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Penguin Imprint Focus: Day Two, by Nichole Morford:

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As we round down the final few posts for our Penguin Imprint Feature, we're going to step aside and allow Nichole Morford to post about life at DK. She's going to be guest blogging for the next few entries, and will reveal what being a DK Editor actually entails.

We're in the midst of starting presentations for the Frankfurt Book Fair here, which means that there is quite a lot of buzz in the office. It's also Global Week, so there are a fair number of American accents mixed in with the Brits-along with German, Australian, and the odd Canadian. One of the nicest things about working for DK is its truly global perspective and reach. Typically, our main outposts publish simultaneously, with varied DK translations following in their wake. Every month the directors of these branches come to London to compare notes and brainstorm.

This sort of globalization means that our books must appeal to a very wide market. As an editor, you start thinking about this at presentation stage, when you're compiling contents lists and collaborating with designers to decide how the book should look. The ideal product is timely and has a distinct personality, yet won't date quickly or look too British or American to be unappealing in, say, India. Of course, we sometimes do books that are designed for specific markets-but by and large, we try to make books that are compelling for everyone.

Posted by Penguin Group USA on Fri, 07/18/2008 - 12:18pm. in

Fri, 07/18/2008

Evan Wright, author of Generation Kill - our blogger for the week of 7/21:

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Evan Wright is our guest blogger during the week of July 21st. If you have any questions for him, add a comment to any of his posts. Here is some brief information about Generation Kill:

They were called a generation without heroes.
Then they were called upon to be heroes.

Within hours of 9/11, America’s war on terrorism fell to those like the twenty-three Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ended combat since Vietnam. They were a new pop-culture breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears—soldiers raised on hip hop, video games and The Real World. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional and moral horrors ahead, the “First Suicide Battalion” would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer.

Now a major HBO event, Generation Kill is the national bestselling book based on the National Magazine Award-winning story in Rolling Stone. It is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality and camaraderie of a new American War.

Posted by Penguin Group USA on Fri, 07/18/2008 - 9:45am. in