Michael's work, including many of the essays he wrote for Suite101, has been translated into many languages: Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Hebrew, and more. His work has demonstrated a world-wide appeal without the benefit of a huge marketing budget or the power of a major corporation. Michael is a true grass-roots author who has earned his reputation through good, old-fashioned hard work (and good writing).
Visualizing Middle-earth is an unusual book for several reasons. First, it is a successful self-published collection of essays. Most self-published books never sell more than a few copies. While VME has not broken any records, it continues to sell steadily.
Second, Visualizing Middle-earth was one of the last books which Xlibris published for free. It may have been one of the last books published for free anywhere for a long time to come. It is true that traditional publishers pay their authors. Visualizing Middle-earth was self-published. So, it is one of only a few hundred or few thousand books, out of millions, to have been self-published for free. What a rare and golden opportunity that was for many people. Third, Visualizing Middle-earth has two covers. Why is that? It has something to do with the print-on-demand technology used to produce the book. Or maybe Xlibris created two cover images and both were circulated. Here are the two covers:
|
|
