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"

In Northanger Abbey, Catherine Morland declares, “History, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in…. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars and pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all—it is very tiresome.” As the heroine of Jane Austen’s lighthearted novel, Catherine is a […]Read more "People’s History"

By Carol HinzEditorial Director, Millbrook Press To someone not involved with book publishing, it can come as quite a surprise to find out how long it takes to make a book. What do I mean by this? Well, this past week, we held a meeting to plan the new series we’ll be publishing in 2012. […]Read more "What’s Taking So Long?"

By Sara Hoffmann Senior Editor OK, so depending on how often you stop by our blog, you may already know that I love the aesthetics of editing. Another (closely related) thing I’m crazy about is the artful language in school & library books. A lot of people might not realize how much artistry is there. […]Read more "Artful Language"