Archive for the ‘publishers’ Category

Tuesday, December 19th, 2023

Publisher Interview: Eye of Newt Books

Eye of Newt Books logo

LibraryThing is pleased to present our inaugural Independent Publisher interview, hopefully the first of a series. We sat down this month with Neil Christopher, one of the publishers of Eye of Newt Books, an independent Canadian press based in Toronto whose small but impressive catalog features works that pair imaginative fiction and folklore with beautiful and striking artwork. An educator, author and filmmaker who taught for many years in the Arctic, Christopher was one of the founders of Nunavut-based Inhabit Media, an Inuit-owned publishing house that specializes in content featuring traditional Inuit mythology and knowledge. He is himself the author of a number of collections of Inuit tales, from Arctic Giants to The Dreaded Ogress of the Tundra: Fantastic Beings from Inuit Myths and Legends.

How did Eye of Newt Books get started? Whose idea was it, how did it all come together, and what is your vision, going forward?

We have been working in publishing in the Canadian Arctic for almost 20 years, and during that time we met many amazing authors and illustrators that sometimes didn’t fit into our Arctic publishing initiative. As well, there were many stories and projects we wanted to do that didn’t fit into the Arctic publishing work. So, we wanted to start a Toronto-based publishing company that could work with these incredible writers and artists and could realize some of these projects.

Danny** was the one who came up with the name, and we worked together to clarify Eye of Newt’s vision. Basically, we want to make quirky books that might not have a home elsewhere. We want to make books for kids that we would have enjoyed; and we want to make books for adults that we want to read.

**Co-founder of Eye of Newt Books, Danny Christopher is Neil Christopher’s brother, and is also an author and illustrator.

Many of your books—Bestiarium Greenlandica (Denmark), Museum of Hidden Beings (Iceland), Hausgeister (Germany), Welsh Monsters & Mythical Beasts (Wales)—were originally published elsewhere, and often in different languages. How did you discover these books, and their authors and artists? What do you look for, when it comes to adding a book to your catalog?

In our work with Inhabit Media, we often come across books from other countries that we want to version in English and make available to the North American market. Most of these books are about folklore or mythology. We are interested in preserving and promoting authentic traditional lore from other countries. Both Danny and I loved that growing up, and now we get to bring it to a new generation of readers.

Now we often receive submissions from other publishers. It didn’t take long for us to get known, and we are always getting amazing book projects submitted to us for English versioning or licensing for our market.

Both Inhabit Media and Eye of Newt strongly feature works of folklore and mythology. Are you particularly drawn to such tales? What makes them important, and why do you think both of the publishing houses you helped to found are centered around them?

That’s a great question! When we started Inhabit Media, we saw that children in Nunavut were not aware of their own cultural stories. Correcting this situation was one of Inhabit Media’s early missions. Through that work, we saw that traditional stories and lore were being lost or forgotten all over the world. Myth and legends were always something both Danny and I loved growing up, so creating books that help gather and protect authentic representations of myths and legends from around the world is important to us. We love new quirky stories, but we don’t want to forget the old stories and ancient magic.

The books in the Eye of Newt catalog are visually striking, with artwork in a diverse range of styles and media. Are the illustrations as important as the text, and if so, why? What are some of your favorite illustrations, from your catalog, and what is it about them that speaks to you?

For Eye of Newt the artwork and illustrations are just as important as the text. Both Danny and I have other work in publishing and filmmaking. Eye of Newt started as a side project, which quickly grew into something larger. Because of this limited time, we are very selective of the book projects we take on. We are really proud of the list of books we have created, and we intend to keep our standards high to only bring unique and beautiful books to our readers.

Some of my own favourite illustrations are from Iris Compiet’s Faeries of the Faultlines and Kamila Mlynarczyk’s I Can Be Myself When Everyone I Know Is Dead… They are starkly different, but I have a soft spot for prolific creators who really pour their heart and soul into their work and create a lot of it.

Are you still involved in Inhabit Media, and if so, how do you balance your work there with your work at Eye of Newt?

Yes. Both Danny and I are still very active owners of Inhabit Media. Eye of Newt was a passion project for both of us and continues to be so. I am sure finding balance for any business owner is a challenging task, and we certainly find it challenging. Eye of Newt has a talented and committed staff team that are moving projects forward when we are away. A lot of the Eye of Newt work for Danny and I happens at night and on weekends. Danny and I also said that Eye of Newt would be our retirement project, it just got started a bit early and now we are playing catch up all the time.

What can we look forward to in the future, from Eye of Newt, and from you?

Our success with our early books has opened doors with many amazing creators from around the world. We are really excited about the books we have lined up. One area to watch for is the fun and unusual children’s books we will be launching in the next few years. This year we released Kyle Beaudette’s The Garden Witch which is a loose folklore retelling with an aesthetic (and naughtiness!) we enjoy. We always wanted to have children’s books as a major part of our list, and our early books slanted more towards mythology and fantasy. Now, we are looping back to children’s books to help round off our list.

Tell us about your own personal library. What’s on your shelves?

If you had a look at my library, you would easily see where some of our inspirations come from. Faeries by Froud and Lee, Gnomes by Huygen and Poortvliet, etc. and tons of strange and fun children’s books. Just like Eye of Newt, you will see books that are beautifully illustrated. As well, both Danny and I collect very old books. A lot of that collection focuses on folktales, history, witchcraft, and shamanism.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I have been leaning back into my older books lately. Two books I have been enjoying this month are Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin and The World of Kong: A Natural History of Skull Island by Weta Workshop. Two books I consider classics. The World of Kong is very hard to find, as it is out of print, but well worth the hunt!

Labels: interview, publishers

Monday, March 7th, 2011

March Early Reviewers Batch is up!

The March 2011 batch of Early Reviewer books is up! We’ve got 110 books this month, and a grand total of 2,914 copies to give out. It’s our largest ER batch ever!
First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.
Then request away! The list of available books is here:
http://www.librarything.com/er/list
The deadline to request a copy is Monday, March 28th at 6 p.m. EST.
Eligibility: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, and many other countries. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.
Thanks to all the publishers participating this month!

HarperCollins Childrens Books WaterBrook Press W.W. Norton
Hyperion and Voice University of Iowa Press Taylor Trade Publishing
Del Rey Mulholland Books Goose Lane
St. Martin’s Press McFarland Doubleday Books
McBooks Press Tradewind Books Langdon Street Press
The Permanent Press Red Telephone Books Skyhorse Publishing
Aro Books worldwide DK Publishing Sterling Publishing
Human Kinetics Harper Paperbacks Nolo
Random House The Dial Press Zed Books
MSI Press Spiegel & Grau South Dakota State Historical Society Press
Ballantine Books Plume Rovira i Virgili University Press
Bell Bridge Books Bloomsbury Orca Book Publishers
BookViewCafe Bethany House Putnam Books
Chosen Books St. Martin’s Minotaur Riverhead Books
Bantam Dell Unbridled Books Penguin Young Readers Group
Cascada Productions Sole Books Blackbird Ventures
A & N Publishing St. Martin’s Griffin Crown Publishing
Saqi Books Kube Publishing HighBridge
Demos Health Souper Publishing Sovereign
Nimbus Publishing Seriously Good Books

Labels: early reviewers, publishers

Monday, February 7th, 2011

Free Books! February ER Batch is up!

The February 2011 batch of Early Reviewer books is up!  It’s our second-largest ER batch ever, with 105 titles and a grand total of 2,645 copies to give out.

First, make sure to sign up for Early Reviewers. If you’ve already signed up, please check your mailing address and make sure it’s correct.

Then request away! The list of available books is here: http://www.librarything.com/er/list

The deadline to request a copy is Monday, February 28th at 6PM EST.

Eligiblity: Publishers do things country-by-country. This month we have publishers who can send books to the US, Canada, the UK, and many more countries. Make sure to check the flags by each book to see if it can be sent to your country.

Thanks to all the publishers participating this month! If you’re a publisher and want to find out how to participate, just go here.

HarperCollins Childrens Books WaterBrook Press Henry Holt and Company
Kregel Publications W.W. Norton Harper Paperbacks
New American Library Orca Book Publishers Taylor Trade Publishing
Del Rey Spectra Crossway
Mulholland Books Quirk Books Signet
Tundra Books Sourcebooks St. Martin’s Griffin
Penguin Young Readers Group Random House Trade Paperbacks Doubleday Books
Ballantine Books Hunter House Osprey Publishing
St. Martin’s Press HighBridge Putnam Books
Riverhead Books Hyperion and Voice Bell Bridge Books
Open Books BookViewCafe Random House
Spiegel & Grau Nolo Penguin
McFarland Simon & Schuster Bloomsbury
Turner Publishing Pomegranate William Morrow
One Peace Books Rovira i Virgili University Press LUNA
MIRA Listen to Your Heart Press Tradewind Books
St. Martin’s Minotaur Thomas Dunne Books Bantam Dell
Harper Faber and Faber inGroup Press
Gefen Publishing House

Labels: early reviewers, LTER, publishers

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011

How can Publishers use LibraryThing?

We’ve done some more sprucing up, and are happy to announce a new How Publishers Can Use LibraryThing page. Mainly this is to simplify signup for the Early Reviewers and LibraryThing for Publishers programs (illustrated here), but it’s also designed to provide a single page to highlight all the various ways publishers can become a part of the LibraryThing community.

We continue to add publishers to LibraryThing for Publishers, and are very happy to announce that the University of California Press has joined the program.

If you’re a publisher and want to get started, just head on over to the new page for all the necessary information and instructions. We’ll be happy to help get you set up with your profile page.

Labels: LibraryThing for Publishers, publishers

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

London Book Fair

A few weeks ago I flew across the pond to speak at the London Book Fair. The panel* I was on focused on books and marketing in an online world. I talked about how traditional marketing is seen as just spam when it comes onto social networking sites (the “hi, want to be my friend? buy my book!” posts endear no one), and how authors need to genuinely participate and become part of the community online.

On LibraryThing, there are a number of ways for authors and publishers to become involved. I talked about Early Reviewers, of course, but also Author Chats, LibraryThing Local (add upcoming readings!), and our (upcoming) author interviews.

I spent the rest of the fair walking around to publisher booths, inviting them to join Early Reviewers. We have a majority of the big publishers in the US participating, but only a handful in the rest of the world. Part of this trip was to attempt to remedy that, one country at a time (if LibraryThing wants to fund an Abby world tour, that’s fine by me)! I talked to many UK publishers, and hopefully we’ll see some books available to more countries on the Early Reviewers lists soon!

And, of course, London was great fun. I’d only ever been to England on layovers before (meaning, I’d been to Heathrow, but not beyond the airport walls!). In the evenings I played tourist and walked all over the city. I only went inside a few places, but the highlight was definitely the underground The Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms.

*See Lance Fensterman’s (my fellow panelist and director of BookExpo America) post about the panel here, and the moderator, Chad Post’s here.

Labels: author chat, authors, early reviewers, London Book Fair, publishers

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Introducing LibraryThing Local

Today we* unveil a major new section of the site, LibraryThing Local.

What is it? LibraryThing Local is a gateway to thousands of local bookstores, libraries and book festivals—and to all the author readings, signings, discussions and other events they host. It is our attempt to accomplish what hasn’t happened yet—the effective linking of the online and offline book worlds. Books still don’t fully “work” online; this is a step toward mending them.

LibraryThing Local is a handy reference, but it’s also interactive. You can show off your favorite bookstores and libraries (eg., mine include the Harvard Bookstore, Shakespeare and Company and the Boston Athenaeum) and keep track of interesting events. Then you can find out who else loves the places you do, and who else is going to events. You can also find local members, write comments about the places you love and more.

LibraryThing members rock. LibraryThing Local just opened, but for the past week we’ve let a few members in to check it out and add venues.** They went crazy!

Together, about two-dozen members added over 2,600 venues. The coverage is spotty, covering the members personal interests. So, Paris is a literary desert, but Chicago and Antwerp are a mess of little green and blue dots, and even frosty Juneau (pictured right) is done.*** LibraryThing Local would be boring without content, so everone owes a debt of gratitude to members like SilentInAWay (400), alibrarian (351), christiguc (302), Talbin (242), SqueakyChu (240), boekerij (217) and others for kicking things off so well.

This kind of passion give us hope that LibraryThing Local will swiftly become the web’s best, most complete source for finding bookstores and library—and for the events they throw. Unfortunately, we only got events working yesterday, so there are only 200 so far. Something to work on?

Authors! Publishers! Libraries! Bookstores! Right now, everyone can add events. But they won’t necessarily get to you, so go ahead and add your venues and events. We are experimenting with the concept of “claiming” a venue, so that a bookstore of library can assert control over its basic factual information. (You don’t control the comment wall, of course.) For now, you need to email us. Go to a venue for more details.

Beta, Forevah. LibraryThing Local is not “done.” It’s missing key features, like RSS. And it has a few bugs. For good or ill, that’s how we work around here.

The main planned improvements are:

  • RSS Feeds
  • Fine-grained privacy settings
  • Author and work integration
  • Enhanced features for bookstores and libraries that take part
  • More stats, like the most interesting events

I’ve started two discussion threads:

Needless to say, I can’t wait to see what members think of it. We’ll do our best to make it as good as we can.

Use BookTour! (We do not.) LibraryThing Local was something I’ve wanted to do since visiting Ireland a year ago and not knowing where the bookstores were. But I didn’t get serious about the idea until approached by BookTour.

BookTour is a startup founded by Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and the upcoming Free. Chris’ idea was to make a central site to collect information about authors on tour.

LibraryThing agreed to be BookTour’s first partnership. But along the way we ran into difficulties. We wanted strong venue information, so members could show off their favorite bookstores and libraries. BookTour is focused on the events more than venues, which include many duplicates. Eventually it became clear to me we were after different things, so we parted ways.

Although LibraryThing Local is now doing some of the same things, I hope blog readers will check out BookTour. I expect them to be adopted by other book-related sites and, at present, their data is more copious than ours. Certainly, no author should tour without first adding all their events there, and they have a very handy Excel-based upload option that will appeal to publicists with large numbers of events.


* Chris (conceptDawg), whose favorite bookstores include Bienvielle Books, built much of LibraryThing Local. Send praise his way!
**We released LibrayThing Local to a private but non-exclusive beta group two weeks ago. Later, after deciding not to use others site’s data (see above), we let members add their own venues, and later events.
***Best of all the Alaskan-adder, alibrarian, has no connection to Alaska whatsoever. He just got tired adding every library in New York City.

Labels: authors, book world, bookstores, librarything local, new feature, new features, publicists, publishers

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Free books: October Early Reviewer books

I’m thrilled to announce our October batch of books for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. This is by far our largest batch yet—12 publishing houses, 31 different titles, for a grand total of 578 copies to give out!

Thanks to the following 12 publishers, who contributed fiction, non-fiction, poetry and even children’s books:

See all the books and request the ones you’d like to review here: http://www.librarything.com/er/list.

And here’s a mash of all the covers:

The deadline to request one of these books is Wednesday, October 10th at noon EST.

What is Early Reviewers? How do I sign up? Where do I post my review? These questions and more are answered here, in the Early Reviewers FAQ.

There’s been some talk lately on how to score a book—so for the record, the basic algorithm is randomness, but other factors come into play. For one thing, LibraryThing’s matching algorithm will try to match up books with readers, based on the rest of your LibraryThing catalog. And if you complete a review—good or bad!—you’re more likely to get another. Finally, getting a free advanced readers copy comes with NO obligation. Under no circumstances will a bad review change your chance of getting another. More on this in the Rules and Conditions.

Labels: early reviewers, LTER, publishers

Monday, September 24th, 2007

Early Reviewers now free to publishers

The short version: We’ve made LibraryThing Early Reviewers—our program to hook publishers up with LibraryThing members willing to review upcoming books—entirely free for publishers. The response has been huge. We’ll have seven publishers and twenty-four titles this October!

The long version: We planned on charging publishers to participate in the program. Publishers were eager to do it even so. Certainly its closest analogue, the Amazon Vine program is charging. (Our sources say “an arm and a leg.”). Also, it takes work on our side.

Then we decided: What the heck? Pricing discussions took time and limited the reach somewhat. And we figured out how to automate the process better. When in doubt, we err on the side of openness. More publishers means more books, more books means more happy members, more reviews, and more fun.

We’re looking forward to announcing the October batch. So far, we have 7 publishers signed up, with a total of 24 different titles and 420 copies in total. It’s a mix of fiction, and non-fiction, with reference and even poetry books on offer. That’s a lot of books, and we think it can get even better.

I like to think of Early Reviewers as playing matchmaker between publishers and readers. The idea is a simple one—give free pre-publication books to people in exchange for reviews. But it’s surprisingly hard to find the *right* people to review the books. That’s where LibraryThing and the whole matchmaker scheme comes in. We match members to the books based on the other books in the library, so the books end up in the right hands.

For members: I’ve added a section to WikiThing with an FAQ on Early Reviewers for members—what it is, how to sign up for a book, where to post your review, and more.

For publishers: Introduction to LibraryThing Early Reviewers for publishers

We’re going to do monthly batches of Early Reviewers, so I’m always working on gathering more publishers and books. If you know of any interested publishing houses, send them my way!

Labels: early reviewers, publishers