As we approach 30,000 books downloaded, we noticed that our original book, The Little Suitcase by Andrea Azevedo has passed 1,000 downloads.  While these numbers may not be impressive in a web world that counts in millions, they are encouraging in the children literature world.  If we factor in the ease and speed at which our DRM free e-books are shared, we know that thousands around the world have been touched by this great story.

Bravo and thank you! to Andrea.

Labels: children books, e-books

Read and E-Book week 2010 will be held from March 7 to 13.  This initiative started in 2004 by Rita Toews and friends is now in its sixth edition.  While E-Books were still a novelty in 2004, they are rapidly becoming  mainstream.  When Fortune magazine makes E-reading the cover of its current issue, you know that E-Books have become a major publishing form.

Sharing-Books was conceived as an E-Book publisher from day one.  We believed that readers would separate the concept of book from "paper".  Books are a collection of thoughts expressed with words.  Whether these words are printed on paper or displayed electronically does not change the story or ideas the writer is sharing. 

As a baby boomer I remember fondly the smell of a new paper book.  By contrast today's kids will remember discovering the features of their new electronic devices.  When we wrote our original business plan in 2007, we envisioned delivering children E-Books to gaming devices like the Nintendo DS.  A little over 2 years later the humble Nintendo becomes an E-Reader. 

We are entering a new and exciting phase in the deployment of the e-reading industry.  The devices are becoming much better.  The industry is grouping around a few distribution models, closed store/device systems like the Kindle that mimic the very successful ITunes/Ipod combination, open e-readers that accept a variety of format and allow sourcing of books from any vendor, and in our opinion the biggest market will be multipurpose devices like the IPhone acquiring e-reading capabilities.  I started reading E-Books on my first smart phone, a Palm Treo, in 2002, so I am partial to the phone/PDA/e-reader combination.

What is more interesting to us is how the E-Book publishing business will look like in years to come.  There is a consolidation play by giant channels like Amazon and Google.  There is price point resistance from large  books publishers like MacMillan and the Murdoch empire who want more money for their content.  Small publishers like us welcome their initiative as it protects the value of the E-Books we publish.  So we are optimistic that we will be able to realize more value for our book creators.

E-Books offer greater value-add possibilities than paper books.  It is much easier to vary the format of an E-Books than a paper book.  New free software like Blio will make it easier to move E-Books across software and hardware platforms and to transform E-Books into audio-books or other forms friendly to the visually challenged.  Children E-Books will become especially fun as book creators master how to insert in their books hyperlinks to sites that add to the e-reading experience.  Book creators will also learn to add short videos and sound effects that will make E-Books a richer learning experience and become an interesting alternative to the video-games children have in their hand held electronic devices.

So let's celebrate E-Book Week as we can all benefit from the emergence of this new way to share stories and ideas.

Labels: children books, children's ebooks, digital publishing industry, e-books, e-readers

We are delighted to note that we have delivered over 20,000 e-books to children around the world. By our own (very unscientific) estimate, each book averages 5 readers when we include the classrooms where they are used. So we believe that over 100,000 young readers around the world have enjoyed the work of our book creators.

We are thankful for our book creators who believe in what we want to accomplish and who join us with their creative work. The joy we have each time we read new books submitted by our creators make all the effort to put this project together worthwhile.

Labels: children books, children's ebooks, e-books

The beauty of a web 2.0 site is that your users innovate with the tools you give them.

We originally saw the site as a book publishing tool. But Jennifer Poulter, an educational author form Australia, saw in Sharing-Books a tool to publish one page books that she calls poster-poems as classroom aids to help students learn poetry and/or help teachers introduce discussion topics relevant to their classes. The form of the poster-poem has been received well and Jennifer's work has been used in classrooms around the world. One of our authors, Urs Dietrich, who wrote Miki Makes a Promise, reported that on his last trip to Odessa, he visited a classroom where Jennifer's poster-poems were used to teach English.

Now it is author Timothy Schenk who published last week a surprise he had hinted was coming. Timothy has previously illustrated two poster-poems written by Jennifer. He also wrote and illustrated My Pretty Pointe Shoes that won the second prize in the July 2009 Simone Woods Awards. This time Timothy published our first talking book: Fan of Halloween.

Fan of Halloween demonstrates Timothy's technical know-how as he took advantage of a new feature Adobe introduced to PDF files, the ability to insert flash files. So as you download what looks like a normal and relatively small PDF file, you also download a little movie and a recording of Timothy reading his poem. When you click on the image of the pumpkin on the page, the pumpkin moves in as Timothy reads the poem.

This is very exciting and very promising. We deliberately limited the file type of our books to PDF so that universal distribution would be easy and that given the small size of the files, our books could be downloaded in low bandwidth regions of the world. Obviously this limited the books in being two dimensional. Now we can see the form of the e-book developing new and valuable attributes. Imagine a PDF e-book where a child can click on a cow and hear it go Moo! Or have an alphabet book read to them or having technical details added to a science book.

We thank Timothy for innovating with this first book and showing the way to one more imaginative use of Sharing-Books.com

Labels: children books, digital publishing industry, e-books, Halloween, J.R. Poulter, new features, picture books, publishing, teaching english, technology, Timothy Schenk

One of our colleagues at Sharing-Books brought to our attention this article on the BBC site about drawing of violent images by boys. We thought you might find it of interest.

As a child I never experienced or witnessed violence, yet I was always fascinated by war movies, western stories and everything related to fighting. I remember drawing armies and combat images like the ones described in this article.

Yet as parents we really made an effort to keep violent images away from our children and we distracted or guided them in a different direction if they drew violent scenes.

Of course in the case of Sharing-Books, our contribution guidelines do not welcome books with violent images. This was chosen out of our desire for good content as parents but I must admit there was also a certain amount of political correctness in our choice.

This choice is a bit of a challenge as we build our online library of classic books. Many of them are rather dark and often violent. For example, we have scanned and uploaded some of the stories that come from a family book I grew up with, a 1892 edition of the Contes de Perrault written in 1645. This original version of the Little Red Riding Hood (in French) ends in a bloodbath with both the grandmother and the child killed by the wolf. I have not yet uploaded the scan of Blue Beard which features a murder with a very realistic image.

This is an interesting topic in the context of the emerging "maleness malaise" that is discussed by many sociologists. See for example the books by Dr. Michael Thompson.

We are not the experts but we hope you see value in thinking this topic through as parents and/or as book creators.

Labels: children books, parenting, violence

Larry Low has contributed seventeen different short stories to Sharing-Books.com. His stories reflect his passion for words. In addition to writing he invests a lot of his time helping students improve their command of the English language.

S-B: Larry, each time one of us reads one of your books, your rich vocabulary puts a smile on our face.  Where does your love for interesting words come from?

LL: That's an interesting question.  I know exactly where my love of words comes from.  My grandfather was the best read person that I ever had the privilege of knowing.  He was a pilot for the B.C. Pilotage and as such he had lots of time to read when a ship that he had been in charge of on the West Coast, especially on the way to Anyox or Prince Rupert, was anchored waiting to go through Seymour Narrows for example.
 
S-B: How long have you been writing and what got you started?

LL: I started writing seriously on the Saturday that Prince Charles was born.  I spent all of Sunday quizzing my mother about what it would be like when the Prince became King.  The next day at school our grade five teacher read my rendition of the future king's probable adventures to the class and I won a prize.  As time went on, I was somewhat thrown aback by how the royal experience was somewhat different than I had imagined it would be. That's when I discovered that fiction was a better bet than historical accounts were.
 
S-B: What keeps you writing?

LL: Writing is like any other habit.  The longer you do it, the more entrenched you become in repeating the process.  I always knew that I could write quite well but I would not admit it to myself. There were lapses when I did not produce any stories at all.
 
When I started tutoring English Second Language students, I kept hearing a common phrase.  You are the writer. Show me how to rewrite this.  Gradually I began to believe what I heard.  Praise alone does not work but results do.  Every once in a while, I have an experience that reinforces my eagerness to get back to writing.  

When I was teaching school in the Australian Outback, I began writing stories for children but they were dreadful.  When I came back to Canada after eight years away Down Under, I started in writing for my ESL students and gradually taught myself to write kid's stuff.  By that time however, I was much more confident.  After all is said and done in the time that I was away from Canada I managed to publish material in twelve countries.
 
S-B: You help a lot of young people enrich their English vocabulary.  How do you make them love the discovery of a new word?

LL: Let's start with a word that is unknown to my student.  I tell a story about it.  It goes something like this: Monsoon comes from the Arabic for season.  The word in Arabic is mausim.  In the tropical world there are two monsoons.  A dry monsoon and a wet monsoon. 

By the time that I have finished the story about the word of the day let's say, my student(s) will never forget it.
 
S-B: Share with us a few of your favourite children books and why you loved them?

LL: Robert Louis Stevenson was my favorite author when I was young.  I liked Treasure Island and Kidnapped because they were gritty and scary and also full of suspense.
 
S-B: What advice do you have for new writers?

LL: The first thing I have to say about new writers is that they need to go through a learning curve of their own.  The second thing is to read some of the better writers.  Short stories by Somerset Maugham would be one of my first choices. My favorite line in a SM short story is about a French speaking man who is on a steamer during the days that there was a French Indo China.  The Narrator, Maugham, says, "If my French were not so good, I would have a lot of trouble understanding his English."

To tell you the truth I cannot remember the title of the story.  However, I do remember that one sentence.  I read the story to a student in grade eight.  He said, "My grandmother does the same thing.  If my Mandarin weren't so good, I wouldn't be able to understand her English.

The moral of the story is try to write at least one telling sentence in every story you write.
 
S-B: Is there a question you wished we’d asked and how would you answer that question?

LL: What would you be doing if you were not writing? I do not have a clue as to what I would be doing.  I hope that the answer would be found in the word - rewriting.

Labels: children books, e-books, Larry Low, Vocabulary

At Sharing-Books we love to tell the story of how Jennifer Poulter innovated with our publishing model and introduced to us the idea of a one page book - the poster poem. This is a format that Jennifer perfected for the purpose of helping children learn. Jennifer engaged a number of her illustrator friends into collaborating for posters covering a wide range of topics. The poems address issues affecting all children and Jennifer includes in the description of the poster-poems ideas on how they can be used. Jennifer's works have received a lot of praise and we are pleased to share with you some of the kind words acknowledging Jennifer creativity.

"As  fourth grade teacher, I love Jennifer Poulter's poem posters. My class loves them for their richness of language and rhythm. Jennifer's topic selection is varied and great. There is something for every interest. The children enjoy being able to find and download new poems!" Teacher USA Feb 09

"This is a great resource."
Assistant Director, Assessment Resources Branch, Teaching & Learning Division
Queensland Studies Authority

"Materials super.......will activate people within QSA to develop some literacy enrichment learning materials around your work."
Teacher, assessment package writer /senior education officer Australia

"I will forward this on to my boss as he may like to forward it to schools in our district! Looks like really great stuff!"
AVT Behaviour Management Teacher & outgoing Artistic Director QPF

"I'm going back to work next week to teach two days a week in a grade 2/3 so these will be most helpful in my ideas and programming.
Great stuff!"
Australian primary school teacher

"I loved your poems. I shared them with the fourth graders in my class, and they enjoyed them too.
Thanks for sharing!"
Teacher USA

"Now at school we're having an English week. And I gave your poems to children to work with them as translators - to translate in poetical style. They like this type of work - so creative! So this way I use your poems, they are funny, I love people with the sense of humor, and I hope the students and I will laugh together listening to the kid's (your) poems in our native language."
Teacher Ukraine

"You know, today we've had a lesson using your poems - and my kids' translations (Expelling Spell, Pandamonium, Ten of Them and Little People...), if you could hear and understand Russian, it was brilliant, fabulous and funny, of course... lots of laughter!
They (age-11) translated the poems themselves and did not only translate, but rewrote them in rhyme. To my delight they caught the heart of your works, and some of their works were not worse than the originals :) And they asked me for more! I've just downloaded your other posters….
Thank you from me and from my students.
All the best!"
Teacher, Russia

"The kids and I did the Expelling Spell poem on Friday and they LOVED it as well as the illustration…"
American teacher, preschool and lower primary grades

"I downloaded your posters, thank you. Most of all I liked the ones about pandas and cats. My little daughter will be in a rave - she's a fan of animals, especially cats. Susie Dreaming is very nice and cute."
Parent /Teacher from Ukraine

"I have to tell you that I took it to school with me to read to my preschool students and they LOVED it! (So you know it's good now! They are truly the best sounding boards!)
The poem was a hit with the three and four year old age group, good job!"
Teacher review, USA

"I enjoy the poem very much, [I saw an Angel…]. Especially for children. Last week our topic in class was "Earth in danger", we were talking a lot about this,…. So your poem will be a good continuation."
Teacher Ukraine

"I read some of your work on Sharing Books.  One poem I was particularly taken with is Susan Watching Clouds.  It was really kind of sad--it stirred something in me."
Speech & Language Pathologist USA

"I absolutely love the sharing-books.com resource. Seriously, thanks for all you do."
Response from a parent [USA] on “Pandamonium” free teacher, librarian, home-schooling resource

"Jennifer Poulter skips and skims,
her words awake the free spirit within.
One laughs and giggles, but pauses some time,
To ponder the rhythm, the prose and the rhyme.
They create a world where ideas play,
But dance to the sound with the words that they say.  
A heart filled with colour, spectrum, and fun
To frolic and spin in the warmth of the sun
Thank you"
Jan Ramage,[primary teacher and double award nominee CBCA]

"I have just worked with Jennifer Poulter, writing one of her poems in calligraphy and placing the finished item,  Zoo View, on the site.  I understand that ISBN numbers are gradually being added to books/posters on the site, always good for publishing credit – Sharing Books is the publisher. If you investigate the site, you will see that Jennifer has been very creative and productive there lately, and teamed with many top illustrators – I’m sure to everyone’s advantage."
Peter Taylor, SCWBI Queensland Organiser, teacher, writer, calligrapher, illustrator

Labels: children books, ebooks, teacher resources, teaching english

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts: Ann Harrison, Benetech, 415-637-5262, ann.h@benetech.org
Maggie Kerr-Southin, Sharing-Books.com, 250-595-0136, Maggie@artemispr.com


May 5, 2009, Palo Alto, CA - Bookshare and Shared Books Ltd of Vancouver BC are pleased to announce a partnership that will expand the availability of children books in the Bookshare library. Shared Books, which operates the Sharing-Books.com website, has agreed to allow children’s books published on Sharing-Books.com to be added to the Bookshare collection. This initiative will increase the number of children’s books accessible to readers with print disabilities and provide an opportunity for authors published on Sharing-Books.com to offer their works to a new group of valued readers.

Schools around the world have signed up their qualified students for Bookshare and many parents have registered their children with qualifying disabilities for individual Bookshare memberships. The number of new Bookshare school and student members increased tenfold in 2008. More than 47,000 people with print disabilities now subscribe to the Bookshare library.

“The children’s books provided by Sharing-Books.com will be available to Bookshare members worldwide,” says Bookshare CEO Jim Fruchterman. “This partnership will allow Bookshare to continue to expand its collection of books for young readers who remain a critically important group within our membership. Sharing-Books.com is on the forefront of providing these texts in a digital format.”

“Having some personal experience with technology that serves the visually impaired, I was thrilled to see our authors being able to contribute content to Bookshare’s impressive library,” said Pierre Lapointe, CEO of Shared Books. Our team’s enthusiasm for Bookshare is unanimous. We want more people to read more books. Technology has an important role to play in reaching all potential readers.”

About Bookshare

Bookshare is operated by Benetech, a Palo Alto, CA-based non-profit technology organization. Bookshare offers people with print disabilities more than 47,000 books and 150 daily periodicals in accessible formats including Braille, large print and synthetic speech. People with print disabilities include readers who are blind or have low vision, learning disabilities or a mobility impairment that prevents them from reading a traditional printed book. In 2007, Bookshare received a $32 million five-year award from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to give all U.S. students with qualifying print disabilities free access to the Bookshare library.

About Sharing-Books.com

Sharing-Books.com is an innovative business model combining private enterprise and social goals. Sharing-Books.com authors receive a third of the revenues of the company as royalties. Another third of Sharing-Books.com revenues are given to Room to Read, a charity that equips developing nations with literacy resources. The company operates an ultra lean virtual business model with the other third of its revenues. Sharing-Books.com disrupts the traditional publishing cycle by giving new authors and new books an immediate publishing venue. The Sharing-Books.com model identifies promising books and characters for the paper publishing, gaming, movie, and toy industries.

Labels: Bookshare, children books, e-books, Visually Impaired Children

We had to interrupt our Easter egg hunt to watch the books downloaded counter tick towards 5,000. 5,000 books downloaded is another exciting milestone for Sharing-Books. We thank all the book creators who believe in this project and we are glad that thousands of children from over 70 countries have enjoyed their books.

This milestone is for us a confirmation of the value of our publishing model. We can now claim to have delivered a solid proof of concept and we are ready to advance the development of new features to enhance our book creators' and readers' experience.

I personally want to thank our Sharing-Books team members who persevere in our mission with dedication and passion. When you count all the book creators, the various technical colleagues led by Marcus Riedner, our investors and our executive team, you have a surprisingly large number of people who have committed time and resources to this idea.

Onwards to 10,000 books!

Pierre Lapointe
co-founder

Labels: children books, e-books, ebooks

Here is a sneak peek at the back page that is going to start showing up as the last page on the books published through Sharing Books. This back page is going to enable readers to click on links in the PDF that will take them back to the donation page for that book. ISBN's, as they become available and registered for books on the site, will also appear on this back page. ( Currently not shown ). We will start adding these pages to our books over the next couple weeks.

Labels: children books, content

We are pleased to note the 4,000th download of a Sharing-Books. We missed the exact screen capture and had to settle for 4,001 as things are happening faster. It took:

• 4 months to reach 1,000 downloads
• 2 months to reach 2,000 downloads
• 1 month to reach 3,000 downloads
• 15 days to reach 4,000 downloads

This momentum is rewarding as it demonstrates the value Sharing-Books' authors deliver to our readers. We thank all our contributors and all our visitors who enjoy our site, and who have taken the time to refer new visitors to Sharing-Books. We appreciate your support for this project.

Labels: children books, e-books

We are delighted to announce the winners of Sharing-Books first contest. You may have followed the race for downloads that heated up in the second half of the contest. Now the tally is completed and here is the winning book for the first category - Most Read (downloaded):

Labels: children books, contest, prize

Sharing-Books is an e-publisher so you know how we answered the question. However I think it will be of value to current and future authors pondering whether to e-publish or not, to share some of the reflections that led us to spending quite a bit of time and money building an e-publishing engine for children books.

First let me confess that I am a paper book fanatic. Our home (and our garage) is full of paper books. I love the smell of ink and glue that tickles your nose when you open a new book. It is just like when you smell that your favorite dish is in the oven. So if I love paper books so much, why am I an e-book publisher?

Simply e-books are inevitable. Paper books will remain with us for a long time but their importance will diminish. Fortunately for us we can look to the music industry to see our future. (Along with the cases of books in our garage you will find boxes of vinyl LP's.) Although many have resisted, no musician today would think of not releasing new music as digital files.

So as a writer and an illustrator you have to adapt to this new medium. First you must start by separating the content from the container. Your book, your story is the content and it is the part that matters whether the container is made out of paper or electronic bits and pieces. However this new container offers new and different possibilities even if we lose some of the features we are romantically attached to.

Some of these changes will be challenging, like how to promote your book. The music industry used to have quite a packaging surface with the LP to create eye catching covers. Then the packaging shrank by three fourths to the size of the CD cover, and now in digital format all you see is a thumbnail picture. There are numerous similar unexpected changes that will come as the book industry goes digital.

Let me examine the key changes that we have identified. Hopefully it will help you embrace this new way to publish knowing what to expect from your efforts as an author. As you will notice, many of these changes have to do with what we call removing the friction is the business model - making things happen much faster and at an insignificant cost. These changes will disrupt the publishing industry as we know it the same way that the music industry has been.

• Paper books have limited distribution due to geographical constraints like transportation costs or duties and taxes. E-Books are instantly available world wide at no cost. This means that if your paper book failed in a region it is unlikely that it will be offered elsewhere. On the other hand, your e-book can fail in one region and be immensely popular in another region at the same time.
• Paper books are made from dead trees and chemicals. Now that there is a more eco-efficient alternative, it is just a matter of time before paper books become an issue with environmentalists . While the electronic devices we use to read e-books do have a certain environment cost in their manufacturing processes and recycling, each device can hold thousands of books and therefore they are far more eco-efficient.
• Another environment element is that there is no wastage with e-books. Paper books require long print runs and often the unsold books are either liquidated as remainders with losses to the publisher, and hopefully they eventually get recycled.
• A paper book is passed from reader to reader one person at a time. An e-book can be passed from one person to hundreds or thousands of people at a time. Going from one to one to one to many means that the popularity of an e-book is achieved much more rapidly.
• While a strong person can probably carry 50 paper books, a weak person can carry thousands of e-books. We use to go to the library with our kids and come home with a pile of books. With e-books the entire library comes to you or your child.
• A paper book can be easily damaged and can't be repaired. Electronic devices become more rugged with each generation and if you damage one you can easily replace your e-books in a few minutes.

By now you should see the irresistible efficiencies offered by e-books. Paper books will not disappear but their relevance will decline. Like any transition to a new technology this change has some challenges that must be pondered and planned for.

• Your first challenge as an author publishing an e-book will be the resistance of the industry. You will not be recognized as a "real" writer by older paper published authors or publisher. Many will cling to their status and put down this new technology that threatens the status quo. Accept it. You won't change them. On the other hand with e-books you might have the joy of Andrea Azevedo, our first author, whose two young sons exclaimed "Mom! You are famous! Your books are on the Internet!"
• The most difficult change to adapt to and to understand is how this affects copyrights and piracy. Physical media like vinyl or paper offered much greater protection for your intellectual property. The music industry has tried everything it could to protect digital files with software referred to as Digital Rights Management (DRM). DRM has failed. There has not been one version that was not been rapidly broken by hackers who took pride in their feat.

At Sharing-Books we decided to offer the books without DRM and to accept that this is now a fact of life. We simply need to create new business models that take advantage of the speed of distribution of e-books. We plan to have the books sponsored and if a book is copied and emailed a thousand times, it simply means more value for the sponsor. Some of you will be scandalized at the idea of sponsoring a children book. However, we are talking about sponsoring not advertising, something that is done for every play you attend. You will also find it interesting if you shop for antique children books to find many that were sponsored in the same fashion a hundred years ago.

• E-books present different challenges for illustrators. They will likely be read on a screen that does not offer the same resolution as paper. Colors will be displayed differently depending on how a reader has set up his/her screen. The screen sizes will vary greatly. From PCs with great screens to black and white e-readers to cells phones and to gaming devices. You will find e-books everywhere. Our job at Sharing-Books is to make our authors e-books available on as many device types as possible. The illustrator's challenge will be to draw in a way that is flexible and adaptative.
• E-books present different opportunities. Paper children books sometimes have pop-up features or pull features that work for some time and then are usually damaged by the children. E-books will offer more flexibility for the creative mind. Click on the cow in the picture and see information about cows or hear the cow moo. We are excited to see what our creators will come up with.
• E-books can become paper books. On demand printing will be the norm and the reader will be able to customize the printed copy. No waste and a great marketing opportunity.
• E-books offer great opportunities for teachers. E-Books are free or at least they save money. The majority of teachers end up spending their own funds to supplement school materials. As we advance Sharing-Books will be able to offer teachers tools to integrate books, questionnaires and lessons in coherent programs that will use the capabilities of the devices the children use to read.
• E-books offer great opportunities for students. E-books are free. Voracious readers will never run out of material to read.
• E-books are much easier to convert into formats friendly to the visually impaired or the learning challenged.
• E-books' world wide and free accessibility will help bridge the knowledge gap between developed and developing nations. This means that we will also have better access to literature form authors from developing nations and that they will be able to benefit from their exposure to developed nations markets. This will be the literature version of free-trade coffee.

We do not have complete answers to all the changes described above but we prefer to see them as opportunities for imaginative solutions and innovations.

Already after only a few months in business, we have seen one of our authors Jennifer Poulter come up with the idea of the one page book. Jennifer collaborates with illustrators to create poster-poems that can be downloaded and printed by teachers who get an instant vocabulary lesson for their class. Jennifer received a number of testimonials from enthusiastic teachers.

We have a number of our own innovations in development but we are anticipating that our authors, illustrators and users will continue to come up with great ideas - many better than our own.

Indeed the answer to the question to E or not to E, is to E.

Labels: children books, content, e-books, marketing, publishing, reading

Although I am a businessman, I have always considered myself an artist - a creator. I know this is a paradox but an entrepreneur creates organizations. Some artists work with a medium where they reach a completed stage, when everything is done and their work acquires permanence. On the other hand, everything an entrepreneur works with is dynamic; people, products and the economy change all the time. In addition we face competition, people who try to undo what we create. Imagine painting while someone rips your canvas or splatters paint on your work. That is what we business creators face and probably it is why we love the challenge.

When the economy goes into collective paranoia like we live right now, there is a phase of fear that induces paralysis. Many people stay paralyzed for a long time. The creators are the first ones to take the initiative and move on. If necessity is the mother of invention, we are about to see a number of initiatives by creators that will again transform the world like it was changed after each recession of the last century. The wonderful thing for artists is that for them necessity - the need to create - is fueled internally rather than by external events like a recession. Creators were conceiving and creating before the recession started. They will continue to create as the economy recovers and they will keep changing our lives for the better. They will simply be ahead of the pack.

A recession creates a vacuum that gives space for new ideas to blossom as obsolete and no longer useful ideas or businesses disappear. For example, Apple just killed Digital Rights Management for the music it sells. DRM has failed to add value to musicians and consumers alike and deserves to disappear. We believe that what is happening in the music industry is a predictor of the future of the "publishing" industry. New media require new ideas and new business models. We believe that an innovative publishing model like Sharing-Books combining social initiatives with new revenue streams for book creators is an idea whose time has come.

Every day I receive phone calls or emails from children books creators who are in the action mode, writing and illustrating new books. Their initiatives are an expression of hope that is much healthier and promising than the fear that grips the economy. We are very proud to be associated with hopeful people who put effort behind their ideas. These colleagues inspire us to do our best to provide a valuable outlet for their creative efforts to be welcome, published, read and rewarded.

Labels: children books, creators, entrepreneurs, publishing, recession