Overlook Press

So our last homework assignment was to research a publisher. It was hard deciding which one I wanted to do; I had quite a list even just looking through one bookshelf. So I looked at all of them a little.

I couldn't really find enough info on Tor, Roc, or Harper Torch, had already read about Baen, and Orb turned out to be mainly interested in reprints. Random House and Scholastic were too big to deal with, Sandpiper (which publishes Bill Peet, according to Amazon) had too many cheesy baby books, and Washington Square Press had been bought out by Atria and sued (apparently in that order too, which is odd).

Of course I could still look at Atria, and did, a bit. I like their facebook page. I was still put off by all the news stories about the lawsuit, despite the fact they published my favorite book ever: The Thirteenth Tale.

So I ended up doing my presentation on Overlook Press, publisher of The City of Dreaming Books. Overlook has offices in both Woodstock and NYC, and gets its name from both the mountain it's located on and its mission: to be "a home for distinguished books that had been overlooked by larger houses." Most of the books and authors they listed on their site were ones I didn't recognize, but they still seemed to have sold pretty well. One had been made into a PBS documentary.

Overlook is an independent publisher founded in 1971 that puts out 100 books/year. They are apparently well known for their artistic reprints of P. G. Wodehouse, of which they have an entire line, bigger even than their childrens' books section. I had to look up who P. G. Wodehouse was. Does this mean that I fail as an English major, or is it a generational thing?

I'm on the Redivider's proofreading team!

Just had to share that. I'll post more in a day or two.

Lots of Rambling

So, it's definitely been a while. I don't even know where to start...

Classes. Yeah.
Classes have started and I am really, really excited. I'm taking Applications for Print Publishing - we're working with InDesign at the moment - and Book Publishing Overview, which is really, really cool (yeah, I know, I'm in writing/publishing and should be able to express myself better than "really, really cool" but I'm TOO EXCITED... oops, sorry, carried away. Anyway, it's a similar effect to my reaction to the news that ALEX AND WALTER ARE ENGAGED! ...okay, carried away again). To get back on topic, today's class is going to be about the editorial department, which I'm really looking forward to. The homework was to research a publisher and be ready to present on it - perhaps I'll do a post on that too. After classes, we generally all head over to the Tam to hang out & talk.

Work.
Not too much news - work is still fun, with great benefits like cheap/free books and being able to borrow bestsellers. We have even more ereader options to memorize. I'm loving working in the kids' section. Oh, and I got to do the kids' story time once!

Books.
The system for borrowing is being re-worked, so reading the bestseller list is on hold for a while. The last book I checked out was actually the first 3 Guardians of G'Hoole, so I figure now I'm allowed to see the movie. I'm more excited about the Harry Potter movie, though. I've started listening to Mugglecast again (love their chapter-by-chapter).

Boston in general
The weather's cooled down. I've scheduled an appointment to become a lector at church. I still want to go to the beach and the aquarium.

Apartment
I love my roommates. I also love how adult the apartment's furnishings feel. I'm even taking care of a plant! I remembered to water it! This is an achievement for me! One annoyance, though: as I write this blog, I am waiting for Comcast's repair people because we still don't have working cable. Oh well.

Writing
Some progress. Most of it in figuring out just what's been going wrong in a couple stories... which may not have resulted in visible progress (yet), but is definitely a big help. Also, I now have all my Tamora Pierce books, so I might go back to the parody I was writing...

Three Cups of Tea

This was a very interesting book, both entertaining and educational, but it has one major flaw. The writer is so enthusiastic about his topic that he wants to tell you everything, relevant or not, and his editor failed to correct this. It's not that the extra details are not interesting, even well-written in their own way, it's that they don't belong where they are. Occasionally, this would get the reader slightly lost as to who the relevant characters were and just what was going on. Some flashbacks are not clearly defined.

The Help

A good book. I really liked the language, and found it hard to put down.

Most of the book is written in dialect, but it's not full of apostrophes and obvious abbreviations. Instead, whatever word is actually said is written ("a" instead of "of" or " o' " being the simplest example). The effect is to cut down on distractions. The words are very natural. I could hear Aibileen's voice in my head when reading her sections, and Skeeter and Minny's voices were fainter but there. Most books - even most books in first person - can't evoke the sound of a voice for me, just the personality of the character. This one did.