Are you an author in Minnesota looking to turn your words into a printable book or an eBook? The Minnesota’s academic and public libraries, and an organization called Minitex want to help. The Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project is an initiative that provides access to online publishing tools and training for those tools.
The program was started in 2017 and has seen encouraging numbers of engagement. The program welcomes authors of all genres: from fiction, to poetry, to educational texts. Minitex notes that roughly one third of the accounts created in their system have .edu addresses.
The service aims to make self-publishing more accessible to Minnesota authors. They also hope to help build a robust community of Minnesota authors, through the Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project and through its sister service, MN Writes MN Reads. The service has also created opportunities for collaboration among Minnesota public and academic libraries.
The Software: Pressbooks
The software utilized by the Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project is called Pressbooks. Pressbooks is an intuitive visual editor for PDF, MOBI, EPUB and other open formats. Users can select from a variety of templates to best suit their content. There are templates for textbooks, fiction books, poetry books, and more. Users can also customize their selected template to fit their content.
Users will be able to publish their completed eBook to the web or export it as an eBook or a PDF. The service also offers a SELF-e publishing option that allows users to share their completed eBook with Minnesota readers.
Writers interested in the Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project can learn more at Minitex’s website. They can also visit their local library. Detailed instructions on how to sign up can found at the official Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project website.