The Untold Story of Books with author Michael Castleman

BAIPA monthly meetings are now on Zoom, with occasional hybrid meetings (Zoom and in-person). The Zoom links will be provided to you via email on the Friday evening before, around 9 PM.
Therefore, all non-members MUST register in advance in order to participate. However, all current BAIPA members will get the Zoom info for this session automatically.

Please scroll down to the bottom of this page if you need a non-member ticket.

The general meeting begins at 9 am, the speaker presentation is at 11 am, after Q&A, networking time, introductions & announcements.

(Click here for the schedule for the day)

MORNING PRESENTATION:

What We Call “Traditional Publishing” Is Actually
a Brief, 80-Year Detour from 400+ Years of Self-Publishing

Michael Castleman, San Francisco journalist and author

My latest release, The Untold Story of Books, recounts the bittersweet saga of publishing from Gutenberg to Amazon. It explores how, since 2000, digital technology has transformed publishing. Authors now enjoy two new paths to publication: self- and hybrid publishing, doing everything themselves or paying publishers-for-hire. These two novel models have upended “traditional” publishing, threatening the Big Five New York houses whose imprints have familiar names.

Actually, traditional publishing is a misnomer. It’s been the dominant paradigm for only 80 of publishing’s 575 years, 1920-2000. For 495 years, authors have self-published. There have been three separate, distinct business models. From Gutenberg through 1920, the first book business, there were no publishers. Early American authors self-published (with wealthy patrons sometimes contributing). Authors hired printers then marketed their books on their own. The other eras will be covered in Michael’s presentation.

Book writing today has become a high-tech update of the first book business, not a career, but maybe an expensive hobby.

Key Takeaways include:

• Understand that self-publishing has been the dominant book publishing model for 495 of publishing’s 575 years.
• Hear about how there have been three separate and distinct book businesses.
• Learn how all three have been defined by the technology of printing.
• Know that it’s easier than ever to publish books—and harder than ever to sell them.

About Our Speaker: Michael Castleman

San Francisco journalist and author Michael Castleman, 74, has published 3,000 magazine and web articles and 19 books, most recently The Untold Story of Books: A Writer’s History of Book Publishing (Unnamed Press, LA). It went into a second printing just 8 weeks after publication. Its Amazon page boasts 35 Editorial Reviews and 40 customer reviews with a rating of 4.9 out of 5. Castleman grew up in a suburb of New York City and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Michigan (1972). He earned a Masters in Journalism at UC Berkeley (1979). He began researching the history of book publishing in 1979, the year he signed his first book contract.

Connect with Michael