December 17, 2009 – 4:30 am
Periodically, I revisit the question, “What business is Creative Byline really in?” Over the summer I realized that our real asset is the technology (patent-pending) that allows a large number of documents (or any type of files, really) to be sorted, winnowed, and routed automatically—all based on the rules that the user specifies. And, yes, [...]
There’s a good reason Creative Byline requires writers to include an outline as part of the submission package. While we were in the development stage of Creative Byline, editors told us they would prefer to know the manuscript is completed, but because a chapter-by-chapter outline shows the writer has thought through the entire story, an [...]
October 22, 2007 – 10:39 am
When we tell people outside of publishing about how Creative Byline uses software to match up manuscripts and editors, they invariably ask, “You mean something like that doesn’t already exist?” To them, using technology in this way is a no-brainer. While there is a market for manuscripts, until now, there hasn’t been a marketplace. There hasn’t been a centralized place–real [...]
October 15, 2007 – 8:42 pm
We spent about two years researching the industry. We wanted a thorough understanding of the traditional (paper) submission process so we could come up with an electronic process that satisfies everyone’s needs. Here are a few of the things we learned. Publishers say they are able to discard 80 – 85% of unsolicited manuscripts within [...]
October 10, 2007 – 9:52 pm
Creative Byline founder and CEO Brad MacLean didn’t exactly dream of working in publishing. He got an engineering degree from University of Michigan but has never held an engineering job. (“It taught me a way of thinking and approaching problems,” he says, when asked why he bothered.) He worked in the computer industry for awhile [...]
September 28, 2007 – 2:25 pm
Here’s how Creative Byline began: Somebody whined. That’s right—somebody complained about how outdated the manuscript submission process was. Brad MacLean listened patiently and with great empathy to the rant, at first only because said whiner was his wife. But the longer he listened, the more interested Brad, a former executive at one of America’s most [...]
