Publishing
Books, Magazines and Digital Media
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Michael Gosney pioneered independent publishing with Avant Books in 1980 and revolutionized digital media with Verbum and CD-ROM innovations.
Goz founded the independent publishing house Avant Books in 1980. His notable publications include The Life and Adventures of John Muir (1979) by James Mitchell Clarke, a biography of the early conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club: the English version of the play Buddha (1983) by Nikos Kazantzakis, translated by Kimon Friar and Athena Dallas-Damis; and Deep Ecology (1985) ed. by Michael Tobias, a collection of essays proposing a progressive, post-modern environmental sensibility.
BOOKS
The Life and Adventures of John Muir. James Mitchell Clarke.
Deep Ecology ed. Michael Tobias.
We Are It (1984, Avant Books)
The Gray Book (1990, Ventana Press)
The Desktop Color Book (1992, MIS Press)
The Photo CD Book (1992, Verbum Books)
Multimedia Power Tools (with Peter Jerram, 1993, 2nd ed. 1995, Random House)
The Official Photo CD Handbook (1995, Peachpit Press)
Peter Norton’s PC Guru (1998, MediaX and Verbum)
The Art and Architecture of Herbert B. Turner (2008, Waterside Press)
From 1986 to 1991, Goz published and edited Verbum, an early personal computer and computer art magazine focusing on interactive art and computer graphics.
Along with Info 64, Verbum was one of the first periodicals to be entirely produced with desktop publishing techniques. Referring to itself as a “journal of personal computer aesthetics,” Verbum was notable for placing more emphasis on creative aspects of its subject matter in contrast to the predominantly technical content of other publications at the time.
In 1991, Goz published Verbum Interactive, which showcased innovative multimedia technologies including digital articles with video, hyperlinks, digital audio files, and CD-Audio.
Billed as the “first CD-ROM periodical,” it was hailed as a groundbreaking product, but criticized for the high cost of the equipment needed to view it and for the slow performance of the CD-ROM technology it relied upon. Others commented that “the scope of VI, in terms of both its thematic and intellectual expanse and the level of technological expertise with which the final product was produced, is truly remarkable.”
His digital media innovations attracted the attention of Apple, Kodak, Adobe Systems, Toshiba, and Microsoft leading to collaborations in computer-related art and publishing realms, including the books The Photo CD Book (1992), a full-color guide to Photo CD technology and products, developed in partnership with Kodak;
Peter Norton’s PC Guru (1998), a double CD-ROM featuring animation, video, and hypertext content offering a comprehensive guide to PC usage.
Multimedia Power Tools (1993), was a multimedia handbook with a CD-ROM featuring step-by-step animated instructions; and Peter Norton’s PC Guru (1998), a double CD-ROM featuring animation, video, and hypertext content offering a comprehensive guide to PC usage.
