Editor-in-Chief

Long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, I was a professional technical writer and editor.  Then I had kids, and Kevin and I started our beekeeping business, and we moved out of Silicon Valley, and we had many adventures together.  Writing occupied a minor role in my life for fifteen years.

Thanks to the internet, that’s about to change.  Ebook technology has made publishing inexpensive.  The internet has made audiences accessible.  This is a magical time to be a writer, and to be a publisher.  In What Would Google Do? (a book I highly recommend), Jeff Jarvis points out that in 1947, there were 357 publishing houses.  In 2004, there were over 85,000.  Six huge publishing conglomerates control the lion’s share of the book market—the mass-market appeal books and the blockbusters—but that leaves the rest of the market to the remaining 84, 994 publishers.  Oops.  Make that 84,995 publishers.  Kevin and I have gone back to our roots, and are embarking on yet another adventure… as publishers.

We will be re-printing public domain Quaker books, starting with Margaret Fell’s Women’s Speaking Justified.  Beyond that, who knows?  Kevin has a novel he has been working on, and I have several non-fiction pieces in the works, including one about our homebirth experiences.  All our publications will be ebooks, although I am currently looking into a print-on-demand service, for folks who still prefer to kill trees for their reading experience.

I keep thinking, “Gosh, this is so cool! Why didn’t I do this fifteen years ago?”  And the answer comes back to me:  Because you couldn’t.  Oh yeah.  Little details like it was impossible to be a small home-based epublisher back then.  This is so cool.  Did the futuristic science fiction stories of our childhood (those of you who are old like me) even do this present-future justice?  I don’t think so.  But that’s another blog post.

I have started a new blog dedicated to our publishing venture: http://GypsyBeesPublishing.blogspot.com, and Kevin is working out the details for the website....  and I will be sure to tell everyone when Margaret Fell is available.....

This is so cool....I love the internet.... but that is another post....