Cooperative eBook Marketing – a New Concept

A Community of “Citizens” – an Old Concept

InditLitWorld.com is an eBook marketing “cooperative.” Simply put, a marketing “cooperative” is an organization where readers and writers join together to create, promote and support new voices in literature, nonfiction, and memoirs.  This particular eBook marketing site, however, has the distinction of restricting itself to authors that deal with contemporary politics, public policy and government.  They are permited, however, to load, works for any genre or audience.

As a “cooperative,” we rely on readers and authors in a different way than a traditional agency or even an eBook publisher. We rely on the readers for several critical elements: (1) to serve as first and second volunteer readers on all submitted manuscripts, evaluating the readiness and appropriateness of the manuscript for publication, and writing a review for others who are registered on this site;  (2) to provide authors with fair, balanced and helpful evaluative comments and ratings, things that the authors can use to improve their work; (3) to provide readers with free samples of the books posted on the site, books that are for sale at other epublishing companies; and (4) to encourage readers to recommend IndieLitWorld.com to their friends and family members so that we can build an active readership for our manuscripts and “community of citizens” for dealing with our contemporary political and governmental problems..

In addition, we rely on our authors for several critical elements: (1) to submit finished samples, with a cover, of manuscripts for our review – finished sufficiently that they are for sale on Amazon, iTunes, or Barnes and Nobel and formatted either in Mobipocket, ePub or both; (2) to promote the website, IndieLitWorld.com to their friends, family members, and others using the on line resources that are now available, including Facebook, Twitter, etc.; and (3) to participate in on line forums with their readers, including email, web groups, book clubs, etc.

This site is NOT for everyone.  We are seeking both readers and authors who are interested in the vital world of politics, government and public policy – whether in fiction, nonfiction, or memoirs.  The concept of the “citizen” is an old one.  Active, thoughtful engaged citizens are the heart of a democracy; and without them democracies simply cannot exist for long.  Over and over again in our history, ordinary "citizens” have come together to perfect and defend our democracy when it has been threatened – the ‘Progressives” who organized to defeat the corrupt political machines of the Nineteenth Century, the “Civil Rights Movement” that succeeded after 200 years to restore full rights to African-Americans, the “Women’s Movement Rights” that won first the right to vote for women and later the right to equal treatment under the law for women, and many others -- environmentalists, mothers against drug drivers, etc..  

The leaders of these movements -- Lincoln Steffens, Frederick Douglas, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King (and their supporters) -- shared some important characteristics.  First, they took the trouble to gain a deep understanding what was wrong with the operation of our democracy.  Second, they realized that they had a moral obligation to pursue redresses to the violations of our democratic values. Third, they decided to devote a part of their life to the risky pursuit of changing the operation of our system in the face of profound and even violent opposition.  And finally, they persisted even when the objective seemed years away and when the progress seemed painfully slow.  They displayed the courage of their convictions, which were profoundly moral in character.

Our democracy is threatened today, and we are in great danger of losing our fundamental democratic right to a valid choice in elections that can influence the direction of our government.  No one is attempting to deny you your right to vote. Their are many, however, working to create elections where only incumbents can win or those who have access to great personal wealth of the vast funds of special interests.  As a consequence, forces in America have everywhere rendered elections as meaningless because the outcome is certain and your vote is useless.  As a direct consequence, these same interests have turned the legislative process over to a mixture of extremists on the one hand, and special interests on the other.  Together, these groups are backrupting the governments of the United States.  The blog on this site will deal every week with this problem and its implications for all of us.  If you are willing, I will invite every registered reader and author to circulate the blog to family and friends with the objective of getting as many people as possible to join us.

We are depending on the contributions of a great many people to make this site successful, and you can be one of them. I am a somewhat frustrated writer myself, and samples of my novels, short stories and memoir are posted here. I am partnering with an Indian firm owned by Munish Jain, who has provided much of the development for this site and who provides many of the services required, and I will be inviting others directly to participate – as contributing authors, as reviewers and advisors, and as interested readers.

We need two things at this point to succeed. We need volunteers to serve as readers and to manage aspects of the activities on this site. We need authors with enough adventure in them to post their manuscripts right along with the rest of us.