AN OVERVIEW OF THE IPG MARKETING APPROACH

THE PARTICULAR HISTORY of IPG and its acquisition by Chicago Review Press helps to explain the attitudes and goals that continue to guide IPG today. Although Chicago Review Press now generates only a modest share of IPG's total sales, IPG continues to be run as a vehicle for independent presses like CRP rather than as an end in itself. Much of IPG's consistent growth (25% yearly on average) has come not by adding more publishers and titles to its lists, but rather by its success in supporting and encouraging the growth of its client publishers by opening new sales channels and by greatly expanding the number of marketing support services offered to them. The attitudes and goals that characterize the IPG approach can be clearly seen in three specific policies:

1) IPG is very selective in terms of the new publishers it takes on for distribution. Typically about 2% of the publishers who approach IPG for distribution are accepted. This selectivity ensures that each new list is of high quality, so that weak titles do not dilute the presentation of the strong ones, and manageable in size, so that the reps can give each title the attention it deserves.

IPG's goal is to make every title profitable for its client publishers.

2) The IPG staff is dedicated to working closely with its client publishers to develop successful marketing and promotion plans. Publishers receive feedback on prices, press releases, cover or jacket designs, print runs, reprints, advertising or PR plans, and suppliers-even opinions as to the strength of possible book ideas-from IPG staffers who understand both the publication and the distribution of books. IPG's goal is to make every title profitable for its client publishers.

3) IPG stresses backlist. Because backlist sales are absolutely essential to the financial health of independent presses, IPG's catalogs list and describe all viable backlist titles. IPG sales reps are evaluated on the basis of their long-term net sales, not just advance sales, and we encourage them to sell each title into the maximum number of accounts rather than loading up the largest accounts.

IPG continues to field a large and highly sophisticated rep force to cover independent bookstores and other outlets for books. It is often said that, since a few very large customers now account for 85% of the book trade, small stores can be ignored or sold through telemarketing-in other words, they can be neglected.

But sales to smaller bookstores are especially important to independent presses because they typically have a lower rate of returned books than the chain bookstores and a greater ability to support a long-term backlist. IPG reps sell actively to the smaller stores, and when these accounts are not neglected but properly serviced, they can easily account for 30% of an independent publisher's trade sales.