New Marketing Trends

Marketing Ideas for Non-Profits and Libraries

The M Word helps librarians learn about marketing trends and ideas.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Big News: My Book Will Be Out on July 1!!


From Kathy Dempsey-
Drumroll please...

I've written a book on library marketing! It's being printed now and will be out in 2 weeks. It's called The Accidental Library Marketer, and I wrote it especially for all of you out there who did not intend to get involved in marketing and promotion (which, in libraries, is just about everyone who does these tasks).

Following my usual writing and speaking style, I made sure my book is very useful, practical, and interesting. It is most definitely not another dry, academic tome full of theory and citations. It's a very reader-friendly companion that starts at the beginning, explains why marketing matters, differentiates it from promotion and its related pals, and then walks you, chapter by chapter, through all of the preparation and steps of true marketing. It explains why what you've "always done" might not work, and what you can do differently to get real results.

And, as a demonstration of how to reach a target market effectively, I've chosen a very special time & place for the book launch and signing: at the ALA Annual Conference's Swap & Shop event, which is where all the marketers go to find helpful examples from colleagues and to see award-winning work.

Here's a bit of the press release that just came out:

The Accidental Library Marketer fills a need for library professionals and paraprofessionals who find themselves in an awkward position: They need to promote their libraries and services in the age of the internet, but they’ve never been taught how to do it effectively. In this results-oriented A-to-Z guide, Dempsey–long-time editor of the Marketing Library Services newsletter—reveals the missing link between the everyday promotion librarians actually do and the “true marketing” that’s guaranteed to assure funding, excite users, and build stronger community relationships. The book combines real-life examples, expert advice, and checklists in a reader-friendly style. It includes chapters on getting buy-in for projects, using websites for publicity, and working with the press.

The Accidental Library Marketer is written for all library supporters, whether they’re directors, front-line staffers, volunteers, board members, or students. Since so few library schools have full-semester courses to prepare students for the real marketing they’ll need to do during their careers, the title is also designed to fill the need for marketing education. It could accompany a grad-school course or serve as independent reading for students who don’t have an option for a class. In fact, one prominent educator is already using pre-publication copies to supplement a marketing course at Simmons College. Ernest A. DiMattia, Jr., an adjunct faculty member at Simmons and a visiting associate professor at Pratt Institute, calls the book “a no-nonsense marketing guide that is comprehensive in scope and professional in style.”


You can read the full press release here, on my brand-new website! This site (still under construction) will support the book and will also be the home for my consulting business, named Libraries Are Essential. As such, the hopefully memorable URL is LibrariesAreEssential.com.

At the site, you can find more info about the book, including the full TOC, the Intro I wrote, and the Foreword by the experienced, award-winning marketer Judith Gibbons. You can also find my full CV, fascinating info about me, a slideshow of pictures, and lots more. Keep checking back as my ace webmaster and I keep building it up and adding more helpful library marketing resources.

Oh, and just in case you want to order the book, you can do that too. :-)

Questions, comments, thoughts?? Let me know, either here or at my new email address, Kathy [at] LibrariesAreEssential.com. I'd like to hear from all of you "accidental marketers" out there! I'm on a mission to make your marketing more effective.

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