Have you ever wondered how Llewellyn comes up with some of its beautiful cover designs? Today, to celebrate the release of The Witch’s Broom by Deborah Blake, I’m going to explain the process. Since it involves Deborah, it also involves a cute cat. So this post should interest book-lovers and cat-lovers alike! Here at Llewellyn, a cover starts with what we call the Launch meeting of the book. Attended by the production editor, production manager, art director, cover designer, copywriter, publisher, and sales manager, it is the acquisition editor’s job (that’s me) to bring the author’s input to the table. I usually ask authors for their ideas on the final title, subtitle, and

As we spin around the sun from year to year, our hobbies or tastes may change, our evolution in certain areas may increase, or we may feel drawn to new areas, while our skills in other fields get rusty from lack of use or flagging interest. Sometimes just as we’re feeling proficient and strong in one topic we may start out as beginners in another. For me? I’ll be spending a lot more time with Tarot books, as well as trying to find the time and energy to pursue a “home schooling masters degree,” as a friend of mine put it. What she does is look up university courses in subjects she’s interested in; most professors put the syllabus, including reading list and sometimes even

This may be one of my shortest blog posts ever, but bear with me. I realized today while proofing some copy on "celebrating the sabbats" that I am more used to seeing the word sabbat capitalized - as in, "celebrating the Sabbats." I asked one of our trusted Llewellyn editors what she thought, and she pointed out that the word holiday is never capitalized, but the names of the holidays are. (Or in this case, Beltane, Samhain, Lughnasadh, and so on.) Also it often happens that the word sabbat and the name of the sabbat appear side-by-side, making it look a little silly to capitalize both - "as we approach the Sabbat Beltane," for example. What do you think? Do you want to see Sabbat

Man, do I love working in the warehouse! This summer when orders for our calendars and datebooks were coming in fast and furious, our warehouse manager Chuck asked the rest of the Llewellyn staff if any of us wanted to be trained in to pitch in a few days to deal with the rush. Of course I jumped at the chance, as did several others, because I love learning how all the nuts and bolts of this company come together. (And because Chuck thanked us with ice cream bars.) So one nice summer day, a group of about seven or eight of us left our quiet cubicles and computer monitors for the bustling activity of the warehouse. Luckily we’re all in the same building, unlike Llewellyn’s previous