Publishing for the people: Bloomington is home to the no. 1 company in self-publishing.

AuthorKaelbe, Steve
PositionAROUND INDIANA

"SOME PEOPLE WANT TO run a marathon, some people want to climb a mountain. Some people have on their to-do list to write a book," says Keith Ogorek, director of marketing for Author Solutions in Bloomington.

And why shouldn't people write a book if they feel like it? Why should it be anyone else's decision--like some snooty book editor in New York? These days, it's better to call someone in Bloomington, which has quickly become a book publishing capital all its own, thanks to Author Solutions.

It's not hyperbole to say that Bloomington is the capital of self-publishing. It already was in March, when it was the headquarters of AuthorHouse, the Author Solutions company that's No. 1 in the business. And it's even more so now, following the April 1 move to Bloomington of iUniverse, the formerly Nebraska-based No. 2 in the industry, acquired by Author Solutions last September. There's also Wordclay, the new Author House concept, an online do-it-yourself book creation concept rolled out in January "As a company, Author House will publish about one of every 17 titles in the United States this coming year," Ogorek says. That's about 20,000 titles.

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It's been a remarkably quick rise to such prominence in book publishing. It was only 1997 when this story began, when a little Bloomington company called 1stBooks opened its doors, looking to help first-time authors having a hard time breaking into traditional publishing. It didn't take long for the word to spread, not just to beginning authors but to established writers looking for a better deal.

In 2004, 1stBooks changed its name to AuthorHouse to better reflect its services and clientele. Ogorek lists some of the types of people who use the company's services. There are those "who want to publish because they have something to say that can help people," he says. There are those who have a story to tell, either fiction or nonfiction. "Another category is people who have either tried traditional publishers and found that market is closed, or they have a title that traditional publishers have taken out of print." And, of...

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