At the beginning of 2009 I worked for a technical writing company. We, the staff, started a blog ostensibly to tell the world about technical writing. Each contributor added entries about topics that tickled their fancy. I stumbled on the Open Source philosophy in my search for inspiration. At that time I dipped my toe in the ocean, so to speak. Yehuda Berlinger and Joseph di Paolantonio set about to correct my thinking. Since then I have worked (a little) with open source tools, but I had trouble finding a project that captured my imagination. I struggled with how I could “give back” when nothing really struck me. That is, until I started French Creek Press Ltd.

The French Creek Press model for non-academic publishing is print on demand. We provide editing services to any author, we lay out the books, and then print each book as it is paid for. Yes, the per unit cost is higher than the per unit cost of offset printing. The benefit of print on demand reveals itself when the book sells in small quantities. No author should be forced to pay for 500 books if only 100 books will be sold. Is there a place for 100 books? Absolutely. Everyone has a voice. The beauty of print on demand is that the book can easily transition from the print on demand model to the offset print model, when the book becomes a high seller.

My passion kicked in when I began to tackle the academic publishing problem. The traditional model of academic publishing is the author writes a book; it then goes to a paid peer review panel; after peer review the book is revised and then published. Debt is incurred along each step of this model. The author most likely writes the book in his/her spare time. Each member of the peer review panel is paid a fee to review the book. The author then takes more time to revise the book. It may go back for more review and revision. Finally the book is printed; but the author is obligated to buy 500 copies of his book. Marketing doesn’t even enter this picture.

At French Creek Press Ltd, our academic division, Kenwood Academic, pursues a different model, Open Access. Open Access means free online access to articles that have traditionally been published in scholarly journals. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles. Articles are crawl-able for indexing, can be passed as data to software. The articles can be used for any lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, is to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited (from the Budapest Open Access forum and from Wikipedia). French Creek Press Ltd, Kenwood Academic Press division, fully supports Open Access review.

I can across two videos that underline the benefit of Open Access. These are from the Public Library of Science.

Barbara Stebbins, Middle School Science Teacher from Open Access Videos on Vimeo.

Ida Sim, Physician Scientist from Open Access Videos on Vimeo.

To market any of our literature published under French Creek Press or Kenwood Academic Press, Pixel/Point Press utilizes all social media outlets. In the same vein that publishing can be affordable, we believe that marketing published works can also be affordable. All the social media marketing tools are Open Source. It is up to the user to invest time and effort using these tools to market the information. At Pixel/Point Press we either create and manage the marketing campaign or we teach the author how to market his/her material.

I have found my place in the Open Source family. Through French Creek Press Ltd, Kenwood Academic Press, and Pixel/Point Press, I hope to contribute back into society. As my partner, Kelli Brown, says, “A rising tide raises all ships.”