Self-publishing start-up FastPencil is continuing to attract established authors: this week it announced it has landed some of its biggest authors to date. Mark Victor Hansen of the Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise; Legend of Bagger Vance author Steven Pressfield; and other established authors have signed on to self-publish their works through FastPencil Premiere.
FastPencil announced the launch of Premiere--which is aimed at established and “top tier” new authors and offers authors royalties that it says are three times that of average rates--this summer. Earlier this month, the company announced it had partnered with National Book Network in a deal that will see NBN distribute titles in FastPencil’s Premiere imprint to its accounts (NBN publishing clients get access to FastPencil’s publishing tools).
Among the new authors are Jim Dratfield, who has authored animal-oriented photographic coffee table books; Steve Greenberg, author of Gadget Nation: A Journey Through The Eccentric World of Invention, which is just out from Sterling; and Angela Sage Larsen, author of the seven-book series for children, Good Things Come on Tiny Wings: The Adventures of Petalwink the Fairy; as well as Pressfield and Hansen.
FastPencil Premiere is publishing Hansen’s U R the Solution with Bill Froehlich. Hansen, who has been with five different traditional publishers over the course of his career, said he chose to publish with FastPencil largely because of the speed at which it can get his book to market. “Usually I finish a book and it comes out 18 months later." U R the Solution will be in stores by December. "This is a publishing miracle,” Hansen said, noting that there are financial benefits, too. “With less middlemen there’s more money,” he said. “Traditional publishers have been good to me and made me fortunes but they’re not moving fast enough in this new arena.”
