Internet entrepreneur works at making publishing easier
Los Gatan funds Sugarbaker Press to help writers
By Shari Kaplan
With the click of a mouse, Julia Countryman saves acres of trees, pounds of ink and hours of time. The Los Gatos Internet entrepreneur offers aspiring authors the key to the e-publishing door and, if clients are lucky, to a little fame and fortune as well.
Countryman, who lives with her three daughters in a wooded home overlooking Blossom Hill Road, is the founder and owner of The Sugarbaker Press. The goals of her Internet start-up company are to publish "e-books" that will turn hopeful writers into published authors; to bring academic works and collections to e-publishing that benefit writers and college students reading the materials; and to provide an avenue for sharing technological information among the geniuses of Silicon Valley.
Sugarbaker Press' first goal is close to Countryman's own heart, as she hopes to publish a book, either this year or next, titled How to Fix Almost Anything (Including a Broken Heart). It's a combination of inspirational, practical and humorous ideas on how to get on with life, aimed especially at divorced women.
Countryman doesn't care if her clients write fiction, nonfiction or something in between, if they agree to the Sugarbaker Press author's agreement form and meet the criteria listed in the website's "ebookstore." They can begin the process by emailing and uploading text and graphics to Countryman.
The end result is an ebook published in an online format, on a CD-ROM, or both. Sugarbaker Press offers authors 73 percent royalties and full, nonexclusive rights. The royalty percentage may change as Sugarbaker Press gets more wind under its wings. Countryman donates five percent of the Press' profits to Habitat for Humanity and to charities that benefit women and children.
"There are so many authors who are really great writers and have some excellent works to their credit, but the big paper publishers won't give them the time of day," says Countryman, who holds a bachelor's degree in English/comparative literature and biological science from UC-Irvine.
"There is always the avenue of self-publishing in print, but that's very expensive. So ... a large amount of great modern literature sits in the author's hard drive, unpublished," she adds.
Along with publishing the works of "ordinary people trying to get a break," Countryman also aids college professors who want to put their course syllabi or other materials online, rather than spend hours typing lessons or discourses, making photocopies, and buying and collating hundreds of sheets of paper. Students spend a large percentage of their time on the Internet anyway, Countryman says, so this is a good match.
It's a similar situation for high-tech professionals who write interesting papers for their businesses and articles for technical journals. Countryman wants to provide an easily accessible venue for "technological information sharing."
As if her running her own Internet startup weren't enough, Countryman also works as a copywriter for Biztro.com, a Santa Clara business-based e-commerce website that got its own start only a few months ago.
For more information about the Sugarbaker Press, call 408.402.0140 or visit www.juliasugarbaker.com on the Internet.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
