Honors Books – what are they, why are they?

Master Point Press is getting ready to start a new line of bridge books.  They are called Honors Books.  These books are ones that we like and think have merit but we can’t publish for some reason or other.  A lot of the time it is because the market is tiny but some of the time its because the book is tiny (in pages).

It has always bothered me that we can’t publish some of these books.  Ray and I have these arguments.  I am usually on the side of publishing whatever it is and he telling me that the market is too small.  Some times we publish a book because we believe in it a lot and we just do it anyway.

We realized that we could afford to publish a lot of these works as ebooks and make them accessible to more people.   Because we have a small staff we wouldn’t be able to provide the kind of editing we do for Master Point Press books.  But we could help the author to develop them, provide them with some tools, make the work an ebook and sell it on our web site.

We have already had quite a few submissions that we think are terrific ebooks which tells me that there are a lot more out there as well.  In our bridge community we need to give people access to a lot of ideas and concepts.  In many cases these ebooks will be inexpensive when compared to the cost of a bridge book you might be at a book stand.  But even more important it will be a way for a lot more people to have their ideas heard and shared.

We feel that every Honors Book should have intrinsic merit and we will read and accept each book as we would any book submitted to us.  It is even possible that we might ask the author if they would like the book published as a paper book too.  We want everyone who downloads an Honors Book to feel that they got something of real value and maybe something they couldn’t really get anywhere else. 

If you are interested in submitting a book just sending it to me or Ray.  There will be more details about Honors books on the www.ebooksbridge.com website and on www.masterpointpress.com in the next few days.  I have already seen a few ebooks I want to read including a book on strong club with four card majors, canape and relays (are you reading this Colin?).

There is no conflict between publishing your book on Amazon and on Master Point Press.  We produce books which work on everything but the Kindle and Amazon only produces books that work on it!  Actually if you buy an ebook from us you can have Amazon convert it for a very small fee (under a dollar I think). 

I think we live in an exciting interesting world with a lot of new ways to communicate.  I do agree with Judy Kay-Wolff about some times missing the old days.  But I can’t help loving the new days too.