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Making Book
INSIDER SECRETS OF INDEPENDENT PUBLISHING
» Thursday 9 September 2010, 5 pm
» Bohemian Café, 524 Bernard Avenue, Kelowna
Publishing experts and entrepreneurs Dona Sturmanis and Robert MacDonald explore the rapidly changing publishing landscape and how writers can benefit from new tools and emerging markets.
» $2 at the door. Refreshments are available.
» Seating is limited, please reserve yours HERE
Insider Secrets of Independent Publishing Success Revealed
With the rise of new technology and traditional publishers focusing too much on a few authors, more authors are choosing the independent publishing option. At the same time, the book as a product is changing, in a way analogous to how music changed from something packaged, to a file on a computer or mobile device. In a mournful eulogy to the book and to the bookstore, Sven Birkets of the Wall Street Journal wrote: "What is disappearing, with the speed of ink drying on a folio leaf, is the public profile of books, our sense of their literal and symbolic presence. We have all seen what is happening to libraries, as increasing numbers of them put their funds to digital use, moving books up, up and away from what used to be the central ports of access - the reading rooms - to make more room for monitors."
The most obvious quality that sets books apart from other media is the amount of human thought, skill and sheer hard work invested in each title, whether it's successful or not, whether it's published by a major publisher, by a small or niche publisher, or by the writer. This is bound up with the fact that the creation, production and marketing of books operates on a slower rhythm and a longer time-scale than other print media, and especially than the jump-cut, day-to-day busyness of the electronic media. Unable to provide instant gratification, books must insert themselves into the public sphere in a different way. Some of the book's attraction to readers arises from this sense that reading books offers an opportunity for more sustained thought - or escape - than can be found in a world of ephemera, surfaces and spin.
On the other hand, the new era of books may actually see more authors, more reading, and more books being bought and sold. Books are just the next in a long line of media changing from analog physical carrier to digital file storage. We know what it's like when things lose their physical attributes and the scarcity related to it. So far, it's proven to be one of the best things that can happen to something we love.
On Thursday, September 9th at 5 pm the ongoing weekly Okanagan Institute Express series at the Bohemian Café, Kelowna presents Making Book: Insider Secrets of Publishing. Publishing experts and entrepreneurs Dona Sturmanis and Robert MacDonald explore the rapidly changing publishing landscape and how writers can benefit from new tools and emerging markets.
 Dona Sturmanis, BFA, MFA, has been a professional editor, publisher, writer and college instructor for 30 years. As a book editor, she has worked with established and new publishing houses, independent publishing authors and for her own publishing companies. Notable titles over the years as editor or publisher have included the BC and Canadian bestselling guidebook series Secrets & Surprises from Okanagan Editions, The Vancouver Recreation Guide, The Coffee Lover's Handbook, Contemporary Surrealist Prose (Intermedia Press), Quiltworks Across Canada by Gail Hunt (Pacific Quiltworks), The Greenpeace Book (Orca Sound Publishing) and many independently-published non-fiction, fiction, memoir and poetry books. She has been the editor of almost 20 magazines, including Okanagan Life and UBC's Prism international. As a journalist, she has published thousands of magazine articles. As a poet and fiction writer, she has been runner-up in or won 18 different competition awards. Her current business is The Word is Out Editing and Writing Services, a consortium of professionals who consult, edit and write for individuals, publishing houses and organizations. New courses in writing, editing and publishing start the second week of September at Okanagan College Continuing Studies. "I really believe in helping independent publishers to realize their dreams of getting a book out, but it has to be done right, right from the beginning," she says.
 Robert MacDonald has had a long and distinguished career in publishing. He was the Director of the Publishing Workshops at the University of Toronto and the Banff Centre for fifteen years. He was a founder of the Canadian Periodical Publishers Association and the Graphic Arts in the Public Service Foundation. He has consulted for - and started - book, magazine and hybrid media publishing companies in Canada and the US. He is the Publisher in Residence at Okanagan College and the Director of the Okanagan Institute.
In his presentation, MacDonald shows how the digital technology that has transformed every type of publishing over the past couple of decades has also radically reduced the economic and temporal barriers to publishing books. He presents a straight-forward program that allows writers and publishers to create high-quality books, find a ready market and not break the bank. He maintains, "Many writers hanker for the time when books and their authors, with publishers as their gatekeepers, could set the terms of public debate. Those days are mostly gone. Books today are only part of a vast, deep and diverse matrix of cultural products. The question that now faces the book industry (and the individuals that empower and depend on it - writers, editors, designers, publishers, marketers and sellers) is how to make a future for itself in this rapidly changing landscape."
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER ONLINE CLICK HERE
Making Book: Insider Secrets of Publishing takes place at the Bohemian Café, Kelowna. This marks the 153nd event the Okanagan Institute has held since the Express series got underway in July 2007.
Express is directed, convened and hosted by Doug Hodgkinson, Karen Close, Edward McLean, Neil McKay and Jan Kennett. It has played host to many Okanagan luminaries, including former deputy secretary general of Amnesty International Derek Evans, artists Lee Claremont and Gary Pearson, BC Book Award nominee Don Gayton, CBC Literary prize winner poet Harold Rhenisch, distinguished editor and author Jim Taylor, poet laureate and professor John Lent, creative entrepreneur Nikos Theodosakis, animator and filmmaker Jim Cliffe, community activist Don Elzer, dancer David LaHay, architect Jim Meiklejohn, culinary artist and writer Heidi Noble, broadcaster Marion Barschel and many others from a wide range of creative fields.
The Okanagan Institute is a group of creative professionals that has gathered around the goal of providing events, publications and services of interest to enquiring minds in the Okanagan. We partner with individuals, organizations, institutions and businesses to achieve optimal creative and social impact.
Our mission is to ignite cultural transformation, catalyze collaborative action, build networks and foster sustainable creative enterprises. We invite the participation by all members of the creative community.
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