Big Name Author Publishes Direct to E-Book

Skip The Maze, Publish
Direct to E-Book

Mark Salzman (Iron & Silk and The Soloist) is bypassing traditional publishing and publishing direct to digital format through the Manhattan-based digital startup Open Road Integrated Media.

The circumstances that led him to this decision are interesting and I think you will appreciate the insight:

From Crain's New York Business by Senior Reporter, Matthew Flamm:

Author Mark Salzman, best known for his memoir Iron & Silk and his novel The Soloist, will forgo the traditional publishing route for his next title and bring it out as an e-book with the digital startup Open Road Integrated Media. The Man in the Empty Boat, which grew out of a show the writer has been performing, will be released Tuesday, the Manhattan-based publisher announced Monday.

The memoir marks one of the more high profile acquisitions for Open Road, which was co-founded by former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman in 2009. Much of its publishing list is made up of e-book reissues of bestselling titles put out before literary houses began holding onto electronic rights.
The Man in the Empty Boat started as a monologue, An Atheist in Freefall, about Mr. Salzman's family and the catastrophic year in which he suffered panic attacks and the loss of his sister.

“The piece began not as a book but as notes for a monologue that I performed at the Sun Valley Writer's Conference in 2010,” Mr. Salzman said in a statement. “Jeffrey Sharp, president of Open Road, happened to be in the audience that day. He's a dad like me and the story seemed to hit him dead center.”

Mr. Sharp, who is also a filmmaker, plans to develop film and television projects out of the book.

The memoir will be published in both e-book and print-on-demand editions.

The Writers Welcome Blog is available on Kindle :)))