Bookstarter – Books to Communities

WHAT WE DO

In calendar 2018 almost one million new book titles will be published in the United States. The average sale for each of those books will be fewer than 250 copies.*

Any author or publisher who wants to surpass that average and make a meaningful impact with a book faces a daunting task.

But it is a task that can be accomplished.

Today marketing a book successfully requires creating a community to support it. This means connecting the book to the natural audiences that care about what the book stands for—and then motivating those groups to recommend and refer the book to an ever-expanding, widening circles of readers and buyers.

* U.S. Book Industry/Market – Statistics & Facts | Statista

Our approach, succinctly put, is “Community-based Marketing.” It combines customized marketing, crowd-funding, advanced social media technology, traditional, analog hand-selling, and one-to-one networking.

These coordinated initiatives—carefully planned and managed—connect your book to its most meaningful and valuable target audiences, coalescing those groups into backers who not only support the book directly but who can then rally attention from a larger community of readers.

Our comprehensive and unique approach to marketing means that our clients can reach the full range of audiences for their books: readers, bookstores, librarians, writers, reviewers, and critics.

OUR SERVICES

We design and manage “Community-based Marketing” programs—that include crowd-funding campaigns—to launch new book projects. Our approach involves these three coordinated phases. Each of the phases is available as an à la carte deliverable or as part of a comprehensive turn-key package.

PHASE 1

A market analysis addressing your book project and all the elements that will have an impact on how it is received in the marketplace, including:

Budget
Concept
Content
Design
Pricing
Marketing (including social media)
Distribution

PHASE 2

A comprehensive, written launch plan specifying all implementation details.

PHASE 3

Implementation and project management of your launch plan.

PRINCIPALS

Steve Kroeter

Steve Kroeter is Editor in Chief of Designers & Books, a website that advocates for books as sources of inspiration for creativity and innovation. Also he is program coordinator for Bookselling Without Borders; launched the Designers & Books Fairs in New York; was Chair of the Design & Management Program at Parsons School of Design; was licensing manager and literary agent for the Frank Lloyd Wright Collection; is the author of DESIGNnewyork: A Reference Guidebook to Architecture, Fashion, Graphic Design, Interior Design, and Product Design in New York.

David Wilk

David Wilk has worked in almost every aspect of publishing and book distribution, in print and digital formats, across almost every subject, from poetry and literary fiction, photography, art, children’s books, to best selling nonfiction, innovative multimedia projects and social media marketing.

As a publishing consultant, Wilk has worked with over 100 authors, publishers, media companies and nonprofits, including Ally Bank, Rosetta Books, Hachette, Abrams, A+E Television, Running Press, PBS, To the Stars Media, Sudden Industries, Wawa Stores, Frederator Networks, Cornelia Funke, Namaste Press, University of San Diego, Sybase, Inc., and many others.

Wilk has taught classes and workshops, and given talks at a variety of universities, trade shows and to organizations.

He was Literature Program Director at the National Endowment for the Arts, and held senior management positions in a variety of publishing and distribution companies.