Over $96,000 in IAP Select royalties generated for local authors; circulations top 750,000

With our most recent data update, we are happy to report that over $96,000 has been generated by public libraries for local indie authors in IAP Select collections. When added to the tens of thousands of dollars in prizes and other stipends that are part of the Indie Author Project library program, the economic contributions of participating libraries to their own creative economies are becoming more significant every day.

The Indie Author Project has recently announced the launch of IAP Select audiobooks and has doubled the prize money in their North American regional contests to $40,000. With these expansions the economic impact libraries are having on their own communities will only accelerate.

Of course, the Indie Author Project’s original mission was to increase discovery and engagement with the eBooks of a library’s best local authors. On that front, the program continues to shine with 752,359 circulations reported in the most recent period. These are new readers that public libraries are helping to find for their best local authors by participating in this program.

From working with curation partners such as Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and the Black Caucus of the ALA (BCALA) to find the best eBooks, to ensuring those eBooks are distributed in as many channels as possible, our focus is on driving engagement for great indie-published books. We know this effort pushes forward the writing careers of indie authors and creates transformational relationships between authors and their own libraries.

Below you can find data from our most recent Winter 2022 IAP Data Collab push along with the charts to learn more about the Indie Author Project (IAP) Data Collaboration and the libraries and regions that are having the biggest impact.

One data point that really strikes at the impact of the program in a very short time is the number of authors earning more than $100 in royalties jumped from 192 to 328, a 59% increase since the last reporting period. The state of California also saw a significant jump in its regional economic impact, growing its contributions by almost 60% to $17,577.

We are continually impressed by the organic growth the IAP Select program has had internationally. This recent reporting period showed authors from countries around the world earning royalties including Canada, Australia, England, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, Italy, Ireland, Singapore, and Wales. As IAP continues to expand internationally and we begin to handle other languages (today the program is only in English) we can only imagine it will flourish.