MAYOR, AUTHOR MAKE GREAT TEAM

September was an amazing month here at our little press, thanks in large part to Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude. By choosing Tim Grobaty's "I'm Dyin' Here: A Life in the Paper," he not only brought much-deserved exposure to Tim's wonderful book, but he threw his support behind a largely unknown entity: Us! (And, dang, do we appreciate it.)

Plus-also, the mayor's flagship event at the beautiful Beverly O'Neill Theater Sept. 15, was So Much. Fun. Grobaty, a notorious nervous wreck in public, was in fine form — engaging and hilarious. Kudos go to the mayor, too, who had a bag full of great questions for his fellow liberal Democrat, neither of whom shied away from the controversial topic of politics. (At one point, Tim was asked what led him to his political philosophy. "Well, I got an education," he quipped.)

One of our personal favorite moments came at the beginning of the audience-participation portion of the event, when former Mayor Bob Foster took the mic and spoke in glowing terms about both Tim and his book to the crowd of some 250 people. "You've been a tremendous asset to this city," Foster said.

And then there was the woman who asked what profession Tim would have chosen if he couldn't have picked journalism. "Probably marine biology," Tim answered, at which point Jerry Schubel, president and CEO of the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific stood up to offer Tim a job if the whole journalism thing doesn't work out. 

Tim has been writing for the Press-Telegram for 40 years — and has been the paper's most well-read daily columnists for a great number of them. He also has written three books about the history of Long Beach. At one point during the evening, he acknowledged that, having written about the city's lore for so long — he felt as though he has become a part of it. And when asked whether he'd ever kept a journal, Tim said: "My column. Really, my column is my journal."

You can read about the event in the media here and here.The whole thing was filmed and will be available to watch online at some point — we'll keep you posted. But in the meantime, please consider joining Tim at our next two events.

We Exhaust Ourselves at Book Fest

We had a helluva time this weekend at the LA Times Festival of Books. It was truly exhausting being "on" all the time — but we loved meeting so many readers and writers... and writers and writers and writers. (THERE WERE SO MANY WRITERS!) We even got a bunch of pitches — including some genuinely interesting ones — and were thrilled to double the size of our mailing list by giving away our "totes adorbs" totes. (Jesus, did I really just write that? Kill me now.) 

Highlights: 

• Chatting with Johnny from Akashic Books — the Brooklyn-based publisher whose company EXPLODED after publishing Go the F**k to Sleep. Can we please have that happen to us now? Please?

• A visit by Manchester, England-based Ryan Doyle of the design duo DR.ME, which designed the cover for Burden by Water. 

• Watching Kramer chat up festival-goers in front our booth. (And, yes, we did set it up so our logo would be in the shot. What?)

• Checking out one of our (many) favorite bands, I See Hawks in LA, which played on the stage right behind us. 

• Hearing that some folks had shown up at the Jane Austin Society booth (next door to ours) wondering if the author was going to be signing books. Um. Yeah. She's been dead for 200 years, but it's great to hear you're such a big fan. 

Anyway, for those who came out, THANK YOU! And for those who bought books, THANK YOU x 100. :-)

Two Books Launch — And So Do We

We've had a heck of an exciting week here at the plant.

First, we got some great press from the Long Beach Post and the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Very grateful to have such strong local coverage here in the LBC. Speaking of which: A feature in the Long Beach Business Journal's "Women in Business" section is forthcoming, as well. Because we're women, see. In business. Look for that one March 1.

Then we had a great turnout at Fingerprints Saturday night at the launch for Tim Grobaty's I'm Dyin' Here and Alan Rifkin's Burdens by Water. The authors read passages from their books — making us laugh, cry and think in equal measure. Okay, we really didn't cry. At all. But there was wine. And who needs to cry when there's wine? There also was music — local musician 8 Good Fingers (not his real name, but his real amount of fingers) played for a while. (Really well, too, considering the number of fingers). And Dave Alvin (founding member of the Blaster's who is now on tour with Phil Alvin) sent a super-nice note of support — calling Rifkin "sharp, brave, curious, a touch sarcastic and more than a little wild" — which Rand (the owner of Fingerprints) read aloud. 

Following that, on Monday, book critic David Kipen plugged Brown Paper Press and our new releases on an episode of KPCC's Take Two. It was a two-minute bit (the radio equivalent of years), during which Kipen called us "wonderfully quixotic" (We are choosing to take that as a compliment) and even ventured to guess that presses like ours might someday make Manhattan publishing houses hang their heads in shame. (Not gonna hold our breaths on that one, but we sure appreciated the sentiment.) Click here to listen. (Our bit starts at 1:32:35.)

By the way, are the parentheticals in this post driving you crazy yet? (Too bad.) 

Which brings us to today — the official publication date for Burdens by Water and I'm Dyin' Here. You can read the excellent Q&As with Rifkin and Grobaty on Deborah Kalb's book blog (click here and here). We'll try to pop back in and give you an update at week's end, but to follow developments in real time, be sure to follow us on Twitter or Facebook. (Oh, and one last parenthetical: Do check out Tim's column about his book in yesterday's PT. Goddamn hilarious.)

As always, thanks for the support. We know it's cliche, but it's true: We couldn't do this without you. 

'BEHIND THE LEGS' — THE MAKING OF THE 'RELAX' COVER

We've gotten a lot of diverse feedback on the cover for Relax, It's Just God. People think it's either interesting or frustrating, really cool or just plain hard to read. We love the cover, of course, and we believe it sets the perfect tone for our company's strong design sensibility and dedication to providing readers with bright, vibrant, engaging content. For a bit more of the backstory, though, we asked cover designer Andrew Byrom to take us deeper into the design process for this particular book. Here's what he had to say.

•••••

By Andrew Byrom

After working for many years designing books for publishers like Penguin, Routledge and McGraw Hill, I have come to realize that the job of a cover is not simply to illustrate what's inside the book, but to set a tone for what's to come — much like how title sequences telegraph a mood in movies. I see covers as "postcards" from the book to the reader, and, as such, they should not try to be all-encompassing.

Several challenges struck me when considering a cover design for the subject of parentingand religion. Any ideas involving the visualization of God or religious references were quickly pushed aside in favor of a purely typographic approach. 

The design that developed for Relax, It's Just God: How and Why to Talk to Kids About Religion When Your Not Religious played up its humorously long title. In the final design, the larger letterforms of Relax, It's Just God take on the role of parents — strong and established. The letters in the subtitle — with elements disappearing behind the larger type — act as shy children looking out at the world from behind the legs of their guardians.

The bright yellow was also a considered choice. As this is the first publication from Brown Paper Press, I wanted to set a precedent that vivid color would be used on future publications and not the more obvious use of the color brown. I also wanted to introduce the white border on this cover and have it broken by the typography as a way to acknowledge the mission of this new and interesting publisher — to break the rules and represent challenging content.

It's visually (and literally) outside the box from the very start. 

•••••

Andrew Byrom is a British-born graphic designer and educator based in Long Beach, California. His clients have included The Architecture and Design Museum, The New York Times Magazine, Penguin Books, Sagmeister Inc., and UCLA Extension. His experimental and multi-disciplinary design work has been exhibited across the US, Europe and Asia and has been recognized by the AIGA and the Type Directors Club. Byrom is also a Professor at California State University Long Beach where he teaches classes in Graphic Design, Typography, and the History of Graphic Design. He can be found at www.andrewbyrom.com

'Relax' Featured on PBS NewsHour

PBS NewsHour correspondent Jeffrey Brown recently interviewed author Wendy Thomas Russell about her book, Relax, It's Just God: How and Why to Talk to Kids About Religion When You're Not Religious. We're incredibly proud of and grateful for the national exposure, given that Brown Paper Press is a startup indie press and very much still in its infancy. (Our frequent crying spells attest to that.)

Check out the clip at the PBS site, and if you're interested in more details, be sure to head over to Wendy's website to read more about her trip and tour of the NewsHour studios.