Winter Catalog for Advertisers

We all succeed with the MIBA winter catalog. With this powerful marketing tool, the entire indie sales channel collectively gets behind the most exciting books to sell in indie bookstores during the holiday season. We collaborate with publishers, wholesalers, and booksellers to make sure the catalog books are purchased by our booksellers, merchandised in our bookstores, and sold to book lovers throughout the Midwest.

Our advertisers receive . . .

• Major trade support: Using our catalog increases your sell-in. Catalog titles are promoted heavily to all of our bookstores; Ingram offers an extra discount on all catalog titles
• Major consumer support: Our dedicated booksellers increase your sell-through; we offer a huge array of custom catalog and title-based assets to boost their promotions

Print circulation of over 450,000

Did you know we subsidize our booksellers' print campaigns, helping make them more affordable to our stores?

• Direct mail. Our stores use direct mail to blanket their local areas with catalogs. We use in-house lists to reach existing customers and low-cost saturation mailings to "saturate" entire zip codes to scout for new customers
• In-store point-of-sale: Bookstores receive a hard-copy point of sale package, including shelf-talkers, posters, bookmarks, and catalog-branded decor to create catalog displays that sell
• Customization. Our stores put their unique branding on the catalog cover to really get behind robust catalog sales

Digital catalog delivery of over 100,000

We offer two main tiers of digital campaign resources for our stores, all free.

• Online shopping platform: New and improved for 2023! We're offering a digital catalog experience via Flipsnack. Stores will receive a customized version that links to their custom shopping URL. This digital catalog showcases four major hero spots
• Huge digital promo kit: We post an extensive collection of catalog-branded assets and title-specific graphics (with your collaboration), making digital marketing fast and effective

Tips and suggestions

• We like to collaborate. Last year, 53 publishers advertised 95 titles. We have room for 5-10 more. Work with us to include a wide array of your titles. Ask us about our small press rates and packages

• Let's place more titles with BIPOC creators and themes. Of last year's 95 titles, 32 percent had a BIPOC angle (author, illustrator, or content). Work with us to increase this percentage this year

Be Our Theme

• $6,000 / Be our theme! We use art from your holiday- or winter-inspired title to saturate our print and digital catalog campaign. This includes cover art, interior design, and an extensive array of digital and print point-of-sale items, such as banner ads, shelf-talkers, and social media cover/profile images. Includes 1 standard ad in print and digital

Print Ad Options

All ads are 10 per page in the print catalog (see last year's catalog as a sample) and include book jacket and 30 words of copy AND a standard ad space in the digital catalog. 

• $2,750 / Standard Ad. Our most popular option
• $1,750 / Midwest Favorite. Enjoy a discounted rate on titles with a consumer-facing Midwestern angle
• $1,500 / Paperback Rate. Enjoy a discounted rate on titles previously released in hardcover

Digital Ad Options

In the digital catalog, ads are 6 per page and include all of the print titles (with the same jacket and copy). The digital catalog is a mobile-optimized, user-friendly version of the print catalog that links to bookstores' custom shopping URLs.

• $1,000 / Digital only. The reduced rate gives these titles digital-only placement. They will be featured at the top of each genre in the digital catalog
• $4,000 / Digital + print hero spot. Only 4 are available. Designed for universally appealing blockbuster titles, your ad will occupy the very first page of every digital catalog and will ALSO receive a spot in the print catalog

View all ad options here

Ad Placement Tips

• Books should be innately giftable. If your title wouldn't make sense wrapped and gifted, the catalog is probably not the best marketing venue. 

• Books with ties to the Midwest make superb placements--so do titles with national appeal.

Typically, we include titles with pub dates from the Spring/Summer 2023 and Fall 2023 seasons. Catalogs land in homes on October 15. We recommend pub dates no later than December 1. All titles will include pub date to alert customers that some titles pub shortly after the catalogs land.

Steps

• Due July 31: Click on the first box below to book your ad space. You can pay now or ask to be invoiced. You will need the ISBN, genre listed on Edelweiss, and Edelweiss URL. (Please don't submit a publisher URL if you have one on Edelweiss.)

• Due August 4: After you book your ad, you will receive a confirmation email that includes a form link to submit all of the assets. We request the following: Title, ISBN, author/contributor, publisher/imprint, pub date, price, genre, 30 words of copy, 2D jacket image for print (specs: 300 dpi, jpg or png, CMYK), 2D jacket image for digital (specs: 72 dpi, jpg or png), 3D jacket image for digital (Specs: 72 dpi, jpg or png), and any additional promo assets you'd like to share

• Due October 23: With our early catalog schedule, you will likely create additional assets after the May 19 deadline. In that case, click on the third box below to submit any title-based assets you'd like to make available to our booksellers for their own DIY promotions