Website Offers Virtual Publishing Service
Posted on November 3, 1997
1stBooks hopes that publishing's future may be viewed on your home or office computer. The entrepreneurs behind 1stBooks hope to give authors a new means of publishing and selling their works.
The founders are a somewhat unlikely pair: David Hilliard has made a comfortable living in niche publishing, providing printed directories for affinity groups such as college fraternities and sororities.
Hilliard's partner Tim Jacobs is a former financial services executive and frustrated author of children's books. Like thousands of other writers, he couldn't find an outlet for his works.
1stBooks will digitize an author's book and publish it on the Web, along with a "digital book jacket." The "virtual cover" offers the prospective reader much the same information as a traditional book jacket: a cover design or illustration, a summary of the book and a biographical sketch of the author. This includes a free two or three page excerpt from the text itself, for the potential buyer who might like to leaf through a few virtual pages before making a purchase.
