I did not expect the same from Stephen King. Not many people believe that the horror genre has any merit, unless one is studying Poe. Asimov and Lovecraft are not touted as great literature. Stephen King belonged in the category of “never-admit-that-I-read-his-stuff” when I’m near a writer. And that’s a shame. The gift of time was granted to me recently – time to do only non-stressful tasks, like reading. I chose to read everything I could get my hands on authored by Stephen King: short stories, essays, novels (if you find anything, like notes or sketches, be sure to send them to me). In the middle of rereading It I stumbled upon character names right out of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha county, names like Sartoris and Snopes, the irony being the characters in King’s story were African American, and the characters in Faulkner’s stories sole purpose in life seemed to be to uphold the “White” Southern institution. I really got a chuckle out of that. To read more about these influences see Faulkner Sightings, about half-way through the page. Faulkner Sightings only reports direct influence. You have to know Faulkner’s stories to see Faulkner’s incredible stream of consciousness through Stephen King’s eyes. It turns the horror genre on its head.

Then I turned on my limited literary analysis tools, limited because the only analysis class I ever took was in high school. Stephen King is only a few years older than me, ok, maybe 10 years older. I heard shades of Neil Young singing through the pros, “…out of the blue and into the black…”. Vietnam underlying everything,  the turtle under Vietnam, and the gunslinger/cow poke at the bottom. All that shaped me had already shaped King enough that he could write about it, and I could relive it.

I saw this question in my search for the Faulkner influence, “Will Stephen King ever be part of the American Literature Canon?” If he does not enter that hall of American lit it will be because people cannot get past the “horror” angle. That’s unfortunate. Stephen King is versatile, his characters live and breathe, his story lines are real enough to be truly horrible, and his mastery of human nature is spooky.

“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.

Spending time with an agent to sell the idea before the book is written may clarify whether or not the book should be written in the first place. After all, the market may already be saturated with books about how to cook frogs and other potential road kill. The time spent marketing the idea is well spent if the author discovers that and avoids one more of such books. Then again, the author might find a publisher that is interested enough and encouraging enough to start the author writing.

The alternative is also risky. If the author starts writing the book because he has a passion about foraging and using everything that he finds in the wild, he takes the risk that the book won’t sell even after it’s written. How many Euell Gibbons’ can the book industry support? (My personal opinion is that the world could use more like Mr. Euell. I can’t count how many times I’ve read his books. If you aspire to be like Mr. Gibbons and are having a difficult time finding a publisher, drop me a line.)

The variant on the basic book model is that the author takes the risk and writes the book before searching for an agent or a publisher. This is the path most new authors must take unless they are well published in venues such as newspapers or magazines. However, there are many instances when a person is recognized as a leader in their field. The publisher might approach such person to write a book, giving assistance at all stages of the book from planning to print.

After the author finishes the manuscript he starts looking for an agent. The agent takes the manuscript in hand and starts shmoozing it up. A good agent has many contacts throughout the publishing industry, each specializing in particular fields; a good agent knows to whom the book should be directed. Phone calls, meetings, lunch, calling in favors all go into the pot. The more the agent believes in the book, the harder the agent works to find a publisher.

For the sake of this model, the book gets accepted by a publisher and the cycle becomes identical to the basic book model. Revisions are made, the manuscript is proofed, typeset, proofed, and published. We’re still dealing with printed matter and one author. Next I’m going to look at ebook creation and collaboration.

Notice that I haven’t said anything about publicity in either model. That’s deliberate. Publicity and marketing of books opens up many possibilities today. This is going to be addressed in later posts.

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.”

Hawaii at the time of my birth was not yet a state in the Union, and the Japanese had not yet supplanted the white American as the major stockholder. Pearl Harbor was bombed and rebuilt. Schofield Barracks wouldn’t house my daughter for at least forty more years. Hawaii was in transition from old to new, from tearing itself apart over losing its identity to becoming part of a great nation.

Eventually my family made it to Pennsylvania, founded and governed by one of the true early innovators, William Penn. His governing principles served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution. As a friend of George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, William Penn created an environment of hospitality for people of all faiths. He implemented a democratic system with full freedom of religion, fair trials, elected representatives of the people in power, and a separation of powers – very innovative stuff in the time of kings.

A hundred or so years later, a man named Emmor Kimber settled in an area that served as a stopping point on stagecoach routes to Yellow Springs and Lancaster at the time of the Revolutionary War. Emmor Kimber was a Quaker teacher who established the French Creek Boarding School for Girls. It became known as a model for progressive education which drew students from great distances. Among his other concerns, and true to his nature, Kimber was an abolitionist, operating a stop on the underground railroad under the school.

I grew up in Kimberton; statehood, people’s freedom, and a love for innovative learning marked me at birth and followed me through my life. Now the world stands at another pinnacle of change – a revolution in communications. Just as the Industrial Revolution turned the world upside-down, technology today is transforming communication into something we can’t yet identify.

French Creek by David Christman 7547

French Creek Press Ltd., named after the creek that ran through William Penn’s land grant, through Kimber’s innovations in education and protection of people’s life and liberty, positions itself as a “press”, a mechanism to disseminate information. To do that we have three divisions:

Pixel/Point Press – operating on the edge of technology, creating solutions using cutting edge technology to reach all corners of the world.

Kenwood Academic Press – serving the student and faculty body as a print on-demand publishing house and personal writing coach service to ensure that all voices be heard.

French Creek Press – serving established and upcoming authors as a print on-demand and electronic book publishing house.