Blog

July 2000

The first Web site for Northern California Publishers & Authors (then called Sacramento Publishers Association) was hosted by one of those companies that offered free sites if their banner ads were displayed at the top of each page.

I remember because I built it.

That site was built with (gasp!) tables for positioning. Tables, and bright colors, and that little stats tracker at the bottom of the page.

(Oh geez, it looks like that account was never closed. When I opened up the archive file to take a screen shot, the tracker image was linked to Extreme Tracking — “Counting since: 22 Jul 2000.” Oops.) Continue reading “Web site redesign: NCPA”

Several years ago I designed and produced the Business Volunteers for the Arts newsletter, Partners. I had fun incorporating the organization’s logo (designed by someone else) in the nameplate.

Later the organization was renamed and BVA became a program within the larger organization, and I had to redesign the nameplate. (This logo also was designed by someone else.)

Loraine Holden, author of Don’t Get Thin, Get Healthy, wanted the ability to add articles on breaking health news to her Web site. Her previous webmaster set up a blog for her, but it wasn’t integrated into her site.

So Loraine asked me to add the blog link to her site. Continue reading “Web site redesign: Golden Green Press”

Last year I got a call from a prospective client regarding a newsletter project. The client, a state agency with six offices throughout California, wanted to consolidate the individual newsletters created at each site into a single newsletter.

First step was a redesign while they searched for an editor. None of the offices had a dedicated editor; the job was assigned to individuals who shoehorned the newsletter work in between their regular duties, and the newsletters of the six offices lacked an overall agency design. Continue reading “InfoNotes newsletter design”

POD is a process: Print On Demand. Any printshop running a digital press — such as a DocuTech, an Indigo, an iGen, a Nuvera — can provide POD services. They print only the quantity you need. There’s no minimum of 500 or 1,000 copies. Kinko’s and AlphaGraphics are POD shops, just as Lightning Source is. By the way, Lightning Source isn’t a publisher and doesn’t call itself one.

The companies that facilitate on-demand book printing and delivery, like iUniverse and AuthorHouse, aren’t PODs — they’re POD publishers, also called subsidy publishers. (And don’t let these companies fool you — you’re not the publisher unless you own the ISBN.) POD describes the process they use.

Don’t take my word for it:

• http://www.unionwriters.org/posts/index.php?p=215
• http://www.graphic-design.com/news/2007/print_on_demand.html
• http://www.sfwa.org/beware/printondemand.html
• http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/publishingterms/g/pod.htm