In April, OBS and its subsidiary Protean Press will attend the London Book Fair with the goal to seek out publishing partners for new Protean Press titles. We will be:

• Selling paperback, foreign, and other sub rights and licenses to Joe Garland’s “Unknown Soldiers: Reliving World War II in Europe,” which has been published to much acclaim in the USA and is now in its second printing.
• Advancing a new 2010 title, Anne Cabot Wyman’s “Kipling’s Cat: A Memoir of My Father,” wherein the author remembers her Father, Jeffries Wyman – scientist (inventor of the scientific discipline allostery), painter, writer, Boston “Blue Blood” and free spirit — as she knew and loved him. A most unconventional and honest book. 

OBS has been serving the publishing industry since 1982. Now we are poised to create a new model for publishing companies and the professionals who keep the industry alive.

Our president, Laura Fillmore, is visiting Germany this week for the Frankfurt Book Fair and for the annual conference of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM), which OBS has just joined. At the Book Fair, we’re participating with the Independent Publishers Guild (IPG) at Hall 8.0, Stands A935 & A936, and we’re also displaying Unknown Soldiers: Reliving World War II in Europe with the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) at Hall 8.0, Stand K913. If you’re in Frankfurt and you’d like to meet Laura to discuss foreign rights for Unknown Soldiers or OBS’s latest e-publishing initiatives and what we can do for your organization, e-mail her or call her at +1-978-502-5937.

The latest endeavor of Protean Press, Joseph E. Garland’s Unknown Soldiers: Reliving World War II in Europe, is hot off the press. This collective memoir of the author’s Intelligence & Reconnaissance platoon, which staked out the front lines of battles through Sicily, Italy, southern France, and Germany, has been more than 60 years in the making. It weaves together Garland’s own wartime journal entries, his memories looking back on the war, and interviews with his comrades and with a survivor of Dachau, which was liberated by his outfit.

The official release date is November 11, but meanwhile, signed copies of the book are on sale now through the book’s website. The website’s podcast offerings will add an extra dimension to readers’ experience of the work: audio excerpts of Joe reading his own words, interspersed with clips from his original interviews with buddies, many of whom had remained silent about their war until Joe came to talk about it in the 1970s, bourbon and tape recorder in hand.

Already, Unknown Soldiers has garnered a starred review in Library Journal, which calls it “highly engaging … an excellent narrative history of the [U.S. 45th Infantry] division during World War II, as well as a personal reckoning. A must have for any World War II collection, especially those focusing on war memoirs.”

In keeping with our mission to help valuable content get to market—taking full advantage of the latest informational technology, in an affordable and efficient way—OBS is in discussion with a major software vendor to create a unique “sandbox” environment. This initiative would give small- and mid-sized organizations access to publishing and distribution software on a project-by-project basis, without the need for an enterprise-wide investment. Stay tuned for updates in the winter of 2008–2009.