The Trip – Part 2 – Rise and Disrupt

For those who skipped part 1, know that I arrived at this part of the story rested and ready to take on a business challenge.

I’d spent a few days with a dear friend who had survived a battle with cancer. Although that’s really an understatement. She kicked cancer to the curb, ending up lighter, more energetic and I swear looking 10-20 years younger. I’m pretty sure that’s not normal. Not to make light of her struggle, though. Her battle was hard won. I’m in awe.

When I was planning my trip, I realized that there was an indie publishers’ conference in Denver the weekend I was supposed to meet my husband in Colorado Springs.

Meeting him in Denver instead of Colorado Springs cut a few miles off his trip. And with a title like “Rise and Disrupt,” I felt like I had to go. As I explained, a publishing conference fell on me.

My friend tagged along to enjoy the hotel and the show. She knows I can be entertaining when provoked.

Knowing I’d be a relatively small fish in an ocean of sharks, I was glad for the company.

The very first session broke me. It was a special small group session for publishers of my size with similar goals and experience. I had even met a couple of the others before.

Coming from a conference where I knew only my daughter… That seemed hopeful. Right up until the session started.

You see, the moderator seemed to feel that we all needed to learn how to get traditional distribution. Disrupt? No! Conform! Questions about how we could do… anything… were apparently all to be answered by the mysteries of traditional distribution.

Note: I don’t have traditional distribution. I sell books worldwide and we’ve had some moderate success. (I’ve written elsewhere about distribution, but just one example of how bad it can get is when Small Print Distribution shut down. 80% of the publishers that used them are now expected to survive.)

Clearly, if I had this magic wand, all of my problems would go away. Except that several people there did have it and they were having problems… But that’s just the industry. The moderator of that event dismissed their questions for the most part.

I quickly learned that my opinions were not welcome or asked for. I didn’t have a distributor, therefore I was no one.

(For those who skipped Part 1, I came to the conference having accepted that I would not have a traditional distributor.)

That some people had questions about author platforms and other areas I’m extremely experienced with… Didn’t matter. I did see a couple of small publishers mentally processing how this distributor would overcome some of their challenges. (Hint: the answer is, they won’t. The distributor will tell them not to publish that book. And if they want to keep their distributor, they’ll comply. So the problem will go away.)

I should point out that this is not the official stance of IBPA. However, it is fairly common in the industry. If you want to be a cool kid, you need a distributor. That this thing has put many publishers out of business… We won’t talk about that.

By the end of the session, I’m sure there was steam coming out of my ears.

I was fresh from a conference where the message I left with was, “make space for people to be heard.” And the message from the breakfast session of the conference was, “Shut up. Don’t try to change the industry.”

There wasn’t even food I could eat.

I utilized my friend help line and took myself politely to our room where I screamed and ranted and I think made her a little worried about my blood pressure.

She’s good at calming me down.

“But the title…” she tried.

“I KNOW!”

“You’ve talked to the administrators about this.”

“Yes, and that was not ok.”

“So maybe the next session will be better.”

A few deep breaths and I was ready to be a sane human again.

Later, there was a panel about disruption in the industry. It had very little to do with changing the industry. There was great information, though.

The last question was my favorite. Someone in the audience asked each of the panelists what they thought publishers could do to help disrupt the industry. I took notes to share.

The IPG (distributor) rep suggested we raise the prices of books so everyone makes more money.

The Barnes and Noble rep said we should promote on TikTok that everyone should read a picture book every day.

The last rep, a publisher, said that we should build more brick and mortar bookstores.

The moderator looked at the panelists and then said that her own answer would be to do away with the book return system that is at the heart of the industry.

The crowd went wild. It seemed I wasn’t the only person in the room who thought the conference was supposed to be about disruption.

I want to mention that a big, beautiful part of the conference was about making space for marginalized voices. One discussion that was fascinating was on how the book classification system had created a situation where some books could not be appropriately classified. (Like some indigenous religions being placed in myth instead of religion, as an example.) It was good to see that this area was being disrupted and improved.

The last session was a discussion with diverse publishers about what they’d learned and experienced in a special program from IBPA over the last year.

My favorite speakers were Ambika Sambasivan and Suhani Parikh, two women who’d each had their own publishing companies, but who had merged. As part of the merger, the one who had a traditional distributor left that arrangement. They were happy with the choice.

I had a moment with these two brilliant women in the elevator later. I thanked them for being brave enough to say that they were doing better without traditional distribution.

Ambika gave me brilliant advice as she left the elevator. “Do the numbers. Math doesn’t lie.”

Part of the conference involved one-on-one discussions with experts, but I hadn’t booked any because I couldn’t decide who I wanted to talk to other that a couple of people whose sessions were full except during one class I didn’t want to miss.

(How to pitch your book to Hollywood. I have a couple of books I think would make great movies. The panelists were adamant that only a few genres are being picked up right now. None matched my books. But I learned some valuable tips.)

After the frustration of some of the sessions, I went to the vendor hall and noticed something. Those experts were mostly there at other times… And one could just walk up and talk to them.

I had a bingo card for visiting all the vendors. By the end, I saw them all, and that was more valuable than the free parking I won. Although the free parking helped!

I had long chats with experts in many areas of publishing. I was able to ask all of my questions, and all of my clients’ questions, coming back with a big bag of notes, cool swag, and answers to burning questions.

Disruption was alive and well in the vendor hall.

At the end, I had more information than I started with, and a few key allies in different areas of the business that I look forward to working with.

A few companies helped me see that working with them would not be a good fit, including one relatively small distributor.

And yes, some of these new contacts may actually solve real problems, making my job easier and more productive.

What started in anger ended in hope.

My husband met me in Denver and it was on to vacation part 3!