Interviews

When I read the blog entry about the launch of Book Oven, I saw this as a significant development in the changing landscape of publishing.  As I tweeted then, “Sometimes I feel like I’m fooling myself that POD’s losing stigma, but things really are changing.”  It was so refreshing to see a well-designed and maintained site talk about print on demand and other tools for publishers with no cynicism or apology.  As the site says,

There has been a revolution bubbling in the book world, and digital has arrived: ebooks, print-on-demand, and online sales mean you don’t need

Ransom Stephens has written one of the best assessments of the future of publishing that you’re likely to read (found via Pod People).  Called Booking the Future, it needs to be read – more than once.  Here we talk about the ideas put forth in the article and the success of his digitally-published novel, The God Patent, which basically proves the thesis of his essay: the future of publishing is going to look very different than it does today.  It will have many elements of self-publishing writ large.  As he says, “Though the role of publishing has […]

Self-Publishing Review: What is jexbo and why did you start it?  Are you an author yourself?

Jill Exler: Formed in 2007, jexbo™ is a website at www.jexbo.com that gives self-published authors the ability to reach new customers online for less than $1.00 per month and sell their books (jexbo receives 5% of whatever the author sells).

Readers can buy books and find unique, self-published works in various categories. And self-published authors have the ability to control the sales process, communicate directly with customers and customize a Web page for marketing purposes at no additional cost.

I started jexbo because I […]

This is the first interview on the site about a book that has crossed the line from self-publishing to micro publishing: there is a difference.  However, the founder of Write Bloody puts out his own books on the press/the press uses print on demand/writers are responsible for editing and submitting the ISBN/writers retain rights to their books/and the press lays the marketing on the writers.  So there is an element of self-publishing to the press – and SPR’s definitely a supporter of this type of hybrid publishing.

Generally, I think there’s a little too much of an us vs. them […]

Lori Culwell is the author of the novel Hollywood Car Wash, a novel that won first prize in Project Publish:

Via Project Publish, Touchstone Books was the first major publisher to put our market-based method for evaluating media content to the test…a team of editors, including Touchstone publisher Mark Gompertz, evaluated the 50 top scoring book proposals on Media Predict. They selected five book proposals as Project Publish finalists, and eventually one grand prize winner.

The novel – originally published through iUniverse – was put out by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, in May 2009. Publisher’s […]

On the heels of the story about Indie Reader, which led to some controversy, here’s an interview with Brad Grochowski, the man behind the site Authors Bookshop – a site that allows authors to list and sell books.  Authors Bookshop is one of the best indie-friendly places online.  Check out the site and visit Brad’s blog, Indie Bookman.

Self-Publishing Review: What is AuthorsBookshop and why did you start it up?

Brad Grochowski: AuthorsBookshop is an online bookstore that specializes in independently published books.  It is also a community of authors and publishers who have chosen the indie […]

IndieReader—which will go live in June—promotes, markets, and sells self-published/POD books. Authors set the retail price for their books and receive 75% of the transaction. IndieReader also provides authors with their own Web page with their own URL (no unintelligible code!). What Sundance has done for indie films—making what’s outside the mainstream “cool”—IR will do for indie books and authors.  Amy Edelman, who started the site, has published with Crown and Simon & Schuster.  Her interview at Editor Unleashed goes into further detail about the site.

Where did the idea for IndieReader come from?  It was primarily my […]