The Birth of Blog Publishing by CuChullaine O’Reilly
Let me start by saying that it is thanks to the Lightning Source (LSI) techno-know-how that our small company, The Long Riders’ Guild Press, was able to rewrite literary history. LSI’s astonishing ability to scan, and then electronically store, books freed us from having to maintain a brick-and-mortar shop front. We founded our Bedouin-style business by placing every major equestrian travel book back into print, thereby making them available via our website, while we stayed in the saddle and planned our next equestrian expedition.
http://www.horsetravelbooks.com
Yet publishing is not about one country or one language. It is about the planet. Likewise wisdom is not restricted to “the Queen’s English.” It is a rare commodity, prized by all people no matter what language it is spoken, read or printed in. LSI’s technology made it possible to offer our readers a totally international literary experience, one which is not limited to English alone. This enabled us to offer every equestrian travel classic, regardless of its language or script.
Our success didn’t go unnoticed. Many of the greatest living travel writers were watching their important, but out of print, books fade into obscurity before their eyes.
As literary archaeologists, we believe there is a need to recognize the human value and historical importance of travel writing, that ancient art which enriches our souls, enlightens our minds and preserves the memory of bygone cultural traditions. At the urging of renowned travel authors we launched the Classic Travel Books project. Our mission was to publish, promote and protect the irreplaceable human experiences witnessed and written about by the world’s most celebrated travel writers. During that effort we also broke the rules by making rare travel books, such as the $100,000 Aurora Australis, available for an affordable price.
Classic Travel Books has become a literary prototype for a new 21st century search for knowledge. It represents a micro-targeted publishing effort, one which created a unique internet-based community where writers and readers joined forces in an exciting new concept we called participant publishing.
http://www.classictravelbooks.com
Lately we’ve launched a new effort known as the Equestrian Wisdom and History Collection. The goal of this international open-source mission is to make every source of horse related knowledge readily available, all the while we work to turn the words “out of print” into a collective memory. http://www.lrgaf.org
Yet despite having printed a book a week for the last eight years, we can proudly say that thanks to the environmental benefits of LSI’s print-on-demand technology, every one of our books is a wanted book and not a twig is wasted. Since all of our titles are printed as and when needed, there are never too many, yet we never run out of stock. That’s why when our readers buy a LRG Press book they know they’re not just supporting the author, they’re helping the planet too.
But that’s all ancient publishing history, isn’t it?
Maybe that’s why the publishing, and more importantly, the world need to take a good look at POD - because Lightning Source has made literary history – again!
In order to explain what LSI has done, I have to tell you about who they benefited. That would be Robin Hanbury-Tenison, the doyen of English explorers. He emailed us the manuscript of his astonishing autobiography Worlds Within, then sat back to wait the standard year or more to see a proof copy. Instead, thanks to Lightning Source, ten days later the astonished author was holding a copy of his new book.
“I was left breathless,” the great explorer said, when he saw how fast the little LRG Press could turn his experiences into print.
While Robin was a happy author, there was another dimension to the lightning fast publication of his book which other publishers failed to grasp. My wife, Basha, and I realized that POD technology could alter the course of current events.
First we exposed the largest equestrian hoax in history, then armed with Lightning Sources’ technology, we instantly published the book Hidalgo to coincide with the release of a historically fraudulent movie, in our opinion, by that name. Next, we helped speed up medical development by providing critical literary evidence to a vital scientific experiment in Scotland. This occurred when we published Dr. Meg Patterson’s Searching for the Impossible in a week. Like Robin’s book, these episodes proved that print-on-demand had the power to change the course of historical, cultural and medical proceedings.
Yet this only worked if the publisher understood the power of the new concept and was willing to make a special effort for a urgently required title. What was needed, we lamented, was an easy to use conduit designed to release wisdom to the public fast enough to change the course of current events.
But how do you change a publishing dinosaur into a literary race horse?
You arm publishers with the new Espresso Book Machine (EBM) so as to enhance the availability of titles to a knowledge hungry public!
Even though Time Magazine named the EBM as the “Invention of the Year,” that’s an understatement. The machine is designed to be placed in libraries and bookstores, where it will be able to automatically print, bind and deliver perfect paperback books on demand.
David Taylor, the President of Lightning Source, recently said, “In the times in which we are living, publishers need to be looking at every option to ensure that their books can be immediately available to people who want to buy them.”
That’s great news for fans of popular literature and students on a budget. But Taylor’s not only right, he’s also accidentally predicted the birth of “Blog Publishing.”
In an industry dominated by budgets and market analysis, it is too often forgotten that great literature is fundamental to human existence AND resistance. That’s why it’s important for the world realize that, unlike traditional publishing which often takes two years to bring a book to market, the speed of the print-on-demand system, and its new ally the Espresso Book Machine, will allow us to translate today’s ideas into tomorrow’s books.
This literary alliance will help ensure that our vital freedom of expression will not submit to political pressure or yield to financial constraints. It will guarantee that critically important writing will be quickly made available to as many people on the planet as possible via this new method of public expression. Such a breakthrough will also guarantee the transferal of valuable knowledge for generations to come.
Lightning Source has announced that upon the completion of its pilot EBM program, publishers that print and distribute their titles via LSI will have the option to participate in this exciting new publishing option. With an estimated 85,000 titles already scheduled for release, this is a powerful breakthrough for traditional literature. Yet it marks the birth of a hitherto more powerful author and publisher, those who can analyse events today, and publish a book full of facts and findings tomorrow.
In less than ten years those of us alive today at the cusp of the third millennium have witnessed the end of the Industrial Age and the rise of the Information Age. Now the formerly staid publishing process is once again about to be swept up in a storm. Though Basha and I have always thought of ourselves as equestrian explorers, not publishers, our heart-felt conviction about the positive aspects of the POD process has allowed us to promote our Lightning Source-produced books in a number of the world’s leading media outlets, including the History Channel, The Times and the BBC.
We are now preparing to leave on the first equestrian journey around the globe, a non-stop 12,000 mile ride during which we shall introduce these exciting publishing possibilities into countries where the needs of knowledge-hungry humanity need to be served. At the top of our list will be the news about the creation of this incredible POD-EBM alliance, because that’s an idea whose geography is everywhere.
CuChullaine O’Reilly has spent more than thirty years studying equestrian travel techniques on four continents. After setting the record for the longest recorded horseback ride in Pakistan’s history, he was thereafter made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Along with his wife, the Swiss equestrian explorer, Basha, he is now preparing to ride around the world.