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Curious About How Our Books Are Produced?
A Little About the Internals:
We do not produce facsimiles of books. The text of each and every book we publish is typed out, checked, and formatted by a living human being (the dead ones are too busy haunting old mansions and whispering in the ears of short-story writers). We always work from the earliest edition of a book. However, we sometimes consult later early editions when correcting significant errors in the text.
To give an example, in Over the Cliffs by Charlotte Chanter a section of the text was inserted in the wrong place in the first UK edition of 1860 and omitted entirely from the US edition of 1861; to correct the error, we consulted the second UK edition of 1866, in which the text was placed in the correct place.
All images used within our books are reproduced from the originals, whether they be postcards, etchings, paintings, book illustrations, and so on. None are produced or manipulated using AI.
A Little About the Biographical Essays:
We care about the writers that we publish; for us, it is important that, when you purchase a book from us, in addition to discovering a new collection or novel you discover its author.
After starting out as an artist, I became an art historian, then an historian. I have been researching one thing or another for as long as I can remember, and it is what I enjoy doing more than almost anything else. A lot of research goes into producing the biographical essays contained in our books; in an age of misinformation, accuracy is extremely important to us, and each of our books contains a lot of notes (both end and foot).
A Little About the Covers:
We prefer to use antique and vintage images wherever possible; they are often more in keeping with the tone of the books we publish. We also use illustrations created by currently-living human beings. A few of our earliest titles have cover images that were made using AI. When these images were purchased by me, I knew nothing about AI 'art' and how it is produced (I assumed the images were 'drawn' in some sort of art program like Gimp, but with extra bells and whistles). When the impact of using AI (on both creatives and the environment) to churn out images became clear, we made the decision never to use images created by AI again. In fact, we are of the strong opinion that AI has no place in any creative process. Aside from the damage AI causes to human beings and the planet, prompt-typing does not an author or an artist make, and AI may be artificial, but it is not intelligent.
A Little About Production:
We care about our environment. All of our titles are printed on demand. This removes the need for warehousing (which would need light and heating) and the possibility of having to pulp books if they remain unsold (what a waste of precious resources!). Books are manufactured as close to the customer as possible, so there's no need for a book to fly from London to New York, or vice versa. You can learn more about our commitment to sustainability and the environment by clicking here.
How Are the Books Chosen?
This involves me having a good think about the books I have a particular fondness for and adding my 'besties' to the 'to be published' list (which is almost as long as my 'to be read' list and will outgrow it in the not too distant future). As to the order in which they are published, there is no set process for choosing books from 'The List'. The first editions of the books we publish can usually be found sitting comfortably on our library shelves, reclining on a reading table, or lying slightly open (think of the spines!) in my hands. They jump out and let us know when they're ready to be back in print.
Gina R. Collia
Book-ferret, chief cook, and bottle washer.
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