Welcome to the New World

We are so excited to be part of the HarperCollins 'Comprehensive Backlist' Program. Now, over 3,000 Harper titles are available Print-on-Demand through our Espresso Book Machine. Together, with 9 other bookstores in the country, we printed our inaugural Harper backlist title: Ann Patchett's Truth & Beauty.

You can follow the whole #podbookday conversation on Twitter and check out more of our photos on our Facebook page.

Here's a little more about this exciting new venture.

Feel free to email Anna, our Print-on-Demand & Self Publishing Coordinator with any questions about this: ubs_publish @ earthlink . net

Extra Credit: Cory Doctorow

In case you missed it, you should know that we're giving away 2 copies of Cory Doctorow's new book which is available on our Espresso Book Machine!

For those of you who want to double their luck, we have an extra credit question for you to answer. If you get the answer right, we'll enter you in the drawing twice! Leave your comment here or on the first post and make sure to include your email address for us to contact you. Contest ends at 10am PST on Wednesday 8/17.

Extra Credit Question:

In a pdf version of one of his books, Cory dedicates a chapter to our bookstore and, specifically, our stellar Sci-Fi/Fantasy Buyer, Duane Wilkins.

Cory says: "This scene is dedicated to the University Bookstore at the University of Washington, whose science fiction section rivals many specialty stores, thanks to the sharp-eyed, dedicated science fiction buyer, Duane Wilkins...."

In which book does he give this dedication?

For a Special Occasion

 

And here we have the special edition of a Google Book, The Sense and Sentiment of Thackeray, reprinted, with new covers, on the bookstore's own EBM.  The occasion is, of course our upcoming celebration of the great man's 200th birthday.  Our reading of "A Little Dinner at the Timmins's" will be the centerpiece of the festivities, but we thought it worth doing to offer something in the way of a take-away as well.  So, this little book, from 1909, offers quotes and brief selections from all the novelist's major and minor work.  Charming little book.  

Our own Anna -- Queen of the EBM -- designed the reissues cover, and our host for the reading, Usedbuyer2.0, aka Brad, did the pencil sketch of Thackeray on the front cover.

We're rather proud of the little thing, which is available now, for nine bucks, at the bookstore and of course, at the reading July 14th, at 7PM.  Do come and try a bit of William Makepeace Thackeray.

The EBM on Writing it Real

It has been quite some time since we've updated you about our Espresso Book Machine. Despite our silence, you can rest easy knowing that Tera, Queen of all things Print-On-Demand, has been busy busy these past few months keeping up with our growing publishing capabilities. She's been designing book covers for authors publishing through the EBM, educating customers about our new printing technology, and hunting down out-of-print books to bring back to life.

She has also taken the time to interview with Sheila Bender's Writing it Real. Sheila interviewed Tera about the Espresso Book Machine in much detail. I just spent the past few minutes reading it, and I can tell you that I have much more in-depth knowledge of publishing, options for self-published authors, and the future of small publishing.

Click over to the interview, it will be a few minutes well spent.

Two Weeks to Get a Great Idea

Only two weeks to go until we arrive at the writingest month of the year, November.  Every year, a few thousand crazy souls work up the courage to attempt to write an entire novel within 30 days as part of a process called National Novel Writing Month.  I've been doing it for 6 years now, with 4 successful years and two that just didn't quite make it.  That's not untypical; there are people who have been doing NaNoWriMo year after year, and people who have completed something like a novel every one of those years.

The process is pretty simple.  You can outline, you can do character backgrounds, you can design a cover and come up with a title and all of that, before November.  But you can't write a single word on your novel until 12 midnight, very early on the morning of November 1st.  And then you have 30 days to get to 50,000 words, which is a very short novel, but there are plenty of books about that length, including this one, that one, and this one as well.  All quality works, I can assure you.

The process can be a maddening one, of course.  You have to write roughly 1667 words per day, which is almost 6 pages.  This is every day, whether you're working or not, sick or well, eating Thanksgiving dinner or on the road.  It's a tough, grueling pace, but a rewarding one.  Looking at those 180 or so pages, at those 50,000 words that you've just produced, is one of the best experiences you can have.  It proves that you could, possibly, maybe, hopefully, be a writer.  It proves that you've got at least one (probably unexpected and amazing) story in you, and maybe more.

I'm doing it again this year, of course.  I'll fit in the hours of work somewhere around the edges of my normal life.   And if you're thinking that maybe it sounds fun, you should check out the website.  Seattle's one of the biggest cities as far as numbers of participants and word count, so that's a big support network.  And then there's No Plot, No Problem, by Chris Baty, the man responsible for NaNoWriMo coming into being, who runs the whole show and still manages to produce a novel every year.  If you decide to give it a try, look me up here, and we can be writing buddies.

And after?  Well, you'll have a finished novel, and you'll want a copy of it, I'm sure.  I always do.  This year, we've got a way to help you with that:  Homer, our fabulous EBM machine.  We can help you with set up and formatting, and we can print out your book for you.  Even if you know (as I have some years) that it should never be read by anyone who doesn't know and love you, you can still have a copy on your shelf to show off to friends.  And if you think it's good?  We've got self-publishing options for you, and we may even stock your book in our stores.

You've got two weeks.  Time to start that outline.

Jason

The Last Light Keeper

Eleven year old, Rachel Halmrast, has published her debut novel with our three-month-old publishing department, University Book Store Press. The Last Light Keeper swarms with dragons, pixies, clever young witches, and a notorious Black Sorcerer. There is a Crystal of Light that must be preserved at all costs, and a gifted young witch, Melissa, who has to do the job whether she likes it or not.

"She walked up to the front door and looked up at the huge knocker on it. It was shaped like a pine tree with the trunk for a handle. She fidgeted for a moment, twisting her necklace around her finger. Her mother had given it to her, right before she had disappeared. It was a small piece of crystal, which seemed always to have light in it, even now in the rain. It had wire wrapped around the middle, connecting it to the string. Melissa loved it. It made her feel like she always had a bit of her mother with her."

Congratulations to Rachel for publishing her first novel way ahead of the curve, and stay tuned for more publishing projects from Homer, our Espresso Book Machine.

Preschoolers -- The Wave of the Future

One of our latest publishing jobs on the Espresso Book Machine is a school project commemorating a special year at the Alki Co-op Preschool, continuing our trend of debuting young writers and illustrators (just wait till you hear about 11 year old Rachel!). But if you flip open to the dedication page of "To School, To School To Have Lots of Fun" by the Alki 4s, you'll find something cutting edge:


A color interior! How did that happen? Well it took some extra work from the woman who put it all together, Jennifer S. When she came in I duly informed her that none of the 25 Espresso Book Machines across the world (China, Egypt, North Dakota) could print anything but black and white interiors. However...


We can bind preprinted pages. We were able to put together a full color book dedicated to "Teacher Sara" when Jennifer brought in color pages ready to be glued and bound with a Homer-generated cover. We'd like to get the process streamlined in the future--but for now if you want a splashy illustrated work, shoot us an email at ubs_publish@earthlink.net and we'll see what we can do for you.

- Tera

Ink Blot

Possessed of an artistic soul, Homer turned this book cover:

Into this:


while printing yesterday. Another beautiful error from our Book Machine...

Youngest Customer Yet!!

Nine year old Tate heard about our Book Machine on the radio one morning while getting ready for school. He immediately jumped on the internet, surfed our website till he found an EBM book he wanted, and a day or two later came in to watch it print.

The best part is that Tate wanted this 468 page book: a prose version of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Most of us didn't start reading this stuff until at least our senior year of high school. Congratulations to an advanced young reader and an adventurous book collector.




And thanks Tate for providing us with the chance to print Homer on Homer. Our Book Machine is nicknamed (if you didn't know) after Homer Price, the mischievous boy inventor (with his Uncle Ulysses) of a doughnut-making machine reminiscent of our very own Espresso Book Machine. If you're not quite up to reading Homer, the bard, check out Robert McCloskey's kids classic.

"Homer got down from the chair and pushed a button on the machine marked, "Start." Rings of batter started dropping into the hot fat. After a ring of batter was cooked on one side an automatic gadget gave the doughnut a little push and it rolled neatly down a little chute, all ready to eat.

"That's a simply fascinating machine," said the lady as she waited for the first doughnut to roll out."

- Tera, Bookmaker

Sending Books to Haiti

You can still get Creole/English medical dictionaries here. The Haitian (Creole) - English Pocket Medical Translator was put out by the International Medical Volunteers Association and is available to print on the Espresso Book Machine for $8. We recently took an order from an aid team about to head to Haiti.

From our bookseller, Terri: "On April 12th I took a call from a woman at a Seattle hospital. She was looking for several copies of a French/English medical dictionary and the Lonely Planet travel guide to Haiti. I asked her if she would be interested in a Haitian/English medical dictionary instead. She told me that a group of medical staff were leaving in three days for Haiti and would need the books as soon as possible. I let her know that we could have the books ready for her by that afternoon. She was "wowed" and very appreciative of our ability to make the exact book for their needs when they needed them."

- Tera, EBM Operator

84 Charing Cross Road

Homer, our Book Machine, is participating in his first Reading Aloud event! The bookstore is celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the publication of Helene Hanff’s classic, 84 Charing Cross Road with a reading, April 28, at 7PM. Hanff’s little book is a selection of her correspondence with the good London booksellers at Marks & Co., the used bookstore from which she ordered all her books. Homer is reprinting a selection of the out-of-print titles Hanff bought used copies of. Here then the list so far:

• Two elegant, slim volumes of essays by Belloc, Hillaire: On Something and First and Last, both from The Echo Library.

• Joseph Addison’s famous essays from “The Spectator,” of a country gentleman, The Sir Roger De Coverley Papers
  

• As Helene found all those years ago, there is still no inexpensive edition Donne, John Sermons. So we’re reprinting his Devotions, with Two Sermons.

• Our Latin New Testament, or Novum Testamentum Latine, is edited by Everhard Nestle, and at $15.00 is considerably more inexpensive than any currently available in print.

• Dictionary of The Vulgate New Testament, at only $10.00!

• Our Hazlitt, William. Selected Essays, is not the Nonesuch Press edition, but is still a good selection, edited by Frank Cass, inexpensive, but still better and more complete than the in-print edition from Oxford, in which some modern editor has meddled and altered a number of the most famous essays in English. Also reprinted, Hazlitt’s Table Talk.

• Hunt, Leigh. Essays.
  

• Johnson, Samuel, On Shakespeare, 1908, Intro by Walter Raleigh – ours is exactly this edition!

• Prose, from poet and playwright, Jonson, Ben. Timber: Or, Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter, edited with an introduction and notes by Felix E. Schelling.
•  Lamb, Charles, Selected Essays of Charles Lamb

• Landor, Walter Savage, The Pentameron and Other Imaginary Conversations
  

• Newman, John Henry. Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education. Addressed to the Catholics of Dublin- "'Idea of a University"
  

• Quiller-Couch, Arthur, The Pilgrim's Way
  

• Stevenson, Robert Louis’s essays, Virginibus Puerisque (for boys and girls)

• Wyatt, Thomas. Poetical Works of Sir Thomas Wyatt with a Memoir and Critical Dissertation
  

• Walton, Izaak. The Lives of - John Donne - Sir Henry Wotton - Richard Hooker - George Herbert & Robert Sanderson

--Brad