Joel Friedlander, the author, blogger, book designer, publisher, and publishing industry consultant, died on May 7 of cancer. He was 73.
Friedlander was a man of many hats, especially in the self-publishing world, where he was an influential consultant. While working to help self-publishers get started with his book design and consulting practice, Marin Bookworks, which he launched in 1994, he also blogged about book design, marketing, and other bookish issues on his website, thebookdesigner.com. He developed a Self-Publishing Roadmap, a training course for authors, which would later become a book of the same name, and ran a series of websites designed to help publishers and authors, including bookdesigntemplates.com, authortoolkits.com, and bookplanner.com.
On the traditional publishing side, Friedlander served as production director of Aperture Books, a publisher of photography books; founded Renaissance Press, which published hand-typeset and hand-printed books from its headquarters in northern California; and owned Globe Press Books in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., which published memoirs and books on east-west spirituality. Friedlander was also a past president of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association.
Friedlander was the author of a handful of books including Body Types, A Self-Publisher's Companion, and The Book Blueprint, among others. A final work on creativity, Meeting the Muse, was finished but has yet to be published, although his family intends to do so in the future.
