The Lerner Blog

[I’ve again asked Jon Fishman to comment on his experiences with Lerner Books UK.] Creating covers might be the most high-stakes part of book publishing. Although we’ve all heard that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, we do anyway. The cover is what catches the eye (or doesn’t), it’s what makes a person […]Read more "Judging Book Covers"

Writing and publishing seem to attract more than their fair share of commentary. And much of it, unsurprisingly, gets written down and published. Just for fun, I’ve gathered a few of my favorite literary quotations. If you have any favorites, please add them to the comments! My favorite literary quote comes from Flannery O’Connor, the […]Read more "On Writers, Books, and Such"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press A few months ago, I blogged about some of my favorite editing tools, and I’ve been thinking I should talk a little more about editing itself. While every publishing company and every editor is different, here’s an overview of what kind of things I’m typically thinking about and looking […]Read more "Nonfiction Monday: What a Nonfiction Editor Does"

By Sara Hoffmann Senior Editor All right, blog readers, I have a confession: I am a grammar curmudgeon. Dangling modifiers drive me crazy. Misplaced apostrophes make my hair stand on end. I cringe when I spot those “ten items or less” signs at the grocery store. (It’s all I can do to stop myself from […]Read more "Grammar Curmudgeon"

[I asked Ben Nussbaum of USA TODAY to give his view of his job.] So what exactly makes a book a USA TODAY book? How do you translate the personality of a newspaper (what we call our “brand equities”) into a book? Answering that question was a big part of my job when I first […]Read more "A USA TODAY book?"

By Carol Hinz Editorial Director, Millbrook Press One of the fun things about books is that they take on a life of their own after they’re published. I used to work for a small publisher in New York City that produced lavishly illustrated coffee table books. I loved playing “I Spy” with furniture catalogs  to […]Read more "Haven’t I Seen That Book Somewhere Before?"

By Sara HoffmannSenior Editor Are you ready for Halloween? Today’s post should get you in the spirit! It’s a smattering of facts about bats that I found while doing some research for Let’s Look at Bats (cover pictured). Now, if you’re anything like me, you might think bats are kind of creepy. But my research […]Read more "Going Batty"

One of the many potential benefits of the web and social media is how it can make niche communities accessible and less exclusive. Here’s an example: a couple years ago, I decided it would be cool to learn to shave with a straight razor. So I did. Entirely from the Internet. Three years later, it’s […]Read more "Learning from other blogospheres"

[I asked Pat Shepherd, Project Manager of Lerner Books UK, to share her insights from the other side of the pond.] Lerner Books UK, a new division of Lerner Publishing Group, launched February 2008. Little did anybody know just how it was going to go, but the spirits of all concerned in the US and […]Read more "From the Other Side of the Pond"