November Recap.

We were delighted to attend the book launch of 'Latter-day Pioneers' at the Alloa library on the 26th of November.

George Stewart (pictured), the author of the book, and North Highland Publishing had been working very hard to bring the book to publication and we were delighted to share in the excitement of the book launch. It is an interesting and exciting book which chronicles the early beginnings of the Latter-day Saints church in Scotland to the present day and George shares his view from Scotland in the book.

The book is avaiable on Amazon, at the Kindle store, here.

We've had an exciting run-up to Christmas with the publication of another book about Scottish identity with Ken Pratt's 'The English Student' which, yep, you guessed it can be bought at the Amazon Kindle store here. 

How To: Download an eBook.

To download a book from our site, it is very simple. Follow these instructions;

Once you have purchased an eBook you should have been taken immediately to a download page where you could download your book(s).

If not, here is the link to download the book (you will need to either log-in or register at this point):

My Bookshelf

Make sure you save the files (by following the instructions on the download page) to your hard drive in a place you can find them before you do anything else.

You should save the file to your "desktop" so you can find it easily and quickly once you have finished downloading.

Unless you change the name of the eBook file you downloaded, it is named (xxxxxx) -- this is important to know if you have a problem finding the file later.

London Book Fair, 2011.

Back in January I wrote about our experience with the 2010 Book Fair here. 

 April came around yet again for another year and off to the Book Fair some of the North Highland Publishing Team went.

This is one of the biggest events in the book publishing calendar with an estimated 23,000 publishers, journalists and other experts from the industry from all over the world in attendance. This years focus was on the emerging world of digital publishing. 

Underlying this focus is the perception that a change from paper to electronic books is approaching. 

In the UK, electronic book sales make up about 5% of the market, whereas in the United States, it is up to 10%, with Amazon US stating that it sold more e-books for its Kindle device than paperback books in the last three months of 2010. This, combined with the the pressure put on independent booksellers by giants like Amazon, Google and Apple, means that publishers of all kinds are having to adapt quickly to this changing market.

North Highland Publishing was fortunate to attend seminars on self-publishing, electronic publishing, marketing of Ebooks and many other seminars while at the Book Fair.

The most insightful Masterclass was delivered from Acorn Independent Press -  a brother and sister team who specialise in self publishing - who discussed how the recession and technological advancements had made an impact on the World that is known as self publishing and explained the boom in authors who are self publishing.

 And with known "marketing gurus" like Seth Godin opting out of traditional routes to publish, this comes as no real shock or surprise that the demand for self publishing has risen. Seth made an interesting point on his blog about traditional publishers by saying;

 "I honestly can't think of a single traditional book publisher who has led the development of a successful marketplace/marketing innovation in the last decade."

As far as I can deduce self publishing (and more so electronic publishing) is the innovation; it is current to technological advancements and how customers interact with technology and it allows the author to control what services and products they would like to use for publishing, promoting and selling their book; from electronic publishing, to hard back and POD (print on demand) the options seem far more catered to individuals who have, not unreasonably, individual needs and wants when it comes to publishing their books.

  As demand increases for self-publishing, it will be interesting to watch the shift between traditional and self publishing, especially for first time authors who may otherwise be chewed up and spat out in the big conglomerate publishing house.

Check out our FACEBOOK to see the rest of the London Book Fair photographs.

Makeovers.

So you may have noticed that our blog has underwent a makeover in the past few days.

And if you haven't - surprise!

What do you think of the new look? 

Speaking of new looks, some of our Ebooks have also gone off for a makeover and have been replaced with snazzy new covers. 

Take a look here.

We're excited to share these changes with you and welcome every comment for improvements - we love to hear from you, so please do not hesitate to leave us a comment!

As ever - become one of our VIP followers so you'll be the first to hear about give aways, news and lots of other lovely surprises!

North Highland Publishing.

A treat for your eyes when books and art collide:

(Image: Tagbanger)

This was the image accompanied with the annoucement of J.D Salinger’s death on the 28th January, 2010 on Tagbanger.

(Image: Isaac Salazar)

‘Books of Art’ brings a new twist to origami.

(Image: Seven Roads)

Browse the gallery of old Book Trade Labels on Seven Roads; labels from all around the World.

(Image: Aurora Borealis)

Nothing to do with books, but some great advice!

Check out our latest art titles on North Highland Publishing: HERE.

Ebook Versus Hard Copy.

“You can’t beat a good hardback book,” the sceptics will say before they’ve even picked up an e-Book.

But are they indeed correct, after all?

Libraries are stacked full of hard backed, crinkly paged, shiny covered books so to the borrowing public they’re readily available for free – all you need is a library card and to remember to check the books back in before you get fined (been there, done that, bought the T-shirt and matching mug.)

Hopefully one day in the not too distant future libraries will be stocked with eBooks. Perhaps as an on-line archive, rather than the buildings they are today.

It’s not too far fetched when I recall memories of my childhood public library. It was a one storey library with a modest children’s and adults selection of books (and later on they dug deep and added in a teen section.) They didn’t have any computers until around 1999 when they added one little dinosaur of a PC that you had to reserve lest it be taken pretty swiftly.

You could hook up to the Internet, if you were lucky. And had the patience of a Saint.

The Millennium Bug phenomenon had been and gone for two years before they added a computer suite; fully equipped with top of the range computers pre-loaded with Windows XP (totally retro now, of course) and this new fangled thing called “Broadband Internet.” It was Heaven sent at the time where it wasn’t too common to own a computer that didn’t run off an Operating System circa-2000 or to still be hearing that shrill sound Dial Up made – perhaps comparable to the sound a robot might make if it were possible for them to suffer death by Samurai.

My point is: technology is like art. It is fast paced and ever changing. One minute there’s Andy Warhol at the top of his game and the next it’s Damien Hirst…or whoever’s the new kid on the block these days. Technology moves in that same, sneaky way. It has to if change is to be made in the World.

From the quill to printing press. From printing press to typewriter. From typewriter to PC.

These advancements in technology have also meant that there are advancements in how books are presented to us, the consumer as we receive the end product, after all.

To the paying customer, who is shopping for a gift for themselves or for others, price will sway the decision (after all, I can’t recall the last time I heard of someone receiving a library book as a gift.) For a popular hardback copy of “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” it will cost £9.71 for the hard cover and £2.74 for the eBook version (check it out).

This isn’t just the case on popular titles but with savings made on printing, ink and shipping eBooks shape up to be the “New Book.” The future of books, if you like.

So, let the sceptics be. There will always 

be sceptics. 

But why not give an eBook a 

shot and see if it’s for you?

Happy New 2011 from North Highland Publishing!

 Naturally, we’re very excited for this upcoming year.

The 11-13th of April will be the London Book Fair. Due to that volcano this year we were very sad to be unable to attend the 2010 Book Fair in London – which we had booked tickets for! Such is life, but we hope to be at the 2011 Book Fair, which will feature in it’s run-up, a Masterclass in How to Get Published, being run by author, Peter James.

2011 looks set to be the year of the eBook. With more and more purchases being geared towards e-readers than ever before, interest in eBooks has increased. Last year saw the release of the iPad from Apple and the Kindle e-reader from Amazon. And of course the launch of our site.

Let’s have a great 2011 and that our authors, customers and potential authors will help us to make it a successful year.

Our Story.

Roy was born in Glasgow where he attended school at Allan Glens, followed by university at Dundee. He has worked for the Scottish Government in its various guises and for a number of private organizations. This has included working in the Education sector and the International Relations unit, and has been responsible for marketing in Scotland, UK, North America and the Nordic countries.

Elizabeth was born in Helensburgh and raised in Clydebank. From a young age she has been involved with creative writing and is now a keen reviewer of current literature.

She has completed a course in Social Care at West Lothian College, as well as holding down a number of roles in the care sector that involved private sector organizations and working with Local Authorities. Elizabeth has also experienced the joys of being self-employed for eight years and knows the challenges that this brings!

They have been married (to each other) for over thirty years.

With a lifelong interest in literature we always felt that we each have a “book” in us. A few years ago we decided to take the plunge and write the books that we had always planned. We then started to look at how we would approach publishers and agents.

We investigated a wide range of options including print on demand, self publishing, submissions direct to publishers and working with agents. All of these offer options. We decided to use the growing marketplace for “eBooks” to allow us to put our work “out there”.

While there are a number of sites that will offer you a self help solution to getting your book available as an eBook we decided that we wanted to offer a more personalized service to give a professional review and finish.

We started the company (North Highland Publishing Ltd Company Number SC371879) to offer this professional service. We bring together a range of publishing professionals from editors, graphic designers, proof readers and other publishing services (such as print on demand) to offer a one stop shop for those looking to develop their writing.

We then take this work and sell it on our eBook store. This is marketed by us and the eBook store is there to allow easy access to the marketplace. We also work with other publishers to offer their works as eBooks.

Our website was launched in December 2010.


 We welcome your views and thoughts on how we can best help you to achieve your goals in writing.

I've Had Better Days.

Have you ever had one of those days where you get out of bed foolishly believing that today, out of the 365 days of the year, you’re going to have a good day?

Yep, me too. And it just so happened that today was that day.

The following things may seem petty, but it really does amaze me how much we rely on our technology.

I woke up at a decent time, so I felt like I could plough straight ahead with the day. I booted up my laptop, all was going well, and suddenly the power cut out. Now my laptop has been having some issues over the past few days with the power cord – basically it is dying a slow, painful death.

I was somehow able to engineer the power cord so that it balanced at a perfect angle so I wouldn’t run out of battery power and I began to work on a guest post I’ve been asked to write for an upcoming blog feature (more on that at a later date.) I then proceeded to copy and paste some interesting details into the document and it crashed. No worries, there’s always the auto-save and restore option. When you rely on your technology you have a throat-closing-over reaction when suddenly it lets you down.

I open a new document. No auto-save. No restore option. It’s gone, gone, gone.

Will someone please buy me a typewriter!

I declared that I was giving up Facebook, (oh yeah, did I mention I’m having issues over there? I didn’t? Well I won’t bore you with details!) unplugging my Broadband and moving to the hills to live a charmed life eating berries and making clothes out of leaves.

But before I turned into Mrs Bear Grylls, I thought about my technological situation ten years ago. You had to rely on encyclopaedia’s instead of Wikipedia, On-line TV programmes through the BBC (or Hulu if you’re Stateside) didn’t exist and YouTube was an insult.

The wealth of knowledge, freedom and enjoyment (e.g US based Netflix and UK based LoveFilm, both postal DVD rental companies, recently launched a video streaming service to customers on their “unlimited” packages) to be made through the technology we have today is incredible – Aunt Betty in New Zealand ten years ago who may have occasionally called on a very crackly line can now view photos of her favourite nieces and nephews instantly – and if we’re sacrificing a little piece of our sanity for the gain it has given us, then it surely has to be far worth it.

Want to improve your camera skills? Click HERE to see our eBook on Camera Skills.

(Image: http://encefalus.com/cognitive/dealing-informational-overflow/)

Welcome to the Blog.

Welcome to our new look blog!

I'm Cara Quinn and I'm the blog co-ordinator for North Highland Publishing.

 I'm delighted to be introducing you to our new blog ; North Highland Publishing: The Blog.

In this blog we'll cover what we, North Highland Publishing, the company offer and what we are doing.


And as an appendage to this, we'll also be discussing other self-publishing related topics.

Some of the topics I will address in future blog posts: the self-publishing market and how to promote your work and what North Highland Publishing has to offer to you as well as looking into who we are and what we do.

Don't forget, follow us so 
you can keep up to date with our posts, news and updates!