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.
I run into this question quite a bit and it doesn’t have a simple yes/no answer. Over the years I do not think I have hidden the fact that I am a Christian and run my business and personal life, guided by Christian principles but I don’t believe that I have ever asked someone to work with me solely for that reason. I don’t believe you should … [Read more...]
There’s a line from one of my favorite movies, “The Usual Suspects,” that goes, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.” Well, the greatest trick that vanity press publishers try to pull off every day is claiming that vanity press publishing is self publishing. Now that Author Solutions … [Read more...]
Gen. Douglas MacArthur paves the way for the purchase of Author Solutions by Penguin Books. I held off answering this question for a bit until I could develop a solid opinion. At this point I’m not even sure if the check has cleared and Penguin isn’t showing any of their cards. The way I see it, this could either be a really good move for … [Read more...]
The most important thing that an author needs to know, prior to self-publishing is the function of the ISBN and why it is so important that it be owned by the self-publisher. I recently gave a seminar at the Unicorn Writers Conference on this as well as many other of the “basics” of self-publishing. The seminar is only an hour and is presented … [Read more...]
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...]
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