The Poitin Press is a virtual publishing house in that it sells its books  over the Internet. Originally, we had planned to produce only eBooks, but we are now printing the books and selling them through Amazon.com, Books A Million, Barnes and Noble, and many other large Internet-based book sellers. In addition, our books are being distributed by Ingram Books, so they are available from just about any bookstore in the United States or United Kingdom.

Our decision to get into the virtual publishing business is based on our frustration with the traditional book publishing business. At one time, there were literally dozens of book publishers, all eager to find new writing talent and publish them. That came to an end about 15 years ago when the consolidation of the industry began. First, the small mom and pop bookstores were forced out by the mega-bookstores, and then the publishing industry giants slowly but surely gobbled up the smaller publishing houses. Now there are just two or three book publishers left, each a multi-billion dollar giant. The same is true of the booksellers. You can count them on one hand. 

This converted the book publishing industry into a numbers game. Books are no longer printed in small numbers because it is not cost effective. Even if a small publishing house wanted to print a particularly fine book in limited numbers, they could not get it into the distribution system, nor onto the shelves of the mega-bookstores. The result was more and more access to fewer and fewer choices. The new authors and small publishing houses were forced out.

Then came the Internet and e-commerce! And you have choice again.

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