Meet the Press; Self-Publishers Help Central New York Authors Get the Word Out

Summary

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Beyond bringing authoring to the huddled masses, print-on-demand accelerates what is often a multi-year process from acceptance of a manuscript to final product. Late last year, Syracuse University writing professor George Saunders was astonished when an essay he contributed to the "instant book project" What We Do Now (Melville House Publishing) was in book form within weeks. "It was the quickest thing!" Saunders says of the project. "I've sold a couple of books recently that probably won't come out for another two years."

[Philip Rose]'s and [Mike Joyner]'s books, for example, are targeted at fairly specific audiences that might be overlooked by Doubleday, while the latest John Grisham novel will be a moneymaker for them because of its mainstream appeal. "I think there's a huge audience out there for my book," says Rose. "But it's a small percentage of the population. Most people interested in my book are already very serious about improving their health and living to 120. It's a small group."

Most self-published authors like Joyner just want to see their unique stories and ideas in print without going broke. Publishers like AuthorHouse and Woods, however, are looking to make a living printing these new authors. "Every day it gets harder and harder to convince myself that I absolutely need to get up at 4 a.m. to feed inmates," says [Tom Woods], lamenting the fact that his young printing business hasn't yet allowed him to quit his day job. He adds that he cooks a lot of ground turkey at the jail because it's "cheap and takes on pretty much whatever flavor you want to give it." Not unlike the blank sheets of paper in his printing press.

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Meet the Press; Self-Publishers Help Central New York Authors Get the Word Out

Books are not dead, but the book industry as we know it is certainly changing. As book publishers consolidate and focus their efforts on a handful of blockbuster bestsellers, more and more authors are turning to self-publishing as a way to get their stories, ideas and images onto the printed page. Now, more often given the respectable title of "self-publishing houses" rather than the mocking "vanity presses," both old and new pay-to-publish outfits are seeing surges in business.

Technology is turning book publishing into a more democratic medium as advances in printing and computers allow more people to cheaply self-publish hard copy ...

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