Hello, from San Francisco!
A Peek Behind the Dutch Door: The Making of a Letterpress Print Series
We were completely thrilled when Chronicle Books approached us to make our letterpress print series Birds & Blooms of the 50 States into a book. It is a perfect tribute to the series, not to mention an excellent way to display all the prints from our three-year-long project in one place.
Read a guest blog post by Dutch Door Press on the Chronicle Books Blog.
The making of a bestseller: Editor Steve Mockus writes about the cover design of Vader’s Little Princess on our blog. Read the full post, and see more of Jeffrey Brown’s early sketches here.
Each month, we invite a guest photographer to take over our Instagram feed for a week to give our followers a new perspective on the world of Chronicle Books.
This week we’ve invited our Tokyo team, led by Kimitoshi Maruyama, to be our Guest Instagrammers and share what they’re up to on the other side of the Pacific. Maru has also been kind enough to translate the captions for those of us who can’t read Japanese (ahem, me). I’m excited to follow along, and I hope you’ll join us. Don’t forget to check out their Facebook page, and if you’re visiting Tokyo anytime soon, stop by one of our stores and send us a photo! We’d love to post it.
Read more on our blog.
Announcing the Winners of The Great Tumblr Book Search!
When we announced The Great Tumblr Book Search, we had no idea what the response would be. In just 45 days, we received 175 entries. For the past month, editors at both Chronicle and Tumblr read through all of the proposals—tears streaming down our faces in laughter—with the goal of choosing one grand-prize winner who would not only receive $300 of Chronicle Books but also be considered for publication. So without further ado, we present the winners of The Great Tumblr Book Search.
Grand-Prize Winner: Sh*t Rough Drafts by Paul Laudiero
We’re pleased to announce that Sh*t Rough Drafts by Paul Laudiero is our grand-prize winner! Sh*t Rough Drafts imagines early drafts of famous literary works and screenplays, including the Bible, Harry Potter, and Braveheart. Laudiero started his Tumblr in February and it quickly gained a following, thanks to coverage on Huffington Post Books. Paul is a 22-year-old from Virginia, a Creative Writing major at George Mason University, and a writer and comedian who performs regularly at Washington Improv Theater in D.C. Last summer he interned at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York.
Sh*t Rough Drafts Coming Soon to a Bookshelves Everywhere
Additionally, we’re thrilled to announce that we have signed a book deal for Sh*t Rough Drafts! The book will combine new material with the best of the Tumblr entries and is slated for publication in Spring 2014. Please join us in congratulating Paul—and definitely follow his Tumblr if you’re not already.
Runners-Up:
The Great Tumblr Book Search also yielded three runners-up: Twitter the Comic by Mike Rosenthal; The Awkward Phase by Tyler Gillespie and Claire Meyer; and Activitorium by The Tangential edited by Becky Lang and designed by Caroline Royce. Each finalist (or finalist team) will enjoy $100 of Chronicle Books and feedback from both Chronicle and Tumblr editors. Their Tumblrs are by turns awesome and hilarious and definitely worth following!
Short List:
Additionally we wanted to mention a short list of other entries that we admired. You should follow these Tumblrs and cheer them on because they’re doing great work: Young Monsters, Bad Ass Civil War Beards, Bunny Ears Over the Years, Mister Book, and I Work at a Public Library.
Enter Next Year:
If you didn’t win this year or you didn’t quite get your proposal submitted in time, never fear. Chronicle and Tumblr are pleased to announce that this will be an annual partnership. The Second Annual Great Tumblr Book Search will kick off in January 2014. We hope to hear from you then! And thanks again to all the creative, witty folks who entered. It was a pleasure to read your work and visit your Tumblrs.
