Three years ago, Mark wrote, 'A Practical Guide to Designing for the Web' and with the help of the team at Mark Boulton Design (namely Nick Boulton, Mark's younger brother and talented designer and photographer), a pdf was designed and released. That pdf sold in the thousands and a short print run was possible. I joined Mark Boulton Design shortly afterwards to help set up and run a separate publishing business (as well as Mark Boulton Design). Later that year, other authors started to ask if they could write for Five Simple Steps and we signed our first author, the already published, Donna Spencer. The rest is history.

This week we received file copies of our two latest books that have gone into print, bringing the total up to seven. Our book shelf sure looks colourful now! A Practical Guide to Designing the Invisible and A Practical Guide to Web App Success will be available to buy in print in a few weeks time. Watch this space!


Over the last few years, we've had a fantastic team at Mark Boulton Design who have worked with Mark and I to build Five Simple Steps into a thriving, small publishing business. We always feel sad when someone moves on, like a member of the family has gone! In September we bade farewell to Dan Jukes who moved across the pond to San Francisco to join Google and then last month we sadly said goodbye to the wonderful Sarah Morris. Both were integral to the team and clocked up many hours of work for us, so we want to say a big thankyou!

We were thrilled to be joined this month by a brilliant new Studio/Production Manager, Jo Brewer. Jo and I worked together in a past life in the Marketing and Comms Team at BBC Wales, so when she applied for the job, I knew she'd be a real asset to the team. She has since worked for a local council and the COI as a communications professional, so she brings a wealth of experience with her. We're very excited to have her in our gang!

Day-to-day, the team at Five Simple Steps works with freelancers all over the world. We have been lucky enough to work with some fantastic editors, who massage our authors words into better shape - Chris Mills, Bill Harper, Simon Mackie and Amy Thibodeau to name those who worked on our most recent books.

We're delighted that Owen Gregory, who has copy-edited several of our best known titles, will be joining us on a more regular basis to provide customer support, as well as writing for our blog and newsletter, continuing as a copy editor, and collaborating on new projects. We knew Owen was someone to have on our side, when he sent Mark detailed errata for the yellow book just because he wanted to help us get it absolutely spot on. His attention to detail is second to none - Nick is still recovering from the edits to Hardboiled!

Lastly, you may have noticed that I've been keeping a low profile since last July, when I gave birth to our second daughter. I've been watching from the sidelines and doing a very small amount of work in between caring for our girls, but mostly Five Simple Steps has been in the hands of the rest of the team. It's been hard to watch from the sidelines at times, particularly at launch times, so I'm excited about joining the team again soon.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be telling you about some more of the things going on behind the scenes. It's an exciting time at Five Simple Steps!