Auricle's focus is information, issues and perspectives related to the technologies associated with learning, but we still consider paper to be such a technology. Publishing your own book has been, traditionally, a non-trivial exercise, involving a long, complex, and potentially expensive, chain of interests and processes. But this doesn't have to be the case any more, apparently. So if you're a nascent Hemingway, Robert Burns, or Einstein, and feel that the world would be a better place from the ability to read your pearls of wisdom in the bath, then this short article may be of interest. Despite living in the digital or information age, ask people whether they prefer reading from a computer screen or a book and mostly they will still opt for paper. But go into any discount book store and you can see what fate awaits the majority of authors, not to mention the fate of the millions of trees necessary to feed a market where the majority of authors, apparently, are 'remaindered' or pulped. What if you only wanted to test publish say ten copies? No mainstream publisher would consider such a thing but if you have a spare £100, or less, you could. Who knows, your ten could become a hundred, a thousand or more, and you can earn royalties as well?
A few weeks ago the UK Guardian Online article Cover Story proposed a potential solution. Read the Gurdian article it makes some interesting points. Is this another example of technology breaking down traditional barriers to participation?
It will be interesting to see if this has any impact, implications, or opportunities for traditional academic publishing, which sometimes involves short run, sometimes esoteric and highly expensive texts when produced by the conventional route. Of course, being able to say “A thousand copies of my book was published by 'well know publisher x' of London, New York etc” confers an importance that “I self published a 1000 copies” does not; but, who knows, maybe economics and environmental concerns will win out? Some of the arguments are similar to those presented in my article Open Access Publishing: allergic reaction sets in.
Here are some of the on-demand publishing services mentioned in the Guardian article:
