New Web startups may turn publishing industry on its ear | The Columbus Dispatch

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Rick Rieser was halfway through his daily jog this summer when the idea for Percy, The Perfectly Imperfect Chicken popped into his brain.

Today, the 52-year-old Orient man is a first-time author preparing for a busy schedule of readings in the Midwest, toting boxes of the children's book that was published with stunning speed via a small Silicon Valley startup called FastPencil. A creative process that often takes years -- and typically fails to come to fruition -- was accomplished in a few months, without a single rejection...