Hi, and welcome to the ASTD Press books blog! I am sure you want to know a bit more about this blog, so I got some time to sit down and interview myself and try to answer some of your questions.
TE: Hi, thanks for taking the time to give me this interview. Why a blog about ASTD Press books?
TE: You're welcome. I think of this blog as an opportunity to connect the ASTD Press audience a little more closely and personally with what we do at the Press. I'd to talk about what we are doing, the books and Infolines that we are working on and have published, what's going on with some of our authors, and perhaps a little something about what's going on in publishing in general.
I'd also like to get the chance to hear a bit more from the ASTD books audience. What kinds of books would they like to see? What do they think about some of the books that we have published and why? Also, what are their opinions about certain controversial and/or high-profile topics in the field of workplace learning and performance? For instance, expect a post in the near future that talks about the differences between ASTD's definition of talent management and Larry Israelite's definition. (ASTD Press will be publishing Larry's book on the topic in January 2010.)
TE: What is ASTD Press?
TE: ASTD Press is the American Society for Training & Development's publishing department, and we publish 18-24 books and 12 Infolines per year. We are a team of nine great people who find interesting and talented authors and topics; work with these authors to hone their books and Infolines; manage publishing projects, which involves editing, proofreading, working with designers on text and cover designs, and working with printers; and disseminate books through a wide variety of channels. (There's more to it, but I could probably go on all day.) Our work ranges from the big-picture scale of book ideas and content that will be meaningful and valuable to our audience to the itty-bitty details of widows, orphans, and misplaced commas that mean the difference between quality we can be proud of and, well, something not so high in quality.
TE: Who am I?
TE: My name is Tora Estep. I am a senior associate editor with ASTD Press, and I have been with ASTD for almost seven years. I've worked as the editor of Infoline, written some (I think) funny articles for T+D, and managed book projects. My proudest accomplishment at ASTD was working as project manager with Elaine Biech on The ASTD Handbook for Workplace Learning Professionals, to which I also contributed two chapters. The quality of this book is phenomenal, from the content to the package. In working on this book, I probably read the whole thing at least three times (it's 928 pages so that took a chunk out of my day) and was amazed again and again at the incisiveness of the content and the consistency of the themes that emerged from so many disparate writers. That's a real tribute to Elaine as well as the 60 authors who contributed to the book.
