Around the Press in 80 Books: Casanova Was a Book Lover

In celebration of LSUP’s 80th anniversary the staff selected 80 of our most memorable titles. Adding to our “Around the Press in 80 Books” blog series, Assistant to the Director Erica Bossier writes about Casanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling, and Reading of Books.

Unlike many others at the Press, the focus of my work is on our books after they are printed, since subsidiary rights and permissions inquiries for scholarly books usually intensify after reviews of the books appear.

Working with our agents and the authors on these subrights is exciting, especially for translations. Think about all the countries around the world with books originally published by LSU Press!

Casanova Was a Book Lover: And Other Naked Truths and Provocative Curiosities about the Writing, Selling, and Reading of Books by John Maxwell Hamilton, which we published in 2000, provided me with some of my favorite subrights experiences in over 20 years working at the Press.  Publishers from many countries wanted to translate and print editions of this funny, informative, and accessible book, and that gave me the opportunity for new experiences with foreign publishers.

This book is definitely a book for people who love books and want to know about their history, so so it was especially satisfying to be involved and see the amazing range of positive responses and praise it earned.

Sometimes subsidiary rights can be frustrating, since we receive a lot of requests for consideration that fall through, but working on Casanova Was a Book Lover was exhilarating.

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