August 10, 2006

Colour printing

Colour interior printing will soon be added to the services PABD offer, meaning high quality colour printing will be available for print on demand books - prices to follow.

Posted by Suzanne at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)

August 01, 2006

Toronto office

Exciting news for all here at PABD - we have officially opened our Toronto office. The UK side of things is running along nicely and we look forward to working with new and existing Canadian authors.

Posted by Suzanne at 03:33 PM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

Marketing Handbook nears completion

We know just how much many of our authors would like to see more help with the marketing aspect of self publishing. One of the most common support requests is for help with advertising and PR.

To make things easier Iain, who has a former life as a PR manager and advertising copywriter, has spent the last couple of weeks plundering his memory bank and has written a marketing guide for the self publishing author. It is currently awaiting it's final proofing but will be available for download just after the weekend. I had a read myself and it really is full of excellent ideas that'll help you sell your book.

If you want to make sure to receive your copy just send a quick mail to Iain. Also, a preview of the first chapter can be downloaded here. You will need Adobe's free Acrobat Reader software to read the document.

Posted by Andreas at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)

July 13, 2005

Self Published Book Contest

Calling all business book authors. This just in from the team at Publishing Central:

The 2006 Small Biz Games Self Published Business Book Contest is open to all English-language self-published books on any topic relevant to micro small business owners and home based entrepreneurs for which the authors have paid the full cost of publication, or the cost of printing has been paid for by a grant or as part of a prize. Identical topics for the Business Ebook category.

Awards Include

First through third places also receive a one year membership in The Publishers Marketing Association.

12 Honorable Mentions will receive a seal as an Honorable Mention of The 2006 Small Biz Games Business Book Contest for book cover and website and a framed certificate.

All entrants receive a one year membership in The Beyond the Box Club with the Free Publicity Center to help promote their work and other useful tools and resources, a certificate of participation as an entrant of the 2006 Small Biz Games, and an entrant profile on the Small Biz Games website.

There is a $15 entry fee for The Self Published Business Book Contest and the Business Ebook contest. Entry deadline is December 31, 2005.

The link to for the two book contests is http://smallbizgames.com/sbebcontest.htm

So, if you're a business author send us a mail, give us a call or just upload your book to get it ready for the competition.

Posted by Andreas at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2005

Tutorial page updated

Our tutorial pop-up now has a landing page, rather than just starting to play the publishing tutorial on open. There are two reasons for this:

Let me know what other tutorials you'd like to see up there.

On a related note, Iain is currently working on a 'How to market a self published book?' e-book that we're planning to release as a pdf file next week. Send him a mail to request your free copy.

Posted by Andreas at 01:38 PM | Comments (0)

July 08, 2005

Online pdf creation

We're now down to two potential partners for online pdf creation. It'll be a shootout between price and quality, but I think we'll be having the first beta test up in about two weeks.

Posted by Andreas at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)

July 07, 2005

We've got Seth Godin's approval

So I thought I'd be cheeky and send a quick mail to Seth Godin, plugging PABD and asking him if he'd consider publishing his next book with us.

While he didn't make any firm commitments on the publishing idea he did send back a friendly little note saying that he liked the idea and wishing us luck.

Posted by Andreas at 09:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 06, 2005

Newsflash: PABD featured in August's PCFormat

We'll be featured in August's PCFormat magazine in the UK. An entire walkthrough of our site, showing exactly how the publishing process works. I've got a pdf of the laid out page here, which is looking brilliant, but I don't think PCFormat would appreciate me posting it. Not until the magazine hits the stands anyway. So watch this space. Or, if you're in the UK, buy the magazine.

Posted by Andreas at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)

Advertising our services

Both Iain, one of the partners running PABD, and myself have a background in branding and advertising. So how come that we cannot manage to keep our own advertising on activities on time?
To change this deplorable situation I had a chat today with a small advertising agency here in Toronto, with a view of getting outside help. I think hiring another company to take a good look at our needs is probably the smartest thing we can do. It'll give us an unbiased view of what we've got and where we need to go.

Posted by Andreas at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)

July 05, 2005

Our partnership with Creative Commons

I've just got off the phone with Mia from Creative Commons head office in San Francisco. She seemed to like what we're up to and not only agreed to put a link to us onto the CC site itself but also to give us a heads up in the CC blog.

All books created with our new 'Ministry of Information' online book builder can be published with a Creative Commons license. So far over 50% of authors using the new system to publish their book have chosen a CC license.

Posted by Andreas at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2005

Introduction

This is the weblog for Publish and be damned. And I am Andreas, one off the three partners running the company. I am responsible for the North American Business. Iain and Kirstie are running the show in the UK.

Posted by Andreas at 04:49 PM | Comments (0)