The very mention of the word ‘Blurb’ seems to send authors into an immediate comparison with DIY author solutions service, Lulu. While it is understandable, I still see one highly established company pitted against a young pretender. These modern day forces in the author solution world have emerged from different corners of the DIY self-publishing…
Five Steps to Self Publishing – Guest Author – Gang Chen
The following is a contributed article by self publishing author Gang Chen. He is the internationally acclaimed author of “LEED AP Exam Guide” and “Planting Design Illustrated and has written for The Los Angeles Times and The Orange County Register. The opinions and conclusions in this article are those of the author. Clearly, Gang Chen…
Best Practices in POD Publishing – Writersweekly
Angela Hoy over at Writersweekly has posted an excellent article on ‘Best Practices’ for POD publishers and companies offering author solution services. I have touched on a lot of these best practices here, but Angela has a lot more too, particularly on the issue of royalties. Here is the link to that article:http://writersweekly.com/the_latest_from_angelahoycom/005273_03252009.html Also, my…
Adventures with Blurb, Part 1-(I’m Eileen Gittins—who the hell are you?)
She is bright, a successful business woman, having worked across the globe with Kodak and Vice President at Wall Data as well as Board Director at Qbiquity and Popular Demand. She studied photography in her younger days and is founder and CEO of Blurb.com, an on line self-publishing solutions company for photographers and authors alike.…
Blurb.com – The Coming Adventure
Over the past year the ‘Adventures with Lulu’ articles have drawn some of the widest and most sustained interest from visitors to this site. On a personal basis, they also provided me with plenty of enjoyment and experience of my own self-publishing journey, notwithstanding the fact that they directly led to my last two books,…
Value of UK Publishers’ Sales 2008 Down Just 0.2%
Sales for UK publishers were down just 0.2% for 2008. This is in spite of the current economic downturn in retail sales towards the end of last year. In total, UK publishers sold an estimated 855m books, with an invoice value of £2990m. The Publishers Association, who is preparing the forthcoming Statistical Yearbook 2008, compiled…
Dolman Scott – Reviewed
Amazon.com Titles – 31 Dolman Scott are based in Berkshire in the UK. I have come across them in trade publishing magazines and Google ads on the Internet, which is why their low volume of titles listed on Amazon surprised me. Their titles cover a span of approximately eighteen months, right back to November 2007.…
Trafford Publishing – Reviewed
“Success in PublishingA dream of publishing a book as you envision it can never become a reality unless you find a company that believes in making dreams come true.” http://www.traffordpublishing.co.uk Trafford Publishing is one of the largest author solution service companies in the world using print-on-demand digital print technology. They are a Canadian company but…
Derwent Press – Reviewed (UPDATED OCT 2012)
The Derwent Press is a small author solution service based in Derbyshire, England. They began in 2005 and have produced quite a small output of books (32 listed on Amazon.co.uk). Their last produced book is listed as a new release from June 2008. Books are actually well represented on their website from the main page…
Man Booker International Prize 2009 – Final 14 Authors
The final 14 authors for the Man Booker International Prize have just been announced. Unlike the English award, the International prize is awarded every two years and celebrates an international author’s contribution to fiction over their entire career, rather than just a single book. The award was previously won by Ismail Kadaré and Chinua Achebe.…