The Pirates Have Landed

In between the 20Books Madrid and the SPF Live London conferences, there was a quieter, smaller, yet possibly more disruptive conference: 20Books Holland.

The Netherlands is several years behind the United States in the indie publishing world. Authors might be frustrated when working in an environment where traditional publishing still has most of the respect of the reading public.

However, one might also see it as a new frontier. In fact, Michael Anderle, co-founder of 20BooksTo50K®, proclaimed that the indie author movement was like a pirate, the conference was the pirate ship, and independent authors have landed on the mainland.

Here are a few of the topics covered over the course of the day, all translated from Dutch as the entire day—with the exception of presentations by Craig Martelle, Michael Anderle, and Dan Wood from Draft2Digital—was in Dutch:

• Marketing and promotion panel: a hybrid publisher, a book coach, and an author talked marketing strategies and tactics
• Book trailers
• Children’s books and crowdfunding
• Mailing lists and selling direct (paperbacks)

Although the country and even the region, including Belgium and Luxembourg, are lagging in the industry, it has to begin somewhere. One might say that it began at this conference.

The indies have landed! There's a bounty to be had and treasures to be discovered! Disembark and rush the beaches!

It might be a slow invasion, but it has begun. Keep an eye on indie author activities in the Netherlands.