The UK photo book software developer, Taopix, has announced its new collaboration with Silicon Valley’s on-line self-publishing engine, FastPencil. This will offer an opportunity to picture book self-published authors to have a real choice about illustrations in their books instead of the difficult price sacrifices needed on the mainstream suppliers, such as Amazon’s Createspace.

Self-publishing involves a three-way partnership between the author, the e-commerce/publishing company and the actual book manufacturer. In this instance, the digital print company – the Taopix customer – will be able to offer photo book manufacturing services to authors and FastPencil will provide the online platform from which photo books can be advertised and sold.

With Taopix and FastPencil, authors can manage their content, create and edit their photo books and manuscripts on-line, publish their books and e-books, and distribute and sell. Taopix customers will be able to leverage FastPencil’s powerful, content management and self-publishing platform to either offer customized, ‘white label’ bookstores to authors or simply use the FastPencil Market Place as a ready-made store.

Says James Gray, Taopix CEO: “We see self publishing as a huge opportunity within the photo world. It’s an exciting evolution for photo books. With our professional design tools and advanced text engine capabilities, combined with the sheer speed of high resolution photo import, we probably have the most dynamic, flexible book design software on the market. This, combined with FastPencil’s far reaching on-line self publishing platform, should give those forward-thinking digital print customers a compelling reason to explore this market opportunity.”

“We are looking forward to showcasing our Taopix-customized publishing platform at Dscoop this month,” said Steve Wilson, CEO and co-founder of FastPencil.

FastPencil will be presenting the new Taopix integration at Dscoop, Nashville, 21-23 February 2013, at Taopix Booth 407.

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