From Jenny Chapman
When I was young, I used to read the place of publication on books' copyright pages. Exotic cities fired my imagination: London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Sydney..., and now, Kilchoan.
Kilchoan's the official record in all the cataloguing for printed books published by MacAvon Media, a company run by Nigel and I. We started publishing in print in November 2011 under the imprint "MacAvon Media". Although our first book only reached booksellers in December, we have already sold copies in the USA and Europe as well as the UK.
In the past two months we have published two small books in a series of four - the "Web Security Topics" series - see new Web site here, and look inside the book here. The remaining two in the series will be published in March and May 2012. There are several other titles scheduled for 2012: a complete new textbook "Web Security: A Complete Introduction" to be published in early summer 2012, a substantial practical textbook on Photoshop in the spring, and a complete introduction to HTML5 and CSS3 in early autumn.
Although all will be published in paperback, most MacAvon Media books will also be published as Kindle e-books. We also provide PDF versions, and are running a free PDF offer for purchasers of MacAvon Media paperbacks.
We do every part of the work ourselves, not only writing the content, but copy editing, proof reading, illustrating, typesetting, complete book design (interior and cover), publication, promotion, "Search Inside" files for Amazon, publicity - and all the Web design and development work to promote, support and sell the books.
MacAvon Media produces and publishes technical books, college textbooks and related digital content. In November 2011 we started publishing our own work in print for the first time. Until then all our titles were published in print by major international publishers, and MacAvon Media only published electronic versions for sale from macavonmedia.com.
Our book "Digital Multimedia" is a bestselling textbook, currently in its 3rd edition. It is the standard course text on the subject, used in colleges and universities all around the world, from China to Saudi Arabia, from Finland to Greece, from Canada to Brazil, from Korea to Australia, and in very many more countries. It is also the standard course text in the UK, and popular in Scottish colleges and universities.
www.macavonmedia.com operates as a downloads store, from which students and other readers can buy and download chapters of our books and supporting material. Through our sire, MacAvon Media also provides an extensive range of free support services for college lecturers all round the world who use Chapman and Chapman textbooks - free PDF evaluation copies of our books, complete lectures slides in a range of formats, facilities to create course bundles of cheap PDF chapters for students, etc. Lecturers and instructors apply for free accounts, which then give them access to all this material to download when they need it.
Through our large companion Web sites for our big textbooks - sites such as www.webdesignbook.org - we provide a range of free support material for students. All of the design and development for all our Web sites has been done entirely by us.
We work 7 days a week. Our books are used in almost every country of the world. In many countries, what we think of here as Sunday is a full working day. So, for example, the first thing I had to do when I got up this Sunday was approve an application for a MacAvon Media Lecturer's Account from a lecturer in Jordan, who needed lecture slides for "Digital Multimedia" immediately.
We are not only dependent upon computers, but utterly dependent upon the internet and a broadband connection to it. We communicate with lecturers and students all round the world via email and Web sites. Transactions via the MacAvon Media site, which both sells PDF publications and provides free material for lecturers - all through personal accounts - may require attention at any time. We have to keep connected. Power cuts are therefore a serious problem ... so Kilchoan is not the ideal place for work like this in some ways, though good in others.
Leisure is also a serious problem - we don't have any. Perhaps we live in the outdoor capital of the UK, but we rarely see it. The life is not as people imagine it to be. As we are so confined to our home/place of work, we are also utterly dependent on local services remaining local, and remaining services.
In case anyone wonders, writing and publishing technical books is not a way to get rich quick, or ever. It's a great deal of hard work for very little money. But we are educators, and that's the work we do. Anyone thinking of writing or self-publishing to make money would do very much better to write vampire stories or thrillers.
MacAvon Media is not a web design business and does not do commercial web design or development. In the past we have created a few small sites for local businesses, primarily as a favour. We no longer even have the time for that. Nor can MacAvon Media undertake publishing for any other authors. We are overwhelmed just trying to keep on top of our own work.
MacAvon Media may officially be published in Kilchoan, but the company is run from that hive of business activity, Achnaha
If you are anything to do with the editing of your publications, you need to improve your grammar - "by Nigel and I"?!
ReplyDeleteBlame The Diary. This section was edited by me, so the 'I' instead of 'me' was entirely my fault, not that of MacAvon Media.
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of accuracy perhaps I should clarify - not only is MacAvon Media not run in contravention of the laws of grammar by "Nigel and I", it is not even a company. MacAvon Media is simply a registered Scottish business partnership.
ReplyDeleteJon has very kindly waded through and edited a mess of rather hasty notes about our work which I sent him in little bits and pieces. That's a thankless task for anyone, but he deserves the thanks of every reader of "The Diary" for all the work he does in presenting interesting new articles every day.
Totally agree with your comments Jenny,bless you and thank you John for lighting up our day, and thank you for all your hard work.
DeleteThank you, Anonymous :-) A kind word lights up any day, even a gloomy one like this, with sleet streaming down the windows.
DeleteNot only does Jon prepare all the articles in The Diary, he has to sift through all the unkind and unsuitable comments which every blog seems to attract, removing any not fit for publication. I wish every comment was as warm as yours!
As a regular reader I'd like to offer some of those thanks.
ReplyDeleteJon's articles and those from others around Kilchoan, as here, are always interesting and a welcome daily window onto a beautiful world (from my distant city viewpoint).
Great photographs too.
Jenny, thank you for those kind words my comment came straight from the heart. It is so nice to come on here everyday.
ReplyDeleteAgain thank you Jon.....and Jenny good luck with MacAvon Media.
Yes well done Jon.
ReplyDeleteI love the fact that people can now live in West Ardnamurchan and work from home. My Father used to tell me 30 years ago, that in my life time I would see the place blossom again, this was the kind of place everyone would choose to live. They would not want to be cooped up in cities.
ReplyDeleteAt that time there was a very worrying trend for young locals to move away to the city to find work and not return except on Holidays. Every second house was empty.
With broadband, laptops and mobile phones it has become possible to live here and make a living. It is amazing the mix of talents and skills that have been brought to our community and they are prepared to share them with us. Just think of a subject and Pat will try to put it on at the college for us, the chances are she then will find someone living locally to teach it! I am looking forward to reading more stories on how people can make a living in Ardnamurchan. Jenny, what a sense of achievement getting the books finished and published after all your strain and hard work. No wonder we haven't seen you for ages! Take care.
Helen, thank you so much for your kind encouragement. It's wonderful to know that your father made such a prediction - and that he was right! At roughly the same time, long ago now, Nigel and I were wondering about our future, and speculated about the possibilities of living in a remote area and working from home. At that time, of course, it was little more than a dream, though we knew that technological changes were coming. The internet has made many good things possible, as well as some bad ones. (Piracy of our textbooks on the Web has cut sales of new books in half in the past 10 years!)
DeleteIt's also very good to know that "incomers" are not entirely unwelcome. We always feel a bit awkward as incomers, but at least we do live here year-round. It's interesting how that can have some slightly less obvious effects too. There has been a big increase in garden birds in Achnaha since we moved here, for example, which I'm sure is at least partly the result of our planting up the garden with trees and shrubs. We have many birds nesting in the garden every year now, and using the feeders all winter. In our first few years in Achnaha there were hardly any.