Report on the 2008 PMA Affiliates’ Retreat

by Jack Crowl

In a day-and-a-half’s worth of deliberations, 25 people from about 15 affiliates and PMA covered a lot of ground on a lot of topics. Here’s a sampling.

Dues: We’re well behind the curve. Arizona charges $125/year, plus $25 for meetings with speakers and refreshments; Colorado, $95, plus $25 extra first year, and $15 per meeting; Oregon, $80 first year, then $75; Florida, $100 for publishers, $150 for vendors; Midwest, $50, with a student membership of $25; St. Louis, $72, with big discounts for extra people from same organization (board members pay no dues); Connecticut, $48, half for students (board members and committee chairmen are free); Mid-Atlantic, $25 for individuals, with a sliding scale upward for organizations, etc.; San Diego, $37 dues, with extra charge of $10 per meeting.

Recruiting: Most folks concentrate their recruiting efforts on meetings. They do such things as offer special one-time promotional rates at meetings, distribute free guest passes, promote their meetings in the local press, etc. They cultivate relations with state humanities councils, state library organizations and even individual libraries. They combine their meetings with those of writers’ groups. They invite reporters and book reviewers to speak at meetings. Several have cable TV programs about publishing. Florida used to get from Bowker a list of people who have applied for ISBNs. Bowker will no longer supply that information free, but PMA is working with them on a plan to get that information. A couple of affiliates offer free “How to Publish Your Book” meetings at local Borders or B&N stores.

Retention: We seem to be ahead of the curve here. The idea of telephoning non-renewers and offering Paypal for dues payments seemed new and unique to many attendees. Again, many tie their efforts to their meetings or offer lower rates for those who renew after a certain number of years. Everyone feels we should all do a better job of playing up the benefits (financial and otherwise) of membership.

Geography: We’re not the only group that faces geographical challenges. Florida (which is almost 1,000 miles from tip to toe) divides itself into 7 regions and each one has a director. Many of their regions offer local meetings, while the entire unit gets together only for a big shindig once or twice a year. Some have tried online video conferencing, with mixed success.

Meetings: Just about everybody has more face-to-face meetings than we have. Most meet monthly, some for lunch or dinner, one even meets for breakfast. Some meet on Saturdays. All have speakers or presenters, ranging from book reviewers and printers to intellectual-property lawyers, booksellers (including Amazon.com) and special-interest experts (such as “how to use maps in your book”). Several affiliates make money from their meetings and invite outsiders at a premium rate.

Events: PMA can budget only one (or sometimes 2) mini-PMA-U’s a year. There are more than 20 affiliates. So the odds of getting a mini-PMA-U are long. Many affiliates plan their own special events, then ask the PMA to provide a couple of speakers. Connecticut has CAPA University each year and tries to get a big name in the field. Connecticut also puts a mini-bookstore in the state pavilion at the Big E (Eastern States Exposition) at Springfield, MA, which we have talked about. Florida, San Diego, and others have spring and fall meetings with speakers and workshops for which they charge $100 and up.

Newsletters: Florida has monthly newsletter emailed as a pdf. Colorado, St. Louis and Oregon have print newsletters. Most of the rest have online newsletters. There are a couple of websites/software vendors who can keep track of who’s opening the email you send them. One is ConstantContact.com; the other is Cooleremail.com. Each has its supporters and detractors.

Catalogs: Several affiliates have printed catalogs, although some are quite simple, almost folders. Others have online catalogs only. Most charge members to be in the catalog. Colorado offers free listings in the back of its catalog but charges for the front of the book, with varying sizes at varying prices. Several have online catalogs only, but some people questioned the value of online catalogs, since a potential buyer must go to the group’s website to find it. These critics feel online catalogs are for ego-building purposes only

Book Awards Competition: Colorado, Midwest and Arizona all have healthy book-awards programs. They charge $60-$75 per entry. Some limit awards to members, others open the competition to all publishers or authors in their geographical areas. Midwest sells stickers to finalists and winners, similar to the practice of nationwide competitions. A lot of detail work must be done in advance of starting such a competition. Criteria must be set, promotion of the contest is critical to get the best entries, judges must be procured (Colorado uses bookstore owners, retired teachers, librarians, etc.), and the entire process must be vetted to eliminate cronyism or the threat of it and to get the best possible entrants.

Interns: Several affiliates reported using interns from local colleges (or in one case, high schools) with great success. Eager journalism or English majors often are anxious to find out more about the book-publishing world and many are willing to work without compensation.

Websites: Everybody has a website and just about everybody reports difficulties in keeping it up to date with volunteers. I’ve looked at most of the sites and while quality varies a lot, I think ours (now that it’s largely up to date) is as good as anyone else’s.

Alliances: There was a lot of talk about alliances and/or cooperation with other affiliates. Some join their state library associations, booksellers groups or magazine publishers organizations. I talked a bit with Brian Jud. CAPA doesn’t do anything at NEIBA, but they have CAPA-U each summer. Maybe we could consider some cross-promotion of some form