Following the advice of bloggers and magazines is a sure recipe for entrepreneurial ruin. Does this mean don’t read the blogs or magazines? NO! It means, make the news, don’t follow it. Or—to paraphrase a successful ad campaign: “If you read it, it’s history, if you do it, it’s news.”

Reporting Versus Analyzing

ForeWord, true to its name, is almost certainly the best of the trade magazines—very ForeWord thinking (the theme of my blog today—and clearly the most useful source of information for any independent publisher, independent bookseller, or independent author or librarian. And no, I’m not suggesting you stop reading the trades. Rather, that as a publisher, agent, librarian, bookseller or author, you owe it to yourself to read all the trades—especially the innovative ones such as ForeWord—to give you the foundation from which to launch your new ideas.

But make no mistake—no entrepreneur survives on other people’s ideas. No author succeeds by cloning Harry Potter or The DaVinci Code—or Kunati Books. (Mind you I was tickled to find an indie publisher who "borrowed" our tag line: "Controversial. Bold. Provocative." ) No publisher can thrive for long with an unchanging list of ideas, concepts, marketing plans or authors.

So, read the trades, and the blogs (especially this one, and my publisher blog: http://www.kunati.com/our-publishers-blog/) but only as a base for new-thinking. What’s In and What’s Out is not a good foundation for publishing decisions.

What’s In; What’s Out?

This is the biggest issue I have with the larger magazines and newspapers and their predictions of What’s In and What’s Out in any area: books, fashion, food, wine, you name it. Some journalists and bloggers take on the role of creating fads and fashions, instead of reporting on them.

Independent “Fill-in-the-Blanks” Do It Best

Fortunately, readers don’t always follow these trends, and publishers who simply try to follow fads often find these titles heading straight to the remainder tables.

ForeWord-thinking indies often take the larger risks to introduce new talent, ideas and concepts. I recently read a blog that proclaimed, “Indie’s find the new authors, big publisher’s poach them.” Well, that may be an exaggeration, and clearly the authors have the right to profit from their new-found fame.

But it does highlight the role Indies have taken on; Indie publishers find the new talent and through innovation help them succeed, assisting debut authors to build their brands and careers. Indie booksellers do the same by hand-selling books. Independent magazines such as ForeWord, even more so. Read the story of ForeWord’s inspirational start-up in the 10th Anniversary issue of the magazine. Indies (in any field) are the unsung heroes, you could say.

An Inelegant Segue...
I’ll gratefully make a small plug here that only subtly ties in with my point in this blog: First happy 10th to ForeWord (much deserved!) And thank you ForeWord for recognizing the role of the Indie Publishers with your new Independent Publisher of the Year Award… I’m beyond delighted Kunati and our author’s were honored, and am so much hoping this inspires other indies to innovate, take chances and find new talent. Which is my crazy segue into …

Memoirs… In not Out!
Today I spent two hours chatting with a very talented memoirist with an important story to tell about abuse. Now, I was trying to explain, “post Frey, memoirs are out” but I found myself not believing it. And, in the end, I made an offer on this most wonderful book.

When I look at our book list, I see a dozen memoirs. So, clearly, we don’t believe they’re "out." They sell well. They are not famous people—just important stories from real people with genuine writing talent. Such as Mothering Mother: an important story of a daughter coping with her mother’s Alzheimer’s. And Paul Cook’s new memoir Cooked in LA: a stunning story of addiction to fame, alcohol and drugs. And most certainly Wendy Aron’s amazing Hide & Seek, both a memoir and a story of recovery from one of America’s most debilitating conditions: depression.

Clearly, we don’t believe memoirs are dead. Today, I saw Publisher’s Weekly described Memoirs as “Unstoppable” and cited bidding wars on memoirs. “Publishers continue to snap up memoirs, undermining the perception that the genre is embattled in this post-Frey, post-Seltzer era.” Indies, of course, knew this long ago. It's not news to us.

Novels, a Shrinking Affair?
Commonly accepted “publishing trends” indicates that novels are shrinking affair, certainly for the debut author. Now, here we may be somewhat different from the prototypical indie, and clearly different from the larger publishing houses. We love debut fiction and fiction in all categories. It’s one of the reasons why we’re in business. And we continue to show that debut fiction can be successful, even in a 1 million plus title universe, where self-published fiction will soon outnumber trade-published titles.

But What is the Secret?
Hard work? Innovation? Risk-taking? Creating new trends? All of the above. Our director Kam Wai Yu created the first book trailer back in the eighties. Movie trailers were his inspiration, but it hadn’t been done. Why, we asked? The synergies of two industries combined to create a new phenomenon. Now, we lead with book trailers. But, it’s hardly considered innovative now. Almost mainstream. Nice to set the new mainstream I suppose.

So, on to the next innovation. Blog tours. Okay, that’s mainstream now too. Ezines. Been there, done that. Social Marketing 2.0. Very yesterday. What’s next… well, I’ll share, but not today. (Hint: I share often at http://www.blogertize.com)

Does this Mean You Must Invent?
Of course not. It does mean you must be an enthusiastic early adopter. Make it your own.

By watching ForeWord and the blogs, you stay on top of the next great trend: interactive trailers, paperless galleys, paperless catalogs, live web, online PR... And then you add your own personality to what has proven successful. Blend your brand of enthusiasm with the hottest new trend. Ignore the big publisher trends. By the time you hear what’s hot, it’s yesterday. Live author chat? So old now. Virtual book plates. Done. Think beyond.

Make it your own. Work it (that’s the hard work part). Take risks, especially the ones that only cost time versus money. Invest the time (who needs TV time or sleep?—if I wanted TV time would I be writing this blog?) These are the tools of the indie. There’s no secret.

We Just Want it More
Why does this work for the indie? It’s simple, really. We want it more. We work harder because we want it more. There’s no stopping innovation--and innovation has always come from individual minds.

Individuality is definitely the territory of independent publishers, independent booksellers, and independent magazines such as ForeWord. We have to invent to succeed. We have to work to grow. And we do it with a big smile, because enthusiasm is a big part of the formula for success.

Posted by: Derek Armstrong