The Bookseller Resources Page for the Summer Catalog is now live at rampbooks.com. Including

• Title Lists
• Book Details
• Edelweiss Collection Links
• Marketing Resources & Materials

The RAMP Winter Catalog (also known as the SIBA Holiday Catalog) is by far the most popular and effective resource SIBA provides for its bookstores. It has become a key part of bookstores' holiday sales plans. Last year's catalog was so well received that stores requested a summer edition for the other major shopping season on their calendars.

Now there are twice as many ways to promote year-round reading across print and digital formats, indie-style! Visit RAMPBooks.com for more info and to sign up! The deadline to place store orders is March 15.

Attend the Information Session on February 17th!
REGISTER

The recent launch of the RAMP Summer email program [you can still sign up] has highlighted for bookstores the ongoing importance of email in their day to day business. Social media outreach has been a great tool in raising the visibility of small businesses in their communities, but email remains the most familiar, convenient, and direct way to communicate with individual customers.

That is why email remains on of the most reliable tools in your marketing toolbox. Also, one of the most cost-effective. On average, email generates $38 for every dollar spent. That is better than any social media channel.

The first step to creating a good email marketing program is to start with a good subscriber list.
If you send out regular newsletters, or participate in one of the book industry's marketing programs like Edelweiss 360, IndieNext, Shelf Awareness for Readers, or RAMP, then you don't have to worry about creating a beautiful email -- these programs will take care of that. As will whatever service you use to send out your own store emails: Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, iContact, to name a few.

But a great newsletter won't do any good if it is never received and never read. So here are three basic email list maintenance tasks you should do if you have an email newsletter or are using a program like RAMP:

1. Actively, and organically grow your subscriber list.
   Don't purchase or rent lists from third party services. They are often of poor quality and using them can result in you being flagged as a spammer. Instead, run periodic subscription campaigns in your store and on your social media channels. And make a point of linking to your newest newsletter in social media whenever it goes out.
   
   
2. Clean up your list.
   Remove duplicate addresses, fix or remove addresses with typos, update or remove invalid addresses, and remove any bouncing addresses. None of these are doing you any good and sending emails that have a high "bounce rate" can have a negative impact on your sender reputation with internet service providers and email servers, which may in turn put emails you send into spam folders.
   
   
3. Have a "sunset policy" for unengaged contacts.
   Periodically send out emails to the addresses that haven't opened your messages in the last 6-12 months, inviting them to confirm their subscription. You can try to incentivizing them to re-engage, or remove them if they don't. Most bulk email services will be able to tell you which addresses on your list never open your messages. They aren't doing you any good and in fact are bringing down your email open and click rates.

Doing these three things regularly will result in a high-quality engaged subscriber list, which in turn will mean more responses and more sales from the newsletters you do send out, either yourself or via a program like RAMP or IndieNext.

Ordering is now open for the SIBA Holiday Catalog!

This year SIBA has joined four other regional associations: NEIBA, GLIBA, MIBA, and NAIBA in RAMP -the regional association marketing partnership -- to produce our 2020 SIBA Holiday Catalog. By joining in with the collective bargaining power of other regional associations, SIBA has been able to create a robust catalog featuring many new publishing partners. There has been a strong commitment to including diverse titles by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color authors, and an active attempt to include books that are receiving strong bookseller support and buzz. (Much of the latter comes from the reviews booksellers post in Edelweiss, so if you aren't doing that, start now!)

Deadline to place your orders is August 7!
The Target date for Catalog delivery is November 1
Questions: Suzanne Shoger suzanneshoger@gmail.com

ORDER HERE | Brochure

WHAT IS THE SAME

1) Your first 12,500 Catalogs are completely free. Anything more than that can be purchased in boxes of 500 for $55/box. (or 11 cents per catalog for direct mail, see below)

2) Shipping for your order is free whether you are shipping to your store or to a newspaper for insertion, or both.

3) Your catalogs can be imprinted with a minimum order of 2000. That is down from last year's minimum order of 5000 and better reflects the needs of our smaller stores and more environmentally responsible ordering. There is a $150 imprinting cost, but SIBA will pay for $40 of the price, so the charge for you is $110.

4) Free html catalogs will be available to all stores. IndieCommerce, IndieLite, and Bookshop.org stores will have URLs available to link directly to their shopping carts. A template html page will also be available for stores that use other e-commerce platforms.

WHAT IS NEW

1) Direct Mail Option. Stores can choose to upload their mailing list and have their order direct-mailed to their customers.

2) Saturation Mail Option. Reach potential customers in your area that may not know about your store. Stores can opt to have their catalogs delivered to mailing addresses within a targeted area or zip code.

Mailing costs are competitive at 20 cents per catalog.

The holiday catalog has always been one of the major and most popular benefits of SIBA membership. This year, the ability to reach regular and potential customers is more important than ever. No matter what the situation looks like in the fall, the catalog can be a vital way to generate sales. Don't miss the opportunity.