent settlement with publishers and authors.
The IBPA is led by a volunteer board of directors, which for four years, included Rudy Shur, president of Square One Publishers. Square One inked a deal with director Ang Lee to make a movie of its book Taking Woodstock by Elliot Tiber.
Shur “has got the Midas touch,” Nathan said.

Not alone
Small independent publishing companies can face an uphill fight, but self-publishing authors face an especially daunting task if they go forth without guidance.
Technological developments have made the self-publishing of books more viable, and vanity publishing houses will crank out several thousand copies of a writer’s book for a fee. But too often the result is a garage full of unsold books.
“For a book to be successful, it’s best to work with professional editors and professional designers. I have a friend who is a buyer for Barnes & Noble. She can take a quick look at the packaging and the style of writing and know if a book will sell,” Nathan said.
“There are a lot of people out there who feel a calling and have a need to write. But there are just too many books being published these days. They might hit dead ends and get to the point where they think, hey, I would just like to see my book published,” he said.
“It’s really up to the author whether to accept the role as a publisher. If they do, we can help guide them through publishing the book to getting it on the shelves,” Nathan said.

Singular journey
Before she discovered the IBPA, Whitcombe had presented a manuscript to large publishers and book agents, but had trouble finding the right fit.
The book, Look Who’s Going to be a Big Sister, was a difficult-to-categorize crossover of children’s literature and interactive photo keepsakes that chronicle the young reader’s personal journal. And Whitcombe was eager to retain creative control of the project, which was personal, arising from her desire to help her own daughter understand and enjoy her role as older sibling to a pending new addition to the family.
But Whitcombe was practical. She came to the project with a background in advertising and marketing, and had a clear idea that writing a book was one thing, and making it a success with the reading public was another thing entirely.
Her first book would have to be professionally packaged, with a cover and a spine that would attract readers as they browse the shelves of stores. She would have to deal with distribution, both in stores or online. She would need to attract media attention.
As Whitcombe mulled her options, she moved with her family from Ohio to Manhattan Beach in June 2003. Five days later, she found the IBPA (which was then called the PMA, or Publishers Marketing Association).
“I grabbed my prototypes and went over there,” she said, finding Jan Nathan.
“She absolutely inspired me,” Whitcombe said.
The association helped Whitcombe find U.S.-based overseas brokers for manufacturing her book, and helped navigate potential marketing routes for her unusual Look Who’s Going to be a Big Sister, which could be sold alongside children’s gifts as well as other children’s books.
In the end, Whitcombe launched her own Budding Family Publishing, to keep the maximum amount of creative control over her first book. The two that followed were written also for children experiencing milestone transitions.
Whitcombe found wholesale representatives who helped get her books into more than 400 stores, targeting children’s boutiques, maternity boutiques, parenting resource centers and gift stores. The books also are available at www.buddingfamily.com.
Whitcombe also cited help from John Kremer’s 1001 Ways to Market Your Book and Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual.
And she hustles. She submits magazine articles using news hooks – “Did you know it’s National Siblings Day?” – to promote her work. She has appeared on CBS 2 News, PBS’s “Real Moms, Real Stories, Real Savvy” and ABC Radio’s “Satellite Sisters Radio Show.”
Her sibling journals won Hottest Product awards in 2004 from the Illinois-based iParenting Media, a leading producer of parenting content for magazines, newspaper, radio and the web.
Whitcombe said the IBPA helped her become not just an author but a publisher.
“They taught me a lot about how to wear both hats,” she said.
“If you’re a self-publisher, your writing hours are the smallest part of your day,” she said. “You can write for months or years, but if you want your book to be successful you have to market and sell it, get it before the public and get some press attention for it.”
The Independent Book Publishers Association website is ibpa-online.org, and Renee Raab Whitcombe’s books can be found at www.buddingfamily.com. ER