Growth of self-publishing company Blurb has surprised even its boss, who now believes it threatens traditional players, writes Andrew Cave
"If you’re beautiful and 21, they’ll take a flyer on you – but if you’re mid-list, good luck"
Eileen Gittins doesn’t like to tell people she is chief executive of the world’s largest specialist self-publishing book company when she’s on a long flight.
“If I do that, they tell me about their book for the next three hours and I don’t get any sleep,” she laughs. “I don’t mind telling people on shorter flights.”
It’s not surprising that this would happen to Gittins, 59. Blurb, the San Francisco-based self-publishing house she founded in 2006 has now published 3m books.
At peak volumes, a new title comes over the servers every 2.1 seconds.
Developed initially as a way of producing picture books, Blurb has bulked up in novel and magazine publishing, and sees itself as the future of the industry – and a massive threat to traditional publishers.
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