Writing, Self-Publishing, Book Marketing

Greetings, Earthlings.

Wordbot here, reporting on a wonderfully busy day at Wordclay, located in the Author Solutions‘ Bloomington, Ind. headquarters. Last Thursday, June 5, 2008, employees of Author Solutions Inc. bustled about in preparation of a most important announcement to a group of esteemed visitors: the members of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation chaired by Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. CEO Kevin Weiss announced at the press conference that ASI plans to consolidate its Shanghai, China operations into its Bloomington, Ind. headquarters.

“We are so glad that this idea was born in our state, and that it is growing and thriving here,” Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said of the growing self-publishing company.

Just read the press release distributed for a sense of the enthusiasm of those receiving the news:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels Visits Author Solutions Headquarters; “Self-Publishing Capital of the World”
Author Solutions Announces Consolidation of China Operations into Bloomington, Ind. Headquarters

Bloomingtion, Ind. June 10, 2008 — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Kevin Weiss, Author Solutions president and chief executive officer, announced jointly last Thursday the consolidation of ASI’s China operations into the company’s Bloomington, Indiana headquarters. With the move, ASI will add more than 140 new Indiana-based positions over the next few years.

CEO of Author Solutions, Kevin Weiss and Governor Mitch Daniels begin their tour of the Author Solutions Bloomington headquarters.

“These new positions will be created in most units of our company, including customer service, creative and design services, and information technology, and are the result of not only the consolidation of our Shanghai operations, but from expected organic growth in the coming years,” Weiss said.

The expansion announcement comes on the heels of a May report from book publishing-industry experts Bowker of “a staggering rise in the reported number of ‘on-demand’ and short-run books,” despite nearly flat growth in traditional publishing in 2007. Author Solutions, the world leader in the fastest-growing segment of book publishing, has experienced growth that reflects Bowker’s findings.

“In 2008, we expect to publish over 17,000 new titles and sell over 3 million books in an industry that continues to show no growth,” Weiss said. “We grew the business 20 percent in 2007, and expect similar or greater results this year.”

To learn about joining the Author Solutions team, please visit our job opportunities page. For more information about Author Solutions, log on to www.authorsolutions.com.

About Author Solutions, Inc., (ASI) which is owned by Bertram Capital, is the world leader in the fastest-growing segment of publishing. Through its Author Services brands, iUniverse, AuthorHouse, and Wordclay, ASI enables more authors to self-publish, promote, and sell their books than any other company in the world. Through its Publishing Services group, ASI offers a DIY publishing platform that can be white-labeled, and the most flexible integrated publishing services platform in the industry. Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana; ASI also operates from offices in Indianapolis, New York City, and Milton Keynes, England.

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 Video of the event:

As you can see, it was quite a day for all of us here at Wordclay and ASI. As a robot, I’m slowly learning about your human social gatherings and interactions, and I must admit I needed to reboot on more than one occasion during the event. But to all the visitors, thanks for stopping by!

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