Michael Ashley

FastPencil helps first time author, Rick Rieser, fulfill his dream. We just got a copy of Percy the Perfectly Imperfect Chicken and it looks hot! This is an example of how FastPencil can help an author go from idea, through collaboration and into distribution. I was so excited I snapped a quick photo with my iPhone to share with you: If you have a book inside and want to get it out, take a look at FastPencil and see if it's right for you.

It's been a fast and furious 6 weeks but the result that we launched on Tuesday is more than worth the effort. FastPencil got a new home page design, new Marketplace features to help authors and service providers connect, and we unveiled our ColorBook Creator. That means authors can write and publish cookbooks, comic books, graphic novels and photo books with just a few clicks. Plus we updated our Novel writing tool and added a new output template we call Elegance. Elegance was designed by our professional book designer to make your novel look and read like a million-bucks! Check out all the new changes and send me feedback on the design.

One of the most important freedoms we have in the United States is the right to free speech. But sometimes it feels like our little voice is barely a whisper, especially when we have to compete with mass media voices like Oprah Winfrey or Bill O'Reilly. Couple that with the traditional publishing industry and their built-in barriers to entry, and your whisper becomes less than a hush. But things are changing. People are finding their voice. There is a revolution happening. Those voices are coming out of the shadows, out of the homes, out of the cubicles and competing with mass media. You can see it with the rise of Blogging, the fall of Newspapers and Magazines, and the emergence of self-publishing on a global scale. The publishing industry is in chaos. The walls of elite authorship are coming down. The power of publishing, mass communication on an international level, is going back to the people. Today you can be heard across the globe with a click of a button. You can join the di...

I estimate 9 out of 10 people I talk to want to write a book. Most have started one at least once. Many have started several times. Even Barack Obama's mother started a book about her life story. After she died her daughter found the book, she had written only 3 pages. I believe she hit the same wall we all do when we start writing a book. And she did what most of us do when we hit that wall, she put the papers into a drawer and forgot about them. But her son, Barack Obama , managed to become a best-selling author. Millions of people write books every year, so it's not impossible. But what does it take to pull it off? It's not as mysterious as you might think. Writing a book takes four key ingredients: 1. Discipline 2. Organization 3. Cause 4. Workflow Discipline is necessary because you will face times when you just don't want to write. You don't feel like writing, you don't have the energy, you don't know what to write. But discipline is the art of doing w...