Articles

Business Operations · Article | 08.02.24 Some Ideas About How to Be a Successful Book Publisher, Part III
by Curt Matthews

In the first part of this article, published in the March/April 2024 issue of the magazine, I...

Business Operations · Article | 06.03.24 Some Ideas About How to Be a Successful Book Publisher, Part II
by Curt Matthews

In the first part of this article, published in the March/April 2024 issue of the magazine, I...

Business Operations · Article | 04.08.24 Some Ideas about How to be a Successful Book Publisher, Part I
by Curt Matthews

Two book companies that I for many years owned and managed, Chicago Review Press (CRP) and...

Business Operations · Article | 11.02.15 Why and How to Break the Multitasking Habit
by Devora Zack

With too much to do, too little time, and growing piles of daily demands, multitasking is...

Industry News · Article | 07.06.15 The Volunteering Value Proposition
by Kimberly A. Edwards

“I call it face time,” says Becky Parker Geist of Pro Audio Voices, president of the...

Business Operations · Article | 03.17.15 Business Analytics: The Top Methodologies
by Piyanka Jain

Analytics is not rocket science. And business analytics, which uses relatively simple...

Marketing & Publicity · Article | 01.01.13 How Backlist Makes the Bottom Line Better
by Linda Carlson

Still thinking about New Year’s resolutions? Think backlist promotion. Backlist is the...

Legal · Article | 08.01.12 Minimizing Libel Risks: Part 2, Issues You Might Not Expect
by Steve Gillen

Part 1 of this series examined the basics of libel law in the United States. But if your libel...

Legal · Article | 07.01.12 Minimizing Libel Risks: Part 1, The Basics
by Steve Gillen

SEE ALSO: Minimizing Libel Risks: Part 2, Issues You Might Not Expect In the United States, the...

Business Operations · Article | 03.01.12 Niche Publishing: A Well-Defined System for Producing Profits
by Gordon Burgett

When we in niche publishing claim that the smaller our market, the higher our profits (all...

Industry News · Article | 11.30.11 Writer Becomes Publisher, Stays Writer: The Bick House Back Story
by Linda Carlson

Dale Bick Carlson, whose decision to become a publisher stemmed from her passion for helping...

Distribution · Article | 03.01.09 A Crash Course in Remainders
by Richard Carmen

What can I do with these books? That’s the question my company faced after we published...

Industry News · Article | 10.01.08 Sarah's Story: Keeping Up with an Instant Bestseller
by Kent Sturgis

It was a wild ride, starting the day John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. The...

Marketing & Publicity · Article | 09.01.08 The Pros and Cons of Contests


Earlier this year, a member of Book Publishers Northwest asked, “Which contests make sense...

Industry News · Article | 01.01.08 Director's Desk: My 15 Years with PMA: Looking Back and Ahead
by Terry Nathan

As you may know, I am now responsible for heading up PMA, after the recent passing of my mother,...

Distribution · Article | 11.01.06 Getting Rid of All Those Unsold Books
by Linda Carlson

Returns, hurts, remainders, overstocks—they’re all books you can’t sell to...

Industry News · Article | 05.01.05 Doing Business with Baker & Taylor


PMA members’ reports on dealing with Baker & Taylor can be categorized under three...

Industry News · Article | 08.01.04 How Ingram’s New Policy Hurts
by Steve Carlson

Bookstore customers are much less likely to buy smaller publishers’ books as a result of...

Industry News · Article | 06.01.03 PMA - Celebrating 20! A Short History of What Happened When


The first PMA newsletter was called PASCAL Info (the former name of the Publishers Marketing...

Industry News · Article | 03.31.03 Jan Nathan: Getting to Know PMA’s Chief
by Steve O'Keefe

Jan Nathan has been the Executive Director of the Publishers Marketing Association since its...

Industry News · Article | 11.01.02 Censorship: An Overview of What Government, Libraries, and Schools Can–and Can’t–Suppress
by Tad Crawford; Kay Murray

This article is adapted from the newly revised Third Edition of "The Writer's...

Legal · Article | 06.01.02 Defamation Dangers
by Tad Crawford;Kay Murray

This article is adapted from the Third Edition of The Writer’s Legal Guide: An...

Marketing & Publicity · Article | 10.31.01 How to Build Profits with Your Backlist
by David Cole

After a few years of producing a steady stream of titles, life as a publisher in some ways gets...

Legal · Article | 10.01.01 Defining Libel in Fiction
by Alan J. Kaufman

Question: One of our editors is working with an author on her first novel. The antagonist of...

Industry News · Article | 06.30.99 First Amendment Takes a Hit in Paladin Press Case
by Jonathan Kirsch

Bad facts make bad law, as the old saying goes, and never was it better illustrated than in the...

Editorial · Article | 05.01.97 How to Hire an Indexer
by Janis Paris

Getting Started in the Hiring Process The nice thing about hiring an indexer is that you can...

Industry News · Article | 01.31.97 Introducing Nancy & Don Tubesing Whole Person Associates/Pfeifer-Hamilton Publishers


In an effort to assist PMA members in learning some of the tricks of the trade used by surviving...

Marketing & Publicity · Article | 01.31.97 Reducing the (Perceived) Price with Coupons, Rebates & Discounts
by Robert C. Brenner

Cutting book prices can increase sales, but it could also encourage competitors to follow your...

Industry News · Article | 08.31.96 Perspectives: Jake Baker and Internet Threats
by Joan H. Lowenstein

First Amendment protagonists are not always the types of people you'd choose to chat with over...

Business Operations · Article | 05.31.96 Listening for Profit
by Robert C. Brenner

The entrepreneurial playing field is littered with the debris of failed publishing businesses....