I started my own small publishing company, press for change publishing, just to produce a print book that is a compilation of the best writing from food blogs. I made a few mistakes in planning the business and as a result it will take me a little while to become profitable. However, I also know that it will be profitable eventually – it will just take longer than I would like. No traditional publisher would have touched the book with a bargepole but it is a unique and different book that really is worthwhile.

I’m essentially putting a year of my time and experience into rounding up a ‘best of’ and the value to the customer is saving themsleves that year. The trad publisher attitude is that the material is already available for free on the web so why would anyone pay for it. The answer is that there are lots of reasons. In fact, although sales are VERY slow I know that there is a very HIGH satisfaction level among people who have purchased it.

Anyway, your question points out the fact that the publishing industry is reluctant to face up to these issues. It isn’t really all that hard. My contracts for my authors for the book give me the right to publish just the posts selected in compilation book form worldwide forever. These are NON-exclusive rights. The only restriction to the authors is that they cannot resell them for a COMPETING compilation book. They can resell them for any other kind of book. That is the kind of flexible thinking publishers should be doing. Interestingly, it was extremely difficult to get a lawyer – publishing industry or not – to screen my proposed contract. They had a very hard time dealing with the non-standard parts of it.

Traditional publishers can keep Google out of the game simply by ensuring that the print-on-demand capability is pre-emptively provided and marketed.

bob wyman