Publisher's Desk

Though there are a lot of terrific things about my job, one of my intense pleasures is working directly with our authors. Though much of the day-to-day editing is in the hands of a couple of the best substantive editors in the business, in my dual role of Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, I have the privilege of dipping in at various points of the editorial process, throwing in my two cents whenever that seems like a useful thing...

There is an ebullient air here at the Self-Counsel Press offices right now. Something good and fine.

We are moving into our 45th year of publishing books that help people in many aspects of their lives, personal and professional. That’s something to be proud of...

Want to write for Self-Counsel? We love hearing your great ideas. While passion and enthusiasm will carry you a long way, before we contract you to do a book for us, there are certain things we want to see.

Your goal should be to let us know you have the vision and the tools to carry your idea to fruition. Also, no matter who the players are, in the 21st century, creating a book is a partnership. Make sure you let us know you’re someone who will be a good partner. ...

Self-Counsel Press announces new publisher, Linda L. Richards

I'm delighted to join Self-Counsel in the capacity of Publisher. My relationship with the company is an old one: Self-Counsel published my very first work of book-length non-fiction, The Canadian Business Guide to Using the Internet, back in 1995. Since then I've written many books, both fiction and non. My 14th will be published in April 2016. So I certainly have a better than usual understanding of the author’s side of the d...

The past week has been an interesting one, with Apple losing a court battle in America over ebook price fixing, Barnes & Noble letting go its chief executive, and Barnes & Noble announcing (negative) changes to its ereader lineup. My take on all this follows.

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I was asked last week, why we do not publish books as “apps” — software applications which are targeted at particular reading device operating systems, like Apple's IOS, or the Android operating system.

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Our marketing whiz, Tyler, developed this map to show the countries in which ebooks published by Self-Counsel Press have sold (this map is updated as we reach more countries):

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One of the more interesting challenges in producing ebooks is the file format question. On the surface, it looks pretty simple: two formats, EPUB and Amazon's Mobi dominate. Both (loosely speaking) use HTML tags and CSS stylesheets to determine how text and graphics are displayed. So an ebook is a collection of webpage-like pages in a container. Or is it?

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As 2012 draws to a close, a trend we are watching is the changing universe of devices used to read ebooks. A year ago, monochrome "e-ink" reading devices (such as the original Kindle) dominated the market. That dominance has eroded through 2012, and by the time Christmas sales are tallied I expect we will see a new leader.

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Back in August I said how pleased I was to report that we were starting to see sales of ebooks in countries outside Norrth America. The cost of shipping printed books has always been a major obstacle to sales outside North America, but ebooks change that.

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