Rick Rieser was halfway through his daily jog this summer when the idea for “Percy, The Perfectly Imperfect Chicken” first popped into his brain.
Today, Rieser is a first-time author preparing for a busy schedule of readings in the Midwest, toting boxes of the children’s book that was published with stunning speed via a small Silicon Valley startup called FastPencil. A creative process that often takes years — and typically fails to come to fruition — was accomplished in a few months, without a single rejection.
FastPencil, based in Campbell, is at the crest of a wave of innovation that analysts say could disrupt and “democratize” the book industry much as the music industry was transformed by Napster and the iPod. The changes are challenging the gatekeeper status and distribution models of big publishing houses by creating alternative routes for authors.
The Web has been a boon for self-expression, but while just about anyone can blog, a physical book remains the dream of many writers. Rare are the blog-to-book breakthroughs of such authors as Julie Powell, whose blogging homage to chef Julia Child led to a book and a film.
Advances in digital technologies have created new ways to publish and consume the written word. Innovations ranging from the print-on-demand technologies by Hewlett-Packard and Xerox to the advent of Web-connected e-readers such as Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader are changing the way books are produced, distributed and read. Speculation abounds that Apple is working on its own e-reader.
Writers, meanwhile, are exploring avenues such as Scribd, which is showcasing digital works known as “e-books,” and FastPencil, which bills itself as a one-stop shop to help authors create, publish, distribute and sell their physical books.
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