Print-on-Demand Workshop September 29, 2005

Washington Independent Writer's (WIW) Sept. 29 workshop will feature several authors discussing their experiences with print-on-demand (POD) publishing?an popular method of self-publishing.

In 2004, one in four of the 195,000 titles published was a POD book. William F. Buckley and other established authors are using POD to keep out-of-print books available; veteran novelist Warren Adler has used POD to publish his 27th book, Deathof a Washington Madame, which he is making available free of charge to anyone requesting it (in order to encourage readers to buy his earlier books).

POD relies on digital printing, which makes books cheaper and quicker to produce. For several hundred dollars (depending on the services requested), POD publishers like iUniverse and AuthorHouse print and bind trade paperbacks. Whenever people want to buy a book, the POD firm prints it from a digital file.

Join Joseph Barbato, Austin S. Camacho, Jane Frutchey and Cindy Gallagher to learn more about POD publishing.

Barbato (moderator), president of WIW, has written about self-publishing for Publishers Weekly. An author and journalist, his latest book, The Mercifully Brief Real World Guide to Attracting the Attention Your Cause Deserves (Emerson & Church), has just been published.

Camacho is the author of several POD mystery novels, including Blood and Bone and The Troubleshooter in the Hannibal Jones mystery series. His fiction has been featured on C-Span Book TV. He is also the author of the guidebook Successfully Marketing Print-on-Demand Fiction. Camacho is a media specialist for the Department of Defense.

Frutchey, a former adjunct professor of English at the University of Maryland, Towson, is the author of a print-on-demand book "Seven Steps to Starting and Running an Editorial Consulting Business" ; a contributing poet for Women on a Wire, Vol. 2, benefiting the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence; and a project editor and contributing writer for "September 11: Maryland Voices", benefiting the Maryland Survivors Scholarship Fund. She earned multiple awards in the Maryland Writers? Association 2005 Short Works Contest, and her poetry placed among the top 10 winners in the Missouri Saturday Writers 2005 Poetry Contest. She currently freelances for Maryland Life magazine, Mason-Dixon Arrive magazine, and the Yale School of Management.

Gallegher is the author (under the name Cynthia Polansky) of the POD historical novel Far Above Rubies, which is based on the true story of a Holocaust survivor. The book was a finalist for the 2001 ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award. She recently completed her second novel, Remote Control, a "beach bag book" set in the afterlife, and has another book, The American Pit Bull Terrier, due out in March, 2006, from TFH Publications.

The Workshop will start at 7 p.m. at the Bethesda?Chevy Chase Regional Services Center, 4805 Edgemoor Lane, Bethesda, Md. 20814. (Near the Bethesda station on the Metro Red line.) Parking on the street or in nearby paid parking lots. Wheelchair accessible. Light snacks will be served.

COST: WIW Member cost is $10 advance payment; $15 at the door. Nonmember cost is $20 advance payment; $25 at the door. A form for online payment is available at http://www.washwriter.org/workshops.html.

Reservations are required. To RSVP, call (202) 737-9500 or e-mail rsvp@washwriter.org. Please mention the event for which you are responding and your membership status.