AuthorHouse, formerly known as 1stBooks, is a

self-publishing Self-publishing is the publication of media by its author at their own cost, without the involvement of a publisher. The term usually refers to written media, such as books and magazines, either as an ebook or as a physical copy using POD (pri ...

company based in the United States. AuthorHouse uses print-on-demand business model and technology.

History

Originally called 1stBooks, the company was founded in

Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mo ...

, United States, in January 1997. Its first

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...

appeared in June of that year. In January 1999, it started using print-on-demand technology to produce paper books. The AuthorHouse website states the company has published over 70,000 titles by 50,000 authors since 1997. The company opened an office in

Milton Keynes Milton Keynes ( ) is a city and the largest settlement in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of London. At the 2021 Census, the population of its urban area was over . The River Great Ouse forms its northern boundary; a tributary ...

, United Kingdom, in May 2004. In October 2005, AuthorHouse was nominated by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce for the Small Business of the Year Award. AuthorHouse won the Silver Award under the Service industry category. The

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

-based investment group Bertram Capital purchased AuthorHouse in 2007 from Gazelle TechVentures, which had owned AuthorHouse since 2002. Later in 2007, Bertram established Author Solutions and acquired AuthorHouse competitor

iUniverse iUniverse, founded in October 1999, is an American self-publishing company based in Bloomington, Indiana.Kevin Abourezk"iUniverse to move to Indiana" incoln Journal Star, January 22, 2008 History iUniverse focuses on print-on-demand self-pub ...

, before relocating its operations to Indiana in early 2008.

Brandewyne lawsuit

In August 2006, a Kansas trial court ordered AuthorHouse to pay $240,000 in punitive damage as well as $230,000 in actual damage to romance author Rebecca Brandewyne and her parents for publishing a book by her ex-husband that was "harmful" and

libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defi ...

ous of them. AuthorHouse was also ordered to pay $20,000 each to Brandewyne's parents for the damage. Although the court acknowledged that AuthorHouse employed a

business model A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, soci ...

that placed a degree of responsibility for the content of works upon the authors, in this case they found that AuthorHouse had failed to act when it was informed that the book might include libelous content.

References

External links

* {{self-publishing book publishing companies based in Indiana companies based in Bloomington, Indiana publishing companies established in 1997 self-publishing companies