Belfast Telegraph

Saturday 2 August 2014

Blackstaff Press enter digital age with eBook list

After 40 years of successful book publishing, Blackstaff Press is marking its special birthday by recognising just how much the publishing industry has changed over the last four decades – with the launch of its first eBook list.

This digital list will initially include three new titles and 11 of the most important titles from its significant and successful backlist, including Sam Hanna Bell's December Bride and John Richardson's Dream On.





The digital books will be available to download to eReader devices including Kindle, iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, Sony Reader, PC, Mac and Android Phones.





Patsy Horton of Blackstaff Press said: "We’ve been keen to develop an eBook list for some time. Many people are now reading and buying in the eBook format and we’re excited that we can now make our titles available to them. The list seemed like a great way to celebrate our 40 years and to make some of our best titles available to a new and growing market.





"From now on all of our new titles will be released as eBooks as well as printed books and over the next two-three years we will digitise much of our backlist.







"Digital technology is bringing tremendous change to the publishing industry and we’re excited to be at the heart of that.’"





Geoff Hill, whose latest book 'The Road to Gobblers Knob' is the first of his titles to become an eBook, said: "As a boy I grew up loving real books - the look of them, the feel of them and even the sound of the pages turning and even that erudite smell of them, as if all the wisdom in the world was contained there-in.





"I take my Kindle with me everywhere and am currently working my way through lots of classics that are free to download. So I am delighted that Blackstaff Press is now publishing one of my own books as an eBook."





Mike Faulkner, whose book 'The Blue Cabin' is included on the eBook list, said: ‘This is great news. I feel very privileged to be in the first wave as I put a fair amount of effort into increasing and maintaining my digital footprint through blogging and social networking.

"My thanks to Blackstaff Press – in such a competitive environment, from the author’s point of view every new tool to maintain the currency of a title is welcome."







Glenn Patterson added: "It is wonderful to think that there is now going to be an eBook version of my book 'The International'. When I was starting out even to have 'a book' was a great, great ambition so this is a very welcome new development."





Sheila Maher, author of 'Six at the Table', said: "I love the idea of my story about childhood in the 1970s being read by people holding in their palms the technology of a different millennium."







Fergus Hanna Bell, writer of 'A Salute from the Banderol' said: "Blackstaff Press is one of the most significant publishers of modern Irish literature.





"I am very excited at the prospect of their new eBook list. Needless to say as the literary executor of Sam Hanna Bell I'll be starting with 'December Bride'!





For further details on the new eBook list visit www.blackstaffpress.com

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