In special cases paperbacks or hard cover books are also published using “Print-on-demand” publishers. The publishing world is currently undergoing fundamental changes in the way manuscripts are selected for publication, printed, and delivered to readers. Many publishers have gone out of business and the large publishers are generally unwilling to risk investing in new or unknown authors. Author C
raig Smith was confronted with these changes when Smithsonian Institution Books stopped publishing trade books shortly after his book How the Great Pyramid Was Built was released. The effect of this was that any efforts to promote the book abruptly stopped. (A year later, Smithsonian turned their publishing activities over to HarperCollins.) Smith’s second experience occurred when he was about to complete Lightning: Fire from the Sky, a book being written under contract to the Joseph Henry Press of the National Academy of Sciences. Joseph Henry Press also departed the trade book business and cancelled Smith’s contract. Thus Dockside Sailing Press was born.
