Ron Pramschufer has been in or around the printing and publishing industry for over 35 years. His experience, including working in the pressroom, bindery, production office and estimating department helped give him a firm foundation to build on when he entered sales and management. He was partners in a small press publishing company in Annapolis, MD in the late seventies and co-invented and marketed two controversial political board games which sold over 100,000 copies in the early eighties.
Moving from his home state of Maryland to New York City after his game experience, Ron sold printing services to, primarily, small to mid-sized book publishers for over a decade before founding RJ Communications with an old friend. Ron recognized the potential of the Internet very early as a powerful communications tool. In 1997 he started one of the first printer related websites, www.rjcom.com, which caters to the professional print buyer. This evolved into www.BooksJustBooks.com and more recently www.selfpublishing.com which target the print buying novice, primarily self-publishers. All three sites are still operating successfully and SelfPublishing.com was named as one of Writers Digest’s, 101 Best websites for writers for 2006.
Educating the novice print buyer has been a top priority from day one. To help address this issue, Ron co-authored the popular title Publishing Basics- a Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher, now in its Third Edition, as well as Publishing Basics for Children’s Books, in its Second Edition. He is the organizer of the monthly Publishing Basics Newsletter where he writes a sometimes controversial Ask Ron column which addresses various aspects of the publishing process. On the same note, he started the Publishing Basics Radio PodCast in 2005 and serves as the show’s host. A wide variety of topics are covered including a very popular series titled, The Truth Behind POD Publishing, where he conducts interviews with a select group of industry insiders. Since its inception, RJ Communications has helped thousands of customers print over 105 million books.
Ron is married and has three children. His daughter, Stephanie, teaches second grade and recently self-published her first children’s book in the Oliver the Clownfish series. Matthew, his oldest son, owns a website design business and Erik, the youngest, is enjoying high school.
As many of you know, I have been a bit “under wraps” since this time last year. Over that year, there have been quite a few technology changes … all seemingly pointing to the demise of the printed book. Within a few short days and about 5 hours hanging around airports, I’m convinced that the printed book is here to stay. About two weeks … [Read more...]
This is probably the most common question I’m asked by new authors wanting to self-publish. How much? The answer to this lies somewhere between “How much is a car?” and “How much is your $14.95 muffler?” Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of what you are going to find on the Internet falls into the later. Before I get into the … [Read more...]
“My Books Arrived From the Printer and They Are Not Right. What Can I Do?” The first thing that comes to mind when someone asks this question is a concept dating back to Ancient Babylon and shared by most of the world’s religions commonly known as the “Golden Rule” … “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This holds … [Read more...]
Two words… Thor Distribution… Thor was started almost ten years ago as an entry level POD distribution method to pick up an odd sale or two that the author might not otherwise make out of his own inventory. Over time, it has grown from a few nickels and dimes to a great percentage of our authors being issued 1099’s, meaning they earned over … [Read more...]
Affordable book cover design and text layout by qualified, experienced designers. I’ve written on this subject from time to time over the years and always end up with a small amount of heated emails from high priced designers but literally hundreds of emails, thanking me for removing the cloud that often surrounds this subject. I moved to New … [Read more...]
First and foremost… SelfPublishing.com does NOT publish anything… you are the publisher. By definition, “self” publishing means that you are the publisher. There is no such thing as a self-publishing company. That phrase was invented, in the spirit of George Orwell’s 1984, by the vanity publishing industry to make something with a bad … [Read more...]
Last issue, I told you about my personal health issues and that I was about to go on a journey of a lifetime and receive a stem cell transplant. Since that day, I have been in isolation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. After almost 7 months of treatment, the finish line is within sight. For those of you interested in the whole Stem Cell … [Read more...]
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