Archive for the ‘Printing’ Category

Bethany Press Launches BelieversPress to Give Author’s Faith a Voice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Publishing Model for Authors:

Bethany Press Launches BelieversPress to Give Author’s Faith a Voice

Bloomington, MN – Authors face an enormous challenge; a one in thousands chance of getting their manuscript published by major Christian publishers. Until now, the industry has only offered authors royalty and self-publishing models. Rejected authors are often left to fend for themselves. Some talented authors will give up. Others will try to solo-navigate the shifting currents of self/subsidy publishing and find themselves limited by the one-size-fits-all approach of these services.

BelieversPress, a new venture just launched by Bethany Press, offers multiple publishing tracks for authors where they control the process.

1. Royalty Publishing

In collaboration with ECPA, BelieversPress critiques and edits author proposals prior to posting on the ChristianManuscriptSubmissions.com website enabling agents and publishers to sort and filter for high quality submissions. Each of these proposals features a BelieversPress badge.

2. Independent Publishing

At BelieversPress, professional authors who pursue independent publishing can now access

• Coaching and editorial services from Jeff Gerke, (longtime editor for the CBA industry, former editor at NavPress) and Barb Lilland Editorial Services (former senior editor, Bethany House Publishing)
• Cover design from The DesignWorks Group and Dugan Design Group
• Publicity services from B&B Media (clients include Charles Stanley, John C. Maxwell, Chuck Swindoll, Tim LaHaye, Melody Carlson, Bruce Wilkinson)
• Marketing tools from Heinlein Publishing Services (Publishing Professional, 20+ Years: including executive positions with United Methodist Publishing House, Thomas Nelson, and Word Publishing)
• Printing from Bethany Press (producer of almost 30% of the best-selling Christian paperbacks)
• Sales and distribution through STL Distribution (the largest exclusively Christian distributor in North America).

Authors interested in submitting to agents and small publishers can receive mentoring, editorial, and proposal evaluation from D.C. Jacobson (Don Jacobson’s group, former President of Multnomah Publishers) and The Writing Spa (Mary DeMuth) at BelieversPress.

BelieversPress counsels authors that if they cannot sell their books via platforms such as speaking, established ministries, or direct to readers through venues such as blogging, the internet, articles, etc. then they should not self-publish.

Agents and publishers can offer their authors a trustworthy team to help them to publish both their out-of-print books and unpublished manuscripts, further building their readership with the ability to sell directly through the author’s website, the BelieversPress E-store, and to the trade through STL Distribution. Or, they can refer authors needing mentoring and further development to trusted professionals who can help them hone their skill and platform before re-submitting.

BelieversPress authors can:

• Engage an elite team of the best talent in Christian publishing to take their manuscript from good to great!
• Benefit from experienced professionals in marketing, publicity, and sales who help them get their message heard
• Connect with authors who have traveled the path before them
• Take control of your publishing future – there are no packages and no royalty schemes
• Bring unpublished titles and out-of-print books to their readers
• Print with the company that produces 30% of Christian best-sellers
• Make a difference – a portion of their dollars are used to fund ministry

Contact BelieversPress:

6820 West 115th Street • Bloomington, MN 55438

(800) 341-4192 • www.believerspress.com • info@believerspress.com

Posted in BelieversPress, Design, Distribution, Editorial, Marketing, Press Releases, Printing, Publicity, Publishing, Tools, Traditional Royalty Publishing | 2 Comments »

The Making of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol

It’s a bit dry and can be overly technical at times, but this video shows how a mass produced hardback book is manufactured (with several cover treatments).

Note: We’re posting this purely as an example of book manufacturing, not as an endorsement of Dan Brown or his books.

Posted in Printing | 1 Comment »

Hardcover books: No Jacket Required

The New York Observer reports:

September will see the publication of three unusual-looking books: Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s No Impact Man by Colin Beavan, Viking’s Bicycle Diaries by former Talking Head David Byrne, and Graywolf’s The Adderall Diaries by Stephen Elliott. What makes these books so unusual-looking is that, even though they’re hardcovers, their cover art is not printed on dust jackets but instead stamped directly onto the boards that hug their pages. The result is a handsome, eye-catching look that reflects a heightened awareness on the part of publishers that books these days cannot be counted on to simply sell themselves.

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Part of the reason for that blandness, intuitively, is the cost associated with doing anything fancier. “You’d be surprised how few options there are, unless you’ve got oodles of money to spend on color and texture for the paper that covers most of our books,” said FSG designer Charlotte Strick, who created the design for Mr. Beavan’s No Impact Man. “The manufacturers just don’t have a huge range of these things.”

The wager with jacketless books like the ones coming out this September is that the extra money spent will attract attention they might not get otherwise by enticing booksellers to display them prominently in their stores and causing readers to notice them when they’re browsing.

The New Thing: Books Without Jackets

Tip: The book jacket can be wrapped around and glued to the book itself (called a case wrap hardcover). This gives you the fidelity of a full color cover, and the convenience of never losing, damaging, or discarding the jacket. It’s also a lot cheaper than the cost of stamping directly on the boards. A creative cover designer should be able to create a case wrapped book that looks like it’s stamped onto the boards, if desired.

Posted in Hardcover, Printing, Publishing, Trends | Comments Off

Sally Stuart on the responsibility of self-publishing

The vision behind BelieversPress is to provide the tools to help Christians publish books that are equivalent to those of royalty publishers.

From the award winning designers (who also design for large royalty publishers) to printing by Bethany Press (who prints about 30% of the best-selling Christian paperbacks*), to experienced editors (who edit books for major authors) — everything at BelieversPress is designed to help you publish the best possible book.

I ran across this quote from the Advanced Christian Writer column by Sally Stuart (author of the Christian Writers’ Market Guide) that sums it up well:

In the past, I have talked about the change of attitude toward self-published or print-on-demand books within the Christian publishing industry … While it is true
these options are making it possible for more writers to get their books published, that opportunity also brings with it a responsibility to maintain an appropriate level of
professionalism.

Although the stigma attached to self-published books is blurring, it is still true that in order for such a book to get equal attention it must also maintain the highest quality of workmanship. For that reason, you must make every effort to produce a product that is equivalent to a royalty-published book.

Doing so means you must pay someone to design an appropriate cover; use quality paper and a reputable printer; and especially pay a well-qualified editor to do a thorough, line-by-line editing of the manuscript. To take shortcuts in any of these areas will lessen your chances of being noticed—and your book bought—once you get to the marketplace.

Ultimately it may also mean that you need to take a realistic look at your project and determine first if you have enough experience and credits to justify producing a book at this point—and then to be sure there is a place and need for it in the market at this time.

* Based on the ECPA best-seller list

Posted in Design, Editorial, Printing, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Are Books Obsolete?

Some highlights with commentary in italics.

A rough economy, changing reading habits, and a planet in peril are forcing book publishers to retool the way they do business.

And self-publishers as well — how has the economy changed your publishing strategy?

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Although you may have watched your house value decline and your rainy-day fund dry up, there is still the sweet experience of crawling into the pages of a really good book. Reading is one of the best—and cheapest—sources of comfort, entertainment, and escape around.

But the industry that produced that book carries a story of its own. As with every business in these recession-challenged times, economic, environmental, and technological forces are requiring publishers to come up with new ways of packaging ideas and launching them into the world.

Generally, the book publishing industry is affected after the music and movie industries… and changes more slowly than other industries. During times of rapid change, those that change too early or too late are often left out.

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“Up until very recently, we would ask, ‘What does a publishing company look like in 10 years?’” says Mark Tauber, senior vice president and publisher of HarperOne, which publishes titles on religion, self-help, and spirituality. “That’s still a good question, but it’s more like, ‘What does it look like next year?’”

Or next month? The rate of change seems to be increasing rapidly!

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MANY PUBLISHERS—and readers—hope that it looks much greener. The environmental impact of each step of the mass book-making process packs a wallop—from the harvesting of trees to the production of pulp and paper, printing, and then schlepping those books to stores and mailboxes across the country. Consider also that a huge number of books eventually end up in landfills, where they decompose and help produce a troublesome greenhouse gas called methane. Overall, the entire industry emits 12.4 million metric tons of carbon each year, according to the Green Press Initiative (GPI), a nonprofit that helps publishers develop more environmentally responsible practices. That’s 8.85 pounds per book.

Bethany Press, the printer behind BelieversPress, was one of the first to sign the Green Press Initiative.

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But a green-focused cadre of book industry leaders hopes to change many of those practices—and save about 5 million trees every year in the process. Roughly 220 of them have developed and signed the “Book Industry Treatise on Responsible Paper,” a GPI initiative, whose goals include protecting endangered forests, preventing illegal logging, increasing the industry’s use of recycled paper, and supporting human rights—including fair wages and working conditions for laborers involved in producing books overseas. They also want to see an increase in the use of paper that is certified by groups such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which works to create forestry practices that are responsible and sustainable. And this seal of approval isn’t just for industry insiders—President Ba­rack Obama’s 1 million inaugural invitations were printed on FSC-certified paper.

But the most environmentally friendly step publishers can take is to use more recycled paper in their books. Dwight Baker, president of Baker Publishing Group, a Christian publishing house in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and an early member of the GPI, had been looking for recycled paper to use in Baker’s books for years. He credits John DePree, president and CEO of Bethany Press Inter­national—Baker’s printer—with ultimately finding a paper that worked.

Now virtually all the company’s nonfiction books are printed on post-consumer waste paper. Making the switch costs more, but only because more publishers and paper buyers—and readers—haven’t increased the demand for it.

Did you know that BelieversPress is one of the few self-publishing options that allows you to use recycled paper in your book? We also recycle the waste left over after producing your book.

Limiting your print runs (and reprinting more often to meet demand) is another way to cut down on waste.

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But what if publishers produced more books that didn’t require paper at all? Wouldn’t it solve a bundle of environmental problems if we did away with printed books altogether? With increasing Internet access and a number of electronic readers on the market, such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader, plus the ability to read books online and—coming soon—via cell phones, Black­berrys, or iPhones, it’s a logical question. As the prices come down and the perks of digital reading grow—download extra ma­terial in seconds, get confusing words defined in a heartbeat, and read anywhere, anytime—publishers are having to retool the ways they conceptualize, produce, market, sell, and distribute their material to meet a small but growing demand.

We’ll be announcing e-book conversion services soon. Have a book to convert today? Contact us to discuss your options

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Still, it’s easy to overestimate the difference technology will make in the publishing industry, and easy to underestimate the time it will take for these transitions to occur on a big scale. “We’re adding our content to Kindle as aggressively as any publisher,” says Baker. “But last month Kindle sales amounted to less than 1 percent of our total revenue. Is it going to grow? Yes. Is it going to displace some print somewhere? Yes, by all means. Is this going to solve the problem on resource management? No. It would be hopelessly naïve to wait for that to occur. E-books will grow but they’re not going to displace massive quantities of print. It’s usually a both/and, not an either/or.”

Kindle is one of the larger eBook markets. Though the cost to convert is small, the profits can be smaller yet if your market has not yet embraced eBooks. Amazon’s recent announcement of a Kindle App for iPhone has greatly increased the market.

And although paperless books are much less harmful to the environment, the components of electronic readers, cell phones, iPhones, and other reading gadgets still carry social, economic, and environmental impacts of their own. Kindle’s $359 price tag may come down, but that’s still a steep price for most people, and it’s not hard to imagine broken or outdated e-readers lying alongside cell phones in landfills all over the world.

eWaste tends to end up in poorer third world countries (Africa and China) where workers are exposed to unsafe working conditions. eReaders require disassembly to recycle certain parts, versus books which are more easily more completely recycled.

For now, the printed book is far from obsolete, though its story will continue to evolve—hopefully in physical forms and processes that are far greener. The digital revolution brings a host of new ways to enjoy a book, and at the end of the day, that’s what it’s about: good, fresh ideas and new ways of looking at the world. Whether it’s on paper or onscreen, good books will always comfort, delight, and sustain us—especially during the bad times.

Source: Are Books Obsolete? from Sojourners Magazine

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Posted in Being Green (Creation Stewardship), Printing, Uncategorized, eBooks | Comments Off