Ridenbaugh Press publishes books, up to about a dozen a year. We also provide services for authors and self-publishers: Manuscript editing and review, and technical assistance with the many tasks associated with publishing.
We’re a small organization, which means we take on only a limited number of projects. But it also means every project gets close personal attention, and the Press’ founder, Randy Stapilus, works personally on every one.
Every book needs a good editing review; the most experienced and best selling of authors will tell you how at sea they would be otherwise. We can provide this help.
And anyone starting out in the complex process of book publishing may find that hiring expertise is not only less time consuming but also less costly than the attempt to do it alone.
We provide these services for specific fees. Separately, we take on a limited number of books for publication under the Ridenbaugh Press imprint, in which case (in the mode of traditional publishing) we charge no fees at all, but do accept only a limited number of projects per year. We require these books must meet certain standards – chiefly, a manuscript at least nearly ready for publication and an overall book project we think has commercial viability.
You can find more detail here about these services:
BOOK PUBLISHING if you have a book you’re interested in submitting to Ridenbaugh Press for publication.
EDITING SERVICES if you need manuscript planning, editing or evaluation.
PUBLISHING SERVICES if you’d like to publish yourself, but could use advice for help for a process you can undertake independently, but is quite complex with an intensive learning curve.
Why Ridenbaugh Press?
We’ve been publishing books since 1988, and in recent years have been publishing about eight to ten a year. They have ranged from reference books to columns about motherhood to military memoirs to regional history. We’ve worked on every stage of development with all of our books (excepting a couple we brought back to publication after other publishers let them go out of print), which has given us current experience and expertise about how every part of a book’s development relates to every other. When we read a manuscript, we evaluate it not only for the quality of writing and its approach to its subject, but also with an eye to how it will fare through design, printing, marketing and other stages. Many other book editors are fully capable at copy editing, but relatively few bring to bear the big-picture background in book publishing we do.
Our experience in publishing is broad and extensive.
Randy Stapilus has written a half-dozen books traditionally published by two publishing companies (the majority by the large publisher Rowan and Littefield), and three of those books are in second editions. We’re well familiar with traditional book editing and the publication process. Stapilus just finished editing a new edition of one of his books and a first edition of another, both expected for release in the winter of 2015-16.
But since 1988 he also has published through Ridenbaugh Press, taking the process from book conception, research and writing to editing, layout and design, technical and registry work, printing, marketing and more. Ridenbaugh Press also has published books by more than a dozen other authors, working with them on most of these stages. We’ve published not only trade paperback books but also hardback books and e-Books, in a variety of formats, as well. We’ve worked, in other words, in every aspect of the book writing, editing and publication process, for many years.
We launched our book publication services in 1990 with a project for the Idaho Law Foundation, a book about the history of that state’s court system, Justice for the Times. We edited chapters written by state Supreme Court justices and veteran attorneys – a careful piece of work, but one praised by participants. We also prepared the book for publication and oversaw its printing and delivery.
Our second major project was for another book, Harvesting Dollars, published under the Ridenbaugh Press imprint but developed for a businessman, Larry Eastland.
We have continued editing and publication work on a range of book projects ever since. We have worked over a number of years with organizations including Oracle Corporation, the International Public Management Association for Human Resources, the National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council, the National Association of State Auditors Comptrollers & Treasurers and others – collecting and editing manuscripts from a wide range of authors, and processing them into finished, and shipped, books.
Through the rapid changes in the book publishing world in recent years we’ve taken care to keep current. Stapilus is a regular contributing writer at the website of BookWorks, a national (New York-based) association for self-published affiliated with Publishers Weekly, the trade publication for the industry. Stapilus is also finishing work on a book on book marketing for small publishers.
He has been a professional writer since 1976 as a newspaper reporter and editor (most often covering politics and writing editorials) for several daily newspapers. He continues to write a weekly newspaper column, and has written as well for magazines, reference books, websites, newsletters and other outlets, and has ghostwritten several books as well. His wife Linda Watkins, who also copy edits at Ridenbaugh Press, has worked him on many of these projects, and over the last 30 years has edited copy as a magazine editor, public information officer, advertising agency copy editor and even as a proofreader for state legislation.
Our small size and low overhead have allowed us to keep our prices competitive – lower than many.
Your book will benefit strongly if you put these decades of well-rounded experience to work for you.