IndieBound – let’s make the leap

20 Oct 2011

Great ideas aren’t enough on their own; without exception they need sheer hard work and commitment to make them fly. Often it is not money that propels a campaign but effort and critical mass.

OK, you’ve read the headline so you know what we are talking about.

Truly, IndieBound won’t cost heaps of money, but it will take grunt.

Later in this article, two stores report that have taken the marketing material and are excited by the success they’ve had with it...

Looking at the cost first... at $100 a year for Booksellers NZ members who sign up, it is good value for what is on offer:

a spirited local community campaign that will resonate with your customers
a bigger identity as a bookstore
regular review write ups by booksellers you can trust which will open up sales opportunities, and
access to quality collateral like posters and banners - sure there’s a cost to reproduce, but no expenses are incurred for graphic design work and great ideas.

Making IndieBound Work
First, put up posters and banners in store and windows.

Next, have the answers ready when customers ask “What’s this IndieBound thing all about?” Make your own DLE size info sheet. Get the wording off the IndieBound website, add your own spin, and print off three to an A4 page. (Clever dicks can possibly organise an ad on the back.)

It is really important that customers get the idea and the message, and a leaflet pushed in the bag can do it all for you. It doesn’t have to be fancy – this is one promotion where the message counts. Most booksellers will have their own printers so the cost is time and a ream of paper.

Then take it outside your doors. If it is well enough presented, most libraries will have a fixture that takes community flyers. Send a staffer around the Farmers or other local market handing out the flyer – a smile is a must.

Let the local business association know what you are doing and see if they will get on the bandwagon too – it is the kind of promotion many will be glad to buy into.

Tell the local community newspaper about the initiative – Booksellers fight back! - they love little guys taking on the big guy stories.

The next phase is to consolidate.
Keep the focus – no one is going to get the message overnight.

“Indie” is not a term we know to identify stand alone, owner operated bookshops that reflect their community... but it will be if all bookshops that identify as Indies beat the drum on basics for a year or more.

Don’t forget to communicate the message to the book groups that buy off you, they will become IndieBound advocates and spread the message, as will your regular customers.

What Booksellers NZ will do to support IndieBound

Booksellers NZ has set up the IndieBound website and will maintain and update the website presence frequently.
Further high quality POS marketing materials will be available with different seasons and promotion periods.
We will continue to feed promotion ideas from other markets that can be adapted for use here
Maintain the bi monthly quality bookseller reviews of titles that will have Indie appeal.
Produce a special Christmas focussed review list.

Bookshops say IndieBound Works
Stores already using the posters and banners are enthusiastic.

Jenna Todd, assistant manager at Time Out in the Auckland suburb of Mount Eden, has inadvertently discovered an extra sales avenue: one customer loves the EAT SLEEP READ poster so much, the store has organised to supply her a copy!

Light bulb moment: if you can contain printing costs to make a profit, offer these for sale as quirky gifts.

“Mount Eden is community based,” says Jenna, “So people have quickly realised the value of the buy-local message. We plan to always use a poster as part of our window display over the next few months.

“We’ve linked in our own website, facebook and twitter with the IndieBound blog and it is a great add on, people ‘like’ it! And our manager Harriet Hodge was the reviewer for one of the books on the October list.”

Marcus Greville at vicbooks on Victoria Uni campus in Wellington, says the IndieBound ideas and material came at just the right time for the store, which was trying to re-establish itself as a ‘one off’ independent book store rather than just another textbook and stationery store, and to draw attention to its range of general fiction and nonfiction.

“As an academic bookstore, we were in a rather liminal zone and this gave us the kind of identity we were looking for, plus the signage presents well in store.” (Marcus has covetous eyes on the SNACK NAP READ poster.)

“Customers were quick to pick up on the independent aspect of the promotion and there have been only a few “what’s this all about” questions. The “bound” in the title can be read two ways which works for us.”

So, what’s not to like about IndieBound? A small fee for a big resource, successful trial promotions by stores who believe in the message, a worldwide buy-local groundswell to take advantage of and classy graphics.

But it is only our bookseller energy which will fuel IndieBound. So find some. Now.

Sign up to IndieBound today