an imprint of the Museum of American Glass in West Virginia. This new series of books is a natural progression from our highly successful monograph series, which will continue to address glass topics that lack the wide interest to make commercially successful published books or about which we simply do not yet know enough to commit to the more permanent form of a book. Thus, low-cost monographs will always be a part of our mission, continuing to provide information that can be drawn upon by future researchers.

The Glass Flakes Press, however, will endeavor to provide more in-depth information with higher quality paper, more durable stiff laminated covers, and – above all – to do so without the limitations that keeping our monographs within the $12.00 - $14.00 price range entail in terms of length. At the same time, we pledge to keep our new Glass Flakes Press books as reasonably priced as possible.

We do not consider The Glass Flakes Press to be in competition with the publishing firms that traditionally have provided the glass collecting community with reference works. Unfortunately, many of these firms have ceased publication within the last several years, leaving a considerable void for authors who have been researching glass topics. We encourage potential authors to contact the two remaining commercial firms first (Schiffer Publishing and Old Line Publishing) to discuss your manuscripts. However, knowing that they must make hard business decisions, we are aware that some truly worthwhile books will continue to fail to find a publisher. That’s where The Glass Flakes Press may be able to offer a service, since we are able to operate using a much different business model. As a non-profit organization, our profit expectations are much lower, since we basically just need to meet our expenses and enough over to keep us thriving. Using a print-on-demand strategy, we can avoid the high up-front costs that can be a deterrent to an author whose only other choice is to have copies of their books privately printed. We also have a well-established eBay store, allowing us to sell worldwide.

As stated above, we envision The Glass Flakes Press to essentially be a service to authors who have spent years researching and compiling information that might otherwise be lost to the world. In order to keep our overhead as low as possible, we will not pay royalties, but will give our authors 5 copies of their books for free, plus sell them additional copies at our cost plus $1.00. (As most glass authors already know, sales at personal appearances and shows tend to be much more profitable than royalties.) We will also offer a bulk discount of 40% off for orders of 6 or more copies of a title. We plan to roll out this new imprint with the expectation that we will do no more than one or two books a year. If you are interested in being a Glass Flakes Press author, contact MAG with your proposal.