Posted by
The New THOMA$ REPORT on Thursday, June 05, 2008 3:24:47 PM
I've been a
"pioneer" in many things, one of which is "desktop
publishing," which I was doing before it even had a name. I published
several different tabloid newspapers back when typesetting was VERY expensive
and I had to use an "executive typewriter" like an IBM Selectric® and
type my copy twice: once on the left to determine how many spaces to leave to
get "justified copy" (even margins on both ends), then have it
Photostatted down to a 2-1/4" column width, which I'd "paste up"
in my "flats" as camera-ready copy. When Macintosh came out with the
first DTP software, I thought I had died and gone to heaven, it made my job so
much easier. I immediately went to a "service bureau" and rented time
on a Mac to do my copy. Soon after, I owned only the second such software
platform in existence that year, the Atari ST, and started a typesetting
business, able to charge prices so low in comparison to "normal"
typesetting charges at the time that many either got their own DTP software and
lowered their prices, or went out of business. I led the nation in sales of a
carbon paper replacement that obsoleted carbon paper before that. Today, I'm
yet again a "pioneer" this time in publishing, my new book being
published in "print-on-demand" form, making it unnecessary for
bookstores to carry lots of copies (unless they wanted to) with the book
available (so far) only on the Internet through Barnes & Noble and Amazon,
among others (including three in Norway), but not yet (maybe never) available on a bookstore shelf. I
expect this new system to obsolete new bookstores as we know them or make them "change their ways" significantly, as the Mac did "cold"
typesetting and Copyfax did standard carbon paper. (Outskirts Press)