A Kilchoan Publisher - 2

From Jenny Chapman

Nigel was a senior lecturer in Computer Science at University College London, when we decided to move back to Scotland in 1994 so I could study at Edinburgh College of Art - we had lived and worked in St. Andrews. Nigel had already been commissioned to write a book on programming for a major publisher so, instead of seeking another academic post, he decided to write full time.

In summer 1999 we visited West Ardnamurchan for the first time. We chose West Ardnamurchan for that holiday, from the Highlands in general, by sticking a pin in a map - this is literally true. We had not visited the peninsula before. By then we were working on our first jointly-authored college textbook, "Digital Multimedia", commissioned by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. We were living near Edinburgh in the Borders and took a short working holiday, staying in Achosnich, working in the little garden there on student exercises and projects for the book.

In autumn 1999 we decided to move here, to work from home in a more peaceful environment. The property market in the Edinburgh/Borders area was okay at the time, so we were able to sell our house there within weeks. We rented Kilmory Cottage for the winter while we looked for a house to buy here.

The 1st edition of "Digital Multimedia" was completed in Kilmory Cottage. As usual, we did the typesetting ourselves, so had to submit the complete files ready for printing. There was no broadband then, so in mid-winter, in the pitch dark and a howling gale, we drove up to the point where the Kilmory road meets the "main" road to post the CD containing the files to the publisher. We put the package in the little postbox at the turn of the road down towards Kilmory. That launched our textbook-writing career. "Digital Multimedia" is now a bestselling college textbook, used in almost all the countries of the world - even in unlikely places such as the Maldives, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

The 2nd and 3rd editions of "Digital Multimedia" were written in Achnaha, and the chapters on digital images, animation and video used material featuring the local area. The video chapter featured work from the award-winning multimedia short film, "3 Minutes Silence", using footage filmed at Sanna and Castle Tioram.

We also drew on the local area for examples for our practical textbook, "Digital Media Tools", and our third major textbook was "Web Design: A Complete Introduction", published in 2006. Both were written in Achnaha.

As for so many people, everything went well for us till 2007. There were many changes in the publishing industry owing to the global recession. Between 2007 and 2009 our publisher, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, changed a great deal, with much of the responsibility for British publications passing to the parent company in the USA.

By mid-2009, John Wiley Inc. had completely altered Wiley's policy with regard to British authors. We had contracts for new books - they were cancelled. We had agreements to proceed with new editions - they were cancelled too. Our existing textbooks would remain in print, but there would be no new commissions. For years we had been depending on publishing a new book or new edition about every 18 months, in order to earn enough to live on. Suddenly, that stopped. We had to find a way forward on our own.

First, we decided to try to sell PDF versions of the chapters of our existing books. Fortunately, we had been able to retain all the electronic rights for the latest editions. We created the MacAvon Media web site and download store - www.macavonmedia.com - and started publishing electronic (PDF) versions of the existing books, and built a new support structure for lecturers around the world. macavonmedia.com made a little bit of money, but only a little bit.

By early 2011 it was clear that it wouldn't be enough to pay the bills. Times were very tough in publishing generally, and there was little or no chance of new commissions for textbooks. We decided that we would go ahead anyway, and publish new titles ourselves. "Chapman and Chapman" was a well-established "brand", known internationally, so we had a reasonable chance of success.

It's too soon to say whether success will really result, but we are now actively publishing, and just beginning to sell MacAvon Media paperbacks and Kindle editions. Broadband internet connection in this remote area has made it possible to do this work from here. Without it, we could not.

Many thanks to Jenny for the two articles.