Post by AIPman1 on Jun 30, 2003 11:34:44 GMT -5
Hello, everyone, from the Small Press Association...
As always, We’re on the move with more new ways to get more people excited about small press. Today’s experiment: an exercise in word of mouth advertising. I’m not going to repeat the information we put on the web page we're going to ask you to look at here, so I’ll tell you instead what ISN’T on the page, and we’ll see how far we can take this and how fast.
Our distribution system has a solid foundation. We’ve been building it and refining it for years. What it’s really lacking right now is comic stores using the system. We’ve seen, over the years, lots of distribution plans for small press come and go. And we’ve seen a lot of news/reviews zines come and go. Obscurity Unlimited is both a news/review magazine AND a distribution system. So we’ve had our prejudices to overcome. What the comings and goings have done is to set up small press as a disjointed, unorganized, breeding ground of a place, that larger companies feed off of. How does a distributor handle such a market? The truth is they can’t. That’s why those things keep coming and going. We looked at it and said, why are the reviewzines and distribution plans separate things? Thus OU was born. No one, in the history of small press, has approached the bringing of small press/independent publications as a job. The distributors and newszine editors always had 40+ hour a week day jobs. And you’re never going to get something solid going if you’re doing it in your spare time, no matter how good the ideas are. So that’s one of the reasons 2 years ago, I quit my day job, and started the Small Press Association. Not just because I could, and that my day job was killing me, but because all the ideas and projects that have been set in motion since then NEED someone running them as a job. Because it just won’t gel any other way.
Some of the great things our system allows:
· It allows a store to pre-order copies of your publications without putting any money up front, they pay for the issue when it gets there. This allows great series, that are published on irregular schedules, to make it into stores without the store owners having to “keep an eye out” for it. They can simply tell us that they want to carry the title, and how many copies they’d like when it comes out, and when the publisher is ready to publish, we can tell them how many copies we’ll be wanting. Individuals can also order individual copies from us this way.
· It allows a store to learn of new things they don’t hear of in Previews, learn which are good, and educate their customers by getting OU into their hands as well.
· It allows the individual publisher who was doing the leg work in their local stores to get their book in, to step back and let OU increase their sales and presence. So when the new issue is out, you’re not asking a store owner if they want copies, they will already have them on order, you’ll be asking when you can come in to do a signing of your book, and meet the public.
Anyway, those are just a few things we foresee. We can imagine that there are more things that can be done. As always, the SPA is a collaborative project, that relies on individuals believing in the system to make it work. We’ve come a long way in 2 years. Here’s where YOU can really start making a difference with us. Dimestore has been around for 17 years. Obscurity Unlimited has been around for 4 years. The Small Press Association, 2 years. It is our goal to change how small press gets into the hands of readers, so we’ve developed a new system to help those who help us do so. You can read more about it on this page: www.dimestoreproductions.com/Obscurity/WOM.asp And please feel free to discuss your questions and concerns. All e-mail will be responded to ASAP. Thank you all for taking the time to read this.
Ian Shires
As always, We’re on the move with more new ways to get more people excited about small press. Today’s experiment: an exercise in word of mouth advertising. I’m not going to repeat the information we put on the web page we're going to ask you to look at here, so I’ll tell you instead what ISN’T on the page, and we’ll see how far we can take this and how fast.
Our distribution system has a solid foundation. We’ve been building it and refining it for years. What it’s really lacking right now is comic stores using the system. We’ve seen, over the years, lots of distribution plans for small press come and go. And we’ve seen a lot of news/reviews zines come and go. Obscurity Unlimited is both a news/review magazine AND a distribution system. So we’ve had our prejudices to overcome. What the comings and goings have done is to set up small press as a disjointed, unorganized, breeding ground of a place, that larger companies feed off of. How does a distributor handle such a market? The truth is they can’t. That’s why those things keep coming and going. We looked at it and said, why are the reviewzines and distribution plans separate things? Thus OU was born. No one, in the history of small press, has approached the bringing of small press/independent publications as a job. The distributors and newszine editors always had 40+ hour a week day jobs. And you’re never going to get something solid going if you’re doing it in your spare time, no matter how good the ideas are. So that’s one of the reasons 2 years ago, I quit my day job, and started the Small Press Association. Not just because I could, and that my day job was killing me, but because all the ideas and projects that have been set in motion since then NEED someone running them as a job. Because it just won’t gel any other way.
Some of the great things our system allows:
· It allows a store to pre-order copies of your publications without putting any money up front, they pay for the issue when it gets there. This allows great series, that are published on irregular schedules, to make it into stores without the store owners having to “keep an eye out” for it. They can simply tell us that they want to carry the title, and how many copies they’d like when it comes out, and when the publisher is ready to publish, we can tell them how many copies we’ll be wanting. Individuals can also order individual copies from us this way.
· It allows a store to learn of new things they don’t hear of in Previews, learn which are good, and educate their customers by getting OU into their hands as well.
· It allows the individual publisher who was doing the leg work in their local stores to get their book in, to step back and let OU increase their sales and presence. So when the new issue is out, you’re not asking a store owner if they want copies, they will already have them on order, you’ll be asking when you can come in to do a signing of your book, and meet the public.
Anyway, those are just a few things we foresee. We can imagine that there are more things that can be done. As always, the SPA is a collaborative project, that relies on individuals believing in the system to make it work. We’ve come a long way in 2 years. Here’s where YOU can really start making a difference with us. Dimestore has been around for 17 years. Obscurity Unlimited has been around for 4 years. The Small Press Association, 2 years. It is our goal to change how small press gets into the hands of readers, so we’ve developed a new system to help those who help us do so. You can read more about it on this page: www.dimestoreproductions.com/Obscurity/WOM.asp And please feel free to discuss your questions and concerns. All e-mail will be responded to ASAP. Thank you all for taking the time to read this.
Ian Shires