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Making Book
INSIDER SECRETS OF PUBLISHING
» Wednesday 4 August 2010 | 7 pm
» Kalamalka Café, Okanagan College, Vernon
An informal afternoon hour showcasing ideas and people in the Okanagan creative economy. Join us as publishing experts and entrepreneurs explore the rapidly changing publishing landscape and how writers can benefit from emerging markets and new technology.
» $2 at the door. Refreshments are available.
» Please reserve a seat at this presentation HERE.
Insider Secrets of Independent Publishing Success Revealed
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.
Readers today are far less likely to spend their time poring over a handful of authoritative volumes in search of revelation. In a world awash with text, people read many books once, rather than one book many times, they read for a wide range of purposes, and they have access to many sources of information other than books.
On Wednesday, August 4th at 7 pm the alternate weekly Okanagan Institute Showcase series at the Kalamalka Café, Okanagan College, Vernon presents Making Book: Insider Secrets of Publishing. Join us as publishing experts and entrepreneurs explore the rapidly changing publishing landscape and how writers can benefit from emerging markets and new technology.
 Werner Gysi was born in 1949 and educated as an Electronic Engineer in Switzerland. He was a teacher at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore before immigrating to Canada in 1981. After living off the land for 14 years he decided to share his experience and published the book Harmonic Farming: a love style in 1995. While a science teacher at a private boarding school in Montreux, Switzerland, and an avid hiker in the nearby mountains, he wrote a second book A Family Of Six At Sea, published in 2009. Besides playing the guitar, homesteading, looking after bees, sailing, and tutoring grades 10 to 12 students in science and math, he is the proprietor of Gooly Mooly Publishing in Enderby. He welcomes opportunities to share his experience as an independent distributor, publisher and author and what it really takes to get a book into the market, once it is written. He has seen the market change since starting to distribute his first book in 1995, and states, "Most of the independent authors run aground when it comes to making the right decisions at time of printing. There is a lot of things to know. It is also high time to educate writers and readers to demand that books are to be printed according to Forest Stewardship Council standards."
 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 Kalamalka Café on the campus of Okanagan College in Vernon. This is the 8th event the Institute has held there, and the 160th public presentation offered by the Okanagan Institute since 2007.
Showcase is directed, convened and hosted by Katie Brennan and Robert MacDonald. The Institute 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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