February, 2009 | Self-Publishing Review

Interview: Rudy Rucker on the Present and Future of Self-Publishing

On the heels of the interview with Tessa Dick, last wife of Philip K. Dick, comes an interview with Rudy Rucker, often called the heir apparent to Philip K. Dick. Winner of two Philip K. Dick Awards, Rudy Rucker is the author of the novels Frek and the Elixer, Spaceland, and many others. He also has a interest in self-publishing: putting out a book of paintings through Lulu, allowing a free download of his novel Postsingular, and publishing ebooks with e-reads. Here the visionary writer talks about mixing traditional publishing with the new publishing technology.[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:05:28+02:00February 19th, 2009|Categories: Interviews, Lead Story|

Notes on Self-Publishing from the Tools of Change Conference

I haven’t yet written about the Tools of Change Conference (because I wasn’t there), but there is a lot of great information being posted online by people who did attend. The basic mood you see online is that self-publishing is gaining increasing legitimacy. Obviously, the conference is devoted to publishing innovation, but the way that people talk of self-publishing these days is that it is integral to the future of publishing.

For instance, the Publishing Trends blog has a great piece on how some of the participants view self-publishing:

All the participants argued for greater interplay between author, reader, and

[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:05:51+02:00February 18th, 2009|Categories: News|

The Future of the U.K. Book Market

I wrote an article over Christmas about book retailers in Ireland performing marginally better in 2008 than on previous profits for 2007. Early figures suggest that the UK book retail trade recorded similar results, but that they still were marginally down last year. While better sales than expected might have raised the bar of expectation—it seems early 2009 may see that optimism short-lived. There is much discussion amongst UK retailers about the strategy of committing themselves to larger discounts for the buying public.

Unit for unit, there are more books going out the door of retailers, but the profit figures […]

Mick Rooney2011-10-08T20:06:08+02:00February 18th, 2009|Categories: News|

Stratagem by Jacques Vallee

I have a deep interest in UFO’s. Gearing up to write the book I’m currently working on (which I’m going to self-publish) I read a lot about the UFO phenomenon. It amazed me that something with such profound implications is not taken seriously. “What if” is enough of a reason to pay attention to the phenomenon, regardless of the amount of physical evidence. And there are a lot of credible witnesses – many more than are given mainstream attention.

In a way, the UFO phenomenon is similar to self-publishing. Because there is such a drastic amount of less-than-credible material being […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:06:25+02:00February 18th, 2009|Categories: Book Reviews|

Using Twitter for Book Marketing

Twitter is the new Myspace. Back when I first started using Myspace, around 2-3 years ago, it was still a place where people connected with each other. When you added a friend, people would actually take the time to see how you were. This meant connecting with some very interesting people. I traded Myspace emails with Peter Bagge, author of Hate comics, which was a highlight.

Now Myspace is overrun with spam and people who indiscriminately add to build up their friend count. Twitter, on the other hand, is what Myspace used to be. It could too get corrupted […]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:06:42+02:00February 17th, 2009|Categories: Resources|

Wil Wheaton Releases Book on Lulu: Sunken Treasure

Wil Wheaton, popular blogger, best known for his roles in “Stand by Me” and as Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” has released his next collection of work on Lulu.com. Wheaton’s already published books before via Subterranean Press and O’Reilly Media, but he chose to self-publish the collection himself. As he says on his blog,

Sunken Treasure is doing great, and if the last two days are any indication, my Operation Crazy Idea to release more original material using this kind of POD technology and distribution is going to quickly become Operation Awesome Idea that

[…]

Henry Baum2011-10-08T20:06:58+02:00February 16th, 2009|Categories: News|

Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press

Somewhere on the internet I’ve mentioned that Cantarabooks-Cantaraville was inspired by Hogarth Press, founded in 1917 by the writers Leonard and Virginia Woolf. Like authors before them—and certainly authors after—they began their small press as a way to ensure that their own works, and the works of their friends, would always find publication. As far as Hogarth Press’s scale of operation, the Woolfs’ ambitions were modest: a tabletop handpress, tools, lead type and a how-to pamphlet on typesetting were their only capital assets. Truly, Hogarth Press was a do-it-yourself strategy that would not have been out of place in the […]

Cantara Christopher2011-10-08T20:39:21+02:00February 16th, 2009|Categories: Features|

York Publishing Services Review

I came across York Publishing Services in the ‘Writers & Artists Yearbook 2009’ which I got a hold of in January. No matter how much research you do in this business, week by week, you are always uncovering something or someone you never came across before. YPS is one of the most established companies in the UK, operating for more than 30 years in the print and publishing service industry. YPS provide everything from design, editing, fulfilment, warehousing and distribution of books from the large publisher right down to authors with a just single title. I have talked a lot […]