This user has been on Wikipedia for 8 years, 8 months and 12 days.
My Wikipedia hobby gives me the enjoyment of spending time poking around in books and magazine archives. I enjoy researching the history of publishing and books. Publishing companies come and go--every book is its own product, and by studying publishing history, you can also learn about ideas and trends that have shaped our world.
As a child I liked to pour over my Dad's old National Geographic magazines. While studying for my college courses--I discovered a stack of bound Life Magazines in the University Library. I could spend hours combing through the old magazines with their pictures and ads. One of my first jobs was managing a bookstore, which allowed me to be surrounded by books and magazines and discover the ebb and flow of publishing trends. I was fascinated to see which books sold and which stayed on the shelves, and then I was also fascinated to watch particular areas of the store expand and contract as buying trends changed.
After managing retail bookstores for a few years--I completed my B.A. in Organizational Communications. I exited college at the start of the dotcom era, and my first post-college job was as an editorial assistant for a small publishing company called Prima Publishing. Because I wouldn't stop giving my opinions on what I thought we should publish, I was promoted to acquisitions editor--the person at a publishing company who determines which books and authors to publish. At Prima, I acquired video game strategy guides, eventually moving to several technology publishers and acquired all kinds of how-to technology books.
I moved to the Pacific Northwest to work for Microsoft in their publishing division and later their training division, Microsoft Learning. From there, I grew interested in the growing online video training market and landed at Lynda.com, where I held several content strategy roles. Lynda was acquired by LinkedIn in 2016, and then LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft.
Recommended Books on the History of Media and Publishingedit
Korda, Michael. Another Life: A Memoir of Other People. New York: Random House, 1999. Print.
Mott, Franklin Luther. Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United States. New York: R. R. Bowker Company, 1947. Print
Silverman, Al. The Time of Their Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors, and Authors. New York: Truman Talley, 2008. Print.
Tarnoff, Benjamin. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. Penguin Books.
Weinberg, Steve. Taking on the Trust: The Epic Battle of Ida Tarbell and John D. Rockefeller. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.
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