OR Books

OR Books is a New York City-based independent publishing house founded by John Oakes and Colin Robinson in 2009.[1] The company sells digital and print-on-demand books directly to the customer and focuses on creative promotion through traditional media and the Internet.[2] On its site, OR Books states that it "embraces progressive change in politics, culture and the way we do business."

OR Books
Founded2009
FounderJohn Oakes and Colin Robinson
Country of originUnited States
Headquarters locationNew York City, New York
DistributionConsortium Book Sales
Publication typesBooks
Official websitewww.orbooks.com

Not long after its founding in 2009, OR Books became known for publishing Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare, a parody of Palin's autobiography Going Rogue: An American Life. Going Rouge became a best-seller as per The New York Times. Since then the company has published books by Julian Assange, Moustafa Bayoumi, Medea Benjamin, Patrick Cockburn, Sue Coe, Simon Critchley, Lisa Dierbeck, Ariel Dorfman, Norman Finkelstein, Laura Flanders, Chris Lehmann, Gordon Lish, Bill McKibben, Eileen Myles, Yoko Ono, Barney Rosset, Douglas Rushkoff, Elissa Shevinsky, Burhan Sönmez, Jeanne Thornton, Slavoj Žižek, and others.

Founders

According to OR's website, John Oakes co-founded the publishing company Four Walls Eight Windows and was subsequently publisher of Thunder's Mouth Press and co-publisher of Nation Books. He is publisher of the Evergreen Review. Colin Robinson, a former senior editor at Scribner, was previously managing director of Verso Books and publisher of The New Press.

Joint ventures

In September 2010, OR Books announced a partnership with a writers' collective known as Mischief & Mayhem, whose members include Dale Peck, Lisa Dierbeck, Joshua Furst, DW Gibson, and Choire Sicha.[3]

In what the industry newsblog Shelf Awareness termed a "very significant...move," St. Mark’s Bookshop and OR Books announced a joint venture to enable the store’s customers to buy select books on OR’s list from the bookstore’s website.[4][5]

In April 2016, OR Books acquired UK publishing company Serif, following the death in 2015 of its founder Stephen Hayward, a former associate of Robinson's.[6][7][8][9]

In May 2016, OR Books and Counterpoint Press announced a partnership whereby Counterpoint would put several OR titles into stores.[10]

References
  1. Crain's New York Business on the founding of OR Books
  2. "Oakes ’83 connects readers directly to a publisher", Princeton Alumni Weekly, March 2, 2011.
  3. Leon Neyfakh, "Dale Peck, Choire Sicha and Friends Start a Book Publishing Collective; First Title Out Next Month", New York Observer, September 10, 2010.
  4. "St. Mark's/OR Alliance", Shelf Awareness.
  5. Teicher, Craig Morgan (December 7, 2010). "OR Books Partners with St. Mark's Bookshop for E-Book Distribution". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
  6. "Press Release: New York-Based OR Books Acquires Serif Books", BookBusiness, April 11, 2016.
  7. "Welcome to OR Books".
  8. Calvin Reid, "OR Books Acquires U.K.'s Serif Books", Publishers Weekly, April 14, 2016.
  9. "OR Books Acquires Serif Books", Shelf Awareness, April 15, 2016.
  10. "Counterpoint, OR Books Partner on New Fall List", Publishers Weekly, May 5, 2016.
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