For Authors
In an effort to further encourage strong relationships between indie authors, local libraries, and readers, we have partnered with curators and libraries across the U.S. and Canada to find the best indie-published books.
What is the Indie Author Project?
The Indie Author Project (IAP) is a publishing community that includes public libraries, authors, curators, and readers working together to connect library patrons with great indie-published books. IAP has helped hundreds of libraries engage their local creative community and assisted in getting almost 20,000 indie ebooks into their local libraries. Most importantly, the project has worked with top curation partners and librarians to identify hundreds of these as the best indie ebooks available to readers—so they can be sustainably circulated to library patrons with confidence.
Through this publishing community, authors can submit ebooks directly to their local public library to then be vetted by industry editorial partners and library editorial boards. Being selected by these curators can lead to expanded discovery, marketing, and networking opportunities.
IAP Select Ebook Collections
Books that are chosen by our curators can opt into a royalty-paying program, where your ebook is sold in curated collections via library ebook platforms such as OverDrive, The Palace Project, cloudLibrary, and Boundless by Baker and Taylor. The program is only available to authors who are part of our curated Indie Author Project Select collections. The program is non-exclusive and built to be complementary to any current indie author marketing and sales programs.
Indie Author Project Contests
Each Spring, we hold the Indie Author Project Annual Contests accepting submissions from across the US and Canada. While these contests were previously region-based, they have been reformatted and now seek to identify the best indie-published books in eight genres: Mystery/Thrillers, Romance, SciFi, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, General/Contemporary, Fiction, Memoir, and Young Adult. Along with cash prizes and promotional opportunities, if you are a winner, you also have the chance to be named the Indie Author of the Year and enjoy a wealth of PR and marketing benefits.
Winners of the Indie Author of the Year award include Ran Walker, who hosted a sold-out book signing at the 2019 American Library Association Annual Conference, and as a nod to public libraries, published a library-exclusive audiobook version of his winning title, Daykeeper. The most recent winner Melissa Bobe participated in a panel with past Indie Authors of the Year on Indie Author Day, and is planning to have her winning book of short stories, Electric Trees, produced into an audiobook.
Our contests give authors the opportunity to be a part of the Indie Author Project community, but the real heroes of the program are the libraries that support their local author communities and make programs (and ebooks) like these available year-round.
IAP Library Print Editions
What is Indie Author Project (IAP) Library Print Editions?
IAP Library Print Editions is a sales and marketing program built to partner with public libraries to discover and then sell the best indie-published books into library print collections. This program, in partnership with IngramSpark, is provided to those authors that have been selected by our curation partners and library editorial boards and will launch in early 2020.
Authors of selected books in each region can opt-in to create an IAP Library Print Editions version of their book for commercial distribution—a library-bound hardcover and shelf-ready paperback. These books will be included in, and actively promoted through, a multitude of Ingram Library programs designed to sell print books and other collection development services to public libraries. Similar to what one would expect of a traditional publisher, we also work to actively promote the IAP indie print book catalog directly to libraries. There is no cost to you and you will receive royalties through this program as well.
This program is open to any winners of contests through our network of Indie Author Project regional library partners and to other books that pass our curation and editorial process. You must be indie-published and have free and clear publishing rights to your book in order to participate in the program. Participation in the Indie Author Project Library Print Editions program does not preclude you from continuing to sell, publish, distribute, and promote other versions of your book within and outside of the library market.
