Inside Ooligan

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You’ve Got Mail! Inside the Marketing & Publicity Inbox

A majority of my position is digital collaboration: reviewing Marketing or Publicity documents for project teams, corresponding with Project Managers, or reaching outside Ooligan for various extracurricular publishing activities. Marketing and Publicity are actually two distinct departments at Ooligan Press. The role of Marketing and Publicity Manager is unique because it is one of the few positions that is currently combined; while the responsibilities vary, the skillset is similar.

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Manager Monday: The Role of Copy Chief

Ooligan Press is a student-run trade press that operates in conjunction with the book publishing master’s program at Portland State University. Those of us inclined to bite off a bit more work operate as project managers (those who manage the publication of a book project) and department managers (those who run the various departments within the press). As copy chief it is my responsibility to oversee and edit all the copy that goes through the press.

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The Marketing Plan: Setting Your Book Up for Success

Marketing plans are a foundational document that make sure the entire process of publishing a book is cohesive, intentional, and appropriate to the audience and the goals of the book. The marketing plan is referenced in almost every other stage of the publishing process, so we have to be careful and put a lot of thought into the decisions we make because mistakes could cascade throughout the process and cause problems later.

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Manager Monday: Editing Audiobooks at Ooligan

With our most recent audiobook title Faultland by Suzy Vitelllo, Oolies are now in charge of the entire production process. This is an exciting opportunity for students to get hands-on experience with a vital part of the audiobook production process. Although it may sound daunting, editing audio is an incredibly satisfying process and a marketable skill that students can add to their growing repertoire of qualifications.

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A Library Writers Project Book Start to Finish: The Blue Line Letters

Sometimes a book moves through its journey from acquisition to publication quicker than the average two-year timeline, and in the case of our Multnomah County Library Writers Project titles, like the forthcoming The Blue Line Letters, we are on an expedited one-year publication cycle. As the book’s project manager, I’ll take you through what I have been working on with the project team in the first several months of its publication process and give you a glimpse into what comes next.

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Acquiring Translation Rights for an Anthology at Ooligan

When I started managing the rights department at Ooligan Press about a year ago, I took on one of our first major projects: acquiring the rights to nine different French science fiction short stories for an anthology. It was an ambitious enterprise, but the previous managers did all of the legwork for setting it up. They found a French professor at our university who already had the idea for the anthology and agreed to translate (with the help of a few others); all that was left to do was find the owners of the rights to each story and acquire them for the anthology.

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Ooligan’s Archive: The Hidden Final Step of Publishing a Book

Our project teams, managers, and department leads have spent the last 12-24 months shepherding your book through all the critical processes necessary to turn a manuscript into the product readers pick up off the shelf. The book has been edited, proofread, designed, marketed, posted about on social media, and submitted for awards. What could possibly be left? Welcome to the hidden final step of publishing a book: the archive!

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