How do you market and promote your titles?

 

Leapfolio is the only joint-venture partner of Tupelo Press, a nonprofit literary press that has been publishing and distributing books of literary prose and poetry since 1999, and that maintains an active backlist of more than 150 titles.

Tupelo Press’s distribution system, which is available for all Leapfolio books, includes five important components:

 

  • A professional in-house fulfillment center, including an e-commerce website and telephone-order option, with speedy and efficient shipping of all orders by no later than the next day.
  • Four contracted sales teams covering the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii. Commercial distributors present catalogs to retailers that often include the frontlists of 150 publishers. With Leapfolio, your book will be individually presented to our sales reps, and will be included in a physical and online Leapfolio catalog that those reps will promote to the booksellers.
  • Coordinated access to nationwide wholesale networks, including Ingram and Baker & Taylor, offering additional marketing and order processing across the US as well as in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the European Union (with special access to Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Poland), India, South Korea, and Russia.
  • Active, imaginative use of both print and social media for publicity and marketing, with full access to Tupelo Press’s long-standing social media channels and a proprietary e-mail list of book buyers with more than 12,000 addresses, with the option of renting significantly larger lists.
  • The option of inventory management for reprints
  • The capacity to produce and fulfill orders for eBook versions of each publication, accurately prepared for each of the primary eBook readers (Kindle, Nook, iBook, ePub).

 

Leapfolio’s marketing and publicity team can also help you utilize your personal social and commercial networks in the most effective way. These circles of friends, relations, and colleagues, properly tapped, have the power to reach your most dynamic, loyal and enthusiastic audiences, which are essential in publicizing a new publication.

In addition to working with Tupelo Press’s dedicated marketing staff, you’ll receive a copy of Leapfolio’s Guerilla Marketing Guide, a comprehensive field guide that crystallizes nearly two decades of marketing experience and is only available to Tupelo Press authors and our Leapfolio partners. Here, you will find strategies for discovering and defining your target audience, allowing you to connect with those who are already deeply invested in your subject matter and unique approach.

The Guerrilla Marketing Guide also provides guidance for developing, designing, and curating your own brand, your author image, your website, and your social media presence. This detailed guidebook includes advice from authors who have discovered, through pooled experience, the most persuasive strategies for book promotion, including practical suggestions for being proactive about one’s work, and even more importantly, knowing where to focus one’s energy for the most direct results.

Books can have very long lives. With care and attention, many books continue to sell for many years following their initial release, and books unusual in style and subject may well sell better in subsequent years than at first. Leapfolio will doggedly continue to pursue opportunities keep each book visible and attracting new readers, emphasizing high-margin sales from the Tupelo Press/Leapfolio website fulfillment center and periodic “BOGO” (“buy one, get one free”) offerings, and other marketing campaigns.