Michael Gosney has been involved in innovative publishing ventures for over 20 years.

Gosney launched The Word Shop in 1981, a book production service featuring one of the first commercial computer-phototypesetting systems in use on the West Coast. In 1984, he founded Avant Books, a trade publishing house publishing prestigious literary works such as Buddha by Nikos Kazantzakis and Clear Wind by Neeli Cherkovski, and non-fiction titles such as Deep Ecology, ed. by Michael Tobias, The Journal of Holistic Health, The Roots of Rastafari by Virginia Lee Jabobs and The Life and Adventures of John Muir by James Mitchell Clarke. In 1985 he co-founded Microtrend, a computer book publisher/packager which developed publishing programs for firms such as IBM, Tandy, McGraw Hill, Mitchell Publishing.

In 1987 Gosney founded Verbum, Inc. with the publication of the Verbum Journal, the first magazine devoted to the creative applications of desktop media. Verbum was instrumental in the genesis of the desktop publishing field, and, through its coverage of digital animation, photography, music composition, video and interactive programming, was a catalyst for what became the multimedia field. In August of 1991 Verbum shipped Verbum Interactive, the nascent industry's first true multimedia product: a double CD-ROM featuring a pioneering interface design, stunning graphics, original music, animation and video. Sony, Macromedia, GTE and other firms participated in the development of Verbum Interactive, which inspired many of the early multimedia titles.

Between 1992 and 1996, Verbum produced leading instructional books for digital media professionals, including Multimedia Power Tools, the "bible" of the multimedia field with a CD-ROM dynamically linked to the book's contents, featuring step-by-step instruction. Other books included the Official Photo CD Handbook, in partnership with Kodak, and the Desktop Color Book. Once the market for CD-ROM was finally established, Verbum began development of its first consumer product in 1997, Peter Norton's PC Guru, a double CD-ROM published by MediaX in January 1998. In mid-1998 Verbum launched Studio-V, a design group specializing in complete website and CD-ROM development. Since that time Studio-V has produced work for firms such as AwardTrack, Golf and Tennis World, Ethos Channel, GE Capital Mortgage, Waterside Productions and others. The firm has also developed Radio-V, an international music and culture channel with streaming and downloadable music, rich media content, and an associated weekly radio program aired on U.S. public and college radio stations.

Along with a circle of co-producers, Gosney developed the annual Digital Be-In in San Francisco, an influential gathering of new media pioneers celebrating humanistic applications of technology now in its 12th year. In 1997 he launched the bi-annual Paradox Conference (www.arcosanti.org/paradox) on cyberspace, habitat and human evolution at Arcosanti, Arizona. He has been a frequent speaker at digital media industry and cultural events in the U.S., Japan and South America since the mid-1980s.

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