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Open Books publishes classic, modern and avant-garde high-quality fiction and non-fiction. All initial publications are paper-free and published online. Classics are available to read free.

Beyond publishing, Open Books sponsors the Adopt-A-Book program. All books in the Open Books Classics Library are available for adoption through monetary donations. From the proceeds of each book adoption, fifty percent of all revenues go directly back into the Arts Community through our Dead Writers' Society Grant to living writers and through donations by the Open Books Literacy Fund. To learn more about the Adopt-A-Book program, or to adopt a book, visit here.

Open Books was founded in 2007 by David A. Ross and Kelly Huddleston.

David A. Ross is a writer, editor, publisher and film producer. From 1984-1985 he was a columnist and contributing editor for Southwest Art Magazine. His novels include Sacrifice and the Sweet Life, A Winter Garden, Stones, Xenos and the award-winning first novel The Trouble with Paradise. In addition to his career as a novelist, he was the publisher of a small press, Escape Media, from 1992-2004 and is currently the publisher of online literary and features journals including Moronic Ox Literary & Cultural Journal. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he presently lives on the Island of Corfu, Greece. His newest novel, How High the Wall, can be found here.

Kelly Huddleston is a writer, publisher, film producer, Internet developer and advocate of literary fiction. From 1999-2004 she worked with Escape Media in all facets of the book business, from editing two published novels, Windblown Clouds by Thomas K. Shor and A Winter Garden by David A. Ross, to sales, from arranging book signings in brick-and-mortar stores to packing books for shipment. In 2001 Escape Media published her first novel, The Perfect Pearl.

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Open Books' Publishing Strategy

Open Books employs a unique strategy for twenty-first century publishing.

Recognizing the rapidly changing landscape in book publishing, Open Books embraces an inside-out strategy in publishing new authors and new titles. Rather than introduce a new book in hard cover or trade paperback, as is traditional, we choose to embrace the future by first offering new titles in e-book format. Each book is widely distributed to front line e-book sellers like amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Mobipocket and others. (Because this industry is growing so fast, new venues become available constantly, so distribution is always growing wider.) Employing our expetise in promotion, Open Books solicits independent reviews for each title published and engages in an ongoing promotional campaign to make readers aware of our titles (and also aware of where they can buy them).

Once a book has proven itself in the e-book market, a further evaluation is made of sales potential in traditional print format. If market conditions suggest that adequate sales are possible in the print format, the book is then produced as a POD publication and offered for sale on appropriate sales venues.

Lastly, if the book performs well in POD, then consideration is given to a traditional print run with traditional distribution to brick & mortar stores.

Why do we take this inside-out approach?

Having published books for the past thirteen  years (in both trade paper and e-book formats) we have seen the ins & outs of the business. We also think we see the future of book publishing worldwide.

1) Traditional trade paperback books are costly to produce and seldom sell through their initial print run. This is due to a number of factors, including inadequate publicity, short shelf time in retail stores, books going out-of-print before they can gain an audience and large publishers buying advantageous retail space in high-traffic chain stores - space small presses cannot afford to purchase

E-books, on the other hand, are inexpensive to produce, are not subject to returns or remaindering, cheaper for the consumer to buy, environmentally friendly, easy to trasport and to read (even for those with poor eyesight), easier to promote and do not physically degrade, What's more, e-book sales are on the upswing, where traditional paper books must are in decline. Do you see what we see? We think it is now obvious that the book publishing industry will move with ever increasing swiftness into this new format, much as scrolls evolved from stone tablets, or paper books from hand-tooled scrolls. Our vision is specific, and virtually every day the industry seems to reward us with new ways to publish, promote and market our titles and authors.

And by the way, Open Books titles NEVER go out of print!

The Ebook revolution is now well underway; there is no longer any doubt about it! In fact, the entire publishing industry is upside down. The method by which we acquire and read books is going through its biggest change since Gutenberg invented the printing press, and the evolution is happening at lightning speed.

Open source channels like Amazon Kindle, Smashwords and many others are enabling writers and publishers alike to publish their works and offer them for sale online to the public, and as a result readers are enjoying many new writers whose work they would not previously have had an opportunity to read at prices not seen since the 1950's.

Devices such as Amazon's Kindle, Sony EReader, B&N's Nook, as well as many other platforms are rapidly challenging the 'brick & mortar' bookstores as a source for reading material. These devices are advantageous for many reasons: convenience in buying, ease of reading, storage, ecology, portability, selection and more.

So the question of whether to Ebook or not to Ebook is already answered. Whether you acquire and read on one of the new devices or right on your PC, the way books are being published and read today has changed!

Open Books Embraces

the e-book Revolution

To e-book or not to e-book - that is the question!