“4. Most authors will be indie authors”
“5. Successful publishing companies will be those that put the most total profit in the author’s pocket. No, not the highest per-unit royalty percentage.”

It’s no new thought that the United States influences other cultures. Americans have been doing that since they settled in the foreign wilderness to take their chances with Native Americans and Nature rather than submit to an “un-G-dly” power. Rebellion is always fueled by the knowledge that an entire country was founded out of rebellion against its colonizing parent country. Horatio Alger wannabees, astronauts, freedom riders, strikers, protesters of all kinds take strength from knowing that the Independent spirit lives on, a whole nation of independents.

So when Mark predicts “most authors will be indie authors”, he’s got good solid footing for that statement. Traditional publishing depends on large teams of people from previewing, reading the manuscript through the production, distribution, and sales. Today that team is not needed. It is possible for an author to hire every single person on that chain, topnotch professional editors, readers, book designers, book cover designers, printers, distributors, and salespeople. The author can get these services for a fraction of the cost of a traditional publisher, there is no infrastructure overhead to account for. At this time authors already have to hire publicists to sell their books. What’s keeping them from hiring the whole team?

Imagine, I, Ms Author, write a book. I can’t get an advance from a publisher because no publisher has any money. So I support myself for the months it takes to write. Then I hire a great editor. Maybe even an editor from a well-known publisher. Why can I do that? Because the editor just found him/herself out of a job because the publishing company went under. Then I hire a designer for the interior and cover of the book. Granted, I’m footing the bill here myself. It means I need a nest egg of about $500. At this point I run out of money, so I use Print on Demand technology to print and distribute the book. I only pay the setup fees and shipping cost of that first book. Once the book is available I get out into the Social Media scene and I start to market my book.

A writer must be in the Business of writing today, just to survive. Tomorrow it will be so “rule of thumb” that I’ll do it because I get the greatest return on my investment by doing it myself, braving nature myself, pulling myself up by my own bootstraps.

And that’s what makes number 5 a reality. I learn that I can produce my own works, get them out there, and pocket the majority of the proceeds.

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.”