Responsible for: paying* + coordinating the people who get produce the product (this includes the author herself, the designers providing art, the person doing

Responsible for: paying* + coordinating the people who get produce the product (this includes the author herself, the designers providing art, the person doing the layout, the editor, and the printer - down to helping the authors choose paper stock); distributing the product - we do direct sales, as well as have the contract with PGW, a distributor, that lets us get into bookstores (sad but true, we had to get one before Barnes and Noble would stock xkcd: volume 0); we have a warehouse in Austin (Hi Amplifier!) that handles all the fulfillment for kickstarter rewards, we manage that relationship to make sure every address-change is accounted for and everyone gets their perks; in the case of this kickstarter, we're also the ones coordinating with manufacturers to make everything from bookmarks to plushie-skulls; we do a wee bit of promotion, but that's how we can afford to give authors (75%+) of the profits -- they already bring their fans with them. This is a bit old, but still pretty accurate -- I published a step-by-step guide to do what breadpig does, so anyone can replicate it, because that's how we roll. http://breadpig.com/blogs/news/5863073-reasons-to-self-publish-or-start-your-own-niche-publishing-company-or-not http://breadpig.com/blogs/news/5863073-reasons-to-self-publi... http://breadpig.com/blogs/news/5863065-step-by-step-guide-on-how-to-publish-a-book http://breadpig.com/blogs/news/5863065-step-by-step-guide-on... Sorry for the mega post but I know how much work Christina (runs breadpig ops) put into pulling this off and I feel like an article that doesn't even mention that isn't doing it justice. Obviously the story here is Ryan, which made this amazing thing possible, and he deserves 99.9% of the credit for the product and campaign, but it's not quite as simple as "self-published." *We paid for printing up-front with xkcd's book and a couple of SMBC's, but thankfully kickstarter came along and we've since adapted the business because we now have the pre-order dollars from backers.