Today I’m starting some work with Pollenizer, and helping them grow Blurb here in Australia.

Both of them are successful companies in their own right, that together combine my passion for publishing and my love of the thrill of start-up culture.

While we’re all caught up in the digital publishing revolution, with the recent launch of the iPad, Blurb has taken the best of new technologies and used it to enable anyone to publish their own book.

It’s taking two of the most significant revolutions in the history of communication – the printing press and the internet – and using one to enable the other in ways that were not previously possible.

It’s not so much about “disrupting” old models, but “constructing” new ones, and personally I find that exciting.

As American Journalist Thomas Friedman said, “The world is now flat for publishing as well.”

Blurb is currently working with a number of creative communities and individuals in Australia and New Zealand to enable them to publish books for different and varying projects. If you see yourself as one of those, please get in touch.

We’re also looking for partnerships to help them identify how they can use our services, including our soon to be launched API, which enables anyone to offer their customers the opportunity to be self-published.

No matter how crazy, big or small your idea is, if we think we can help, we will.

In the meantime, my first published book (yes, it feels great to say that!) is a little memoir of my children’s first trip to Sydney. You can see a widget of it embedded below.

I underestimated what that might mean to my little “digital natives”, but their excitement about “being in a book” made me realise that books will always have a special place in society that technology is not likely to change. The significant difference being, we are all now creators.

On another note, it’s great to be working with Pollenizer, who continue to nail the start-up scene in Australia. And, have done it graciously even with pie-in-their-face.