Scags at 18 Launch, end of year report

What a year SSP has had. Of course the launch of Scags at 18 was the real icing on the cake, but believe me, there were so many other great milestones achieved this year that it bears repeating–what a year!

I am thoroughly pleased that Scags at 18 is finished and available. What has made this even more pleasurable is the fact that we can now offer all our titles in not just e-book format but also in a POD format as well. Print on Demand is going to make our mission more comprehensive. Our experience is showing that not only are there lots of people who don’t own e-readers, they don’t want to own e-readers. Amazon and Apple may tout the numbers of people who own their devices and they are in the hundreds of millions world wide at this point, but there are those who don’t ever want to go that route. And at SSP we didn’t want to repeat the mistakes we made in printing a version of Scags at 7 and then going the e-book route, seeing the e-book selling and the printed version languishing. It is expensive to print and then ship and then warehouse and then ship again to the reader.

A solution to that dilemma was necessary. The Espresso Book Machine is the answer to the problem and the fact that one is now in Manhattan at the same time that Scags at 18 was launched, well, one could call it providential. After all, what could be more “green” as far as technology goes than a POD machine that can produce a book on demand, rather than having to waste paper, waste fuel shipping, waste land and resources to store, and then waste more resources trying to get bookstores and readers to purchase separate copies? Now we don’t add substantially to the environmental waste that traditional publishing does and at the same time we can respond to our readers’ needs.

We have taken further steps as well to make SSP a better known publisher. We have signed on with an online marketing and PR firm (Vocus) that is able to work with us and handle so many of our basic needs in very creative and helpful ways. As the year progresses and we can offer more insight into what SSP does and how those new projects we have begun to line up for 2012 take shape, you will see a nicely growing set of press releases coming out with each new step we take.

I am very pleased with what we have on our plates for 2012. But I don’t want to forget what we were able to accomplish in 2011 because it was a new start for the company as it reverted to a single owner and employee–me–and with that came the need for a new website, which we launched in April. We published Scags at 18 in two formats. And we signed on with an online marketing and PR firm to help us get the word out more effectively about what SSP is doing and will be doing.

For those who have not yet ordered the book, here are the helpful website links:

For e-books, www.sullivanstpress.com/publications  (both Scags at 18 and Scags at 7 are available here)

For POD, www.mcnallyjackson.com/bookmachine/scags-18

A wonderful 2012 to you all and thank you so much for your support.