Saints
Knighthood
Starr Books was started due to a demand for a profitable way to spend free time given away from the family
Starr Books was founded by the Author, an Engineer by Profession and Trade, and the books were a result of a genealogy hobby that led to published works , first as CD's offered as PDF's and finally as published works in the Self Publishing Book Industry.
The author found many hours in hotels, with no entertainment except the internet and television, and being rather bored with TV went into the internet on the subject of genealogy. Having found Kings, other Royalty and Cloth, the Author decided to make a list of Saints and publish them for sale on E bay as pdf. The author bought Adobe Acrobat (not the reader) and got the rights to distribute the reader with the books on CD. There were mixed sales, almost 100 percent profit on a CD, and the books sold for 7.95 plus shipping.with a lot of travel and more time spent writing and researching on the road.
Eventually Booksurge was found, and the Author began publishing hard copy books, complete with Library of Congress Control Number and ISBN number. Finding out about copright laws and registration the author was able to publish 6 books on Booksurge at a reasonable cost The author attempted advertising and marketing in his spare time and continued to work full time for his small family and household pets and plants. From the proceeds of the Royalty, the author was able to publish his seventh book The Life of Saint Brychan on Booksurge. The author had spent a considerable amount of time writing books both on his family and the Saints, and did not publish due to the cost of publishing. The move of the household to the State of Tennessee (2005) added to the experience of the author, both as a resident now of two states, and the member of more than one church. A move across town (from Nashville to Hendersonville) added to the authors Experience.
Next Amazon.com who was an affiliate of Booksurge (or other way around) became CreateSpace. (2009) This opened up for CreateSpace the publishing of other media, (CD's Video's) but more importantly for the author the cost of publishing became only the cost to buy the first copy at authors price. (considerably lower than the Internet Bookstore). Now the author had all the books he had on the hard drive nearly ready to publish, but the problem was the Library of Congress registration was still cost prohibited. So the author published many works with only an ISBN number. CreateSpace offers professional formating and cover design, however Xlibris Books was found on the internet to be one of the self publishing giants, so the Author decided to publish some books on Xlibris at a cost that also covered formating a cover design. Xlibris.com shows the flags of Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand and the Author hoped that this might increase international sales.
Because Createspace was offering publishing the author published also some family books that are still on the market however unless very closely related these books would likely not be of interest to the average customer.
Now the Engineering field was becoming very lucrative for the practicing Engineer in Systems Integration so the decision was made to go to the local Town Hall and County Office and get a business license for an Engineering Consultant Practice, and also the book sales was included in the license. This was in 2009 and joining the Better Business Bureau and the Local Chamber made all of this more expensive. However the Engineering Business was good and the cost was payable.
In 2011 the Author has published more works on Both Xlibris Books and CreateSpace, and has invested in Advertising for the books. Taking Business courses at Volunteer State Community College in Ed 2 Go Continuing Education has also helped the Author understand the Business Community and the Corporate response of Sole Propriority Businesses, Corporations, and low risk LLC Businesses.
With the continued interest of the community of the internet with genealogy, the market for these books is although limited very large and due to the large number of titles published by the author the possibility of selling rights to some titles is very promising.
Recent Pilgrimages to the Vatican and Plymouth Rock have opened up a new type of book for Starr Books, Pictorial Essays, and two of these were published in 2011. Also the Engineering Practice of Instructing has led to an increase of Travel with trips to California, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky. This has also lead to the granting of Continuing Education Units to students of the classes he has instructed. The Genealogy Hobby has also lead to the honor of becoming a member of many Societies and Organizations such as the General Society of Mayflower Descendents and the Sons of the American Revolution.
The Author cannot predict the future of Starr Books, however as of 2011 the business side and the authorship side are well underway to become a larger part of life than what was previously known.