Our Services
Simply put, we do publications. Whether you want to publish an open-source electronic journal, a best-selling trade book, or publish a monthly magazine, we can help. Want help with a publications management system on the web? We've done it. Need a special booklet to impress your core market? We can help you design, write, and produce it. You don't need it on paper, but want an electronic version that can be printed out? Let us help you with it. Want to produce a keepsake book for an exhibit or special occasion? We've done it.
We've been doing publications for more than 25 years for a wide variety of clients, from fortune 10 companies to world-class museums, to single-book publishers. We even helped a retired politician with his memoirs. Read on to learn more about what we've done. Shoot us an e-mail. It's likely we can help.
Magazine and Book Production
Book production has changed more in the last two decades than since its inception, and, in the process, has become infinitely more complicated. Today’s production expert must have specialized knowledge not only about traditional publishing areas (paper, presses, and typography), but also font technology, vector versus bitmapped graphics formats, coding methods, scripts, platforms, and a host of other electronic publishing information — even when the target publication is a traditional book or other publication.
At The Live Oak Press®, LLC, we're experienced in all these areas of production, from fine-press printing on an Albion hand press, to heat-set web printing of consumer magazines, to laser output on digital presses ("print on demand"). Our knowledge of electronic production methods and PDF file manipulation dates back more than twenty-five years, when TeX, minicomputers, and Osborne portables were state of the art.
Today, of course, we've moved beyond these old technologies. Our platform of choice is Macintosh, but we also work in other flavors of UNIX environments. Our expertise is broad and deep, and we specialize in:
- Production management of electronic and traditional books, magazines, calendars and reports
- Web archive development (especially large sites containing material that needs archival organization and access)
- Publication management (whether you're publishing a single book or creating a publishing program)
Editorial Services
The Live Oak Press®, LLC offers editorial services in a number of areas, including writing, copyediting, and editorial management.
Copyediting is handled by a number of seasoned professionals associated with The Live Oak Press®, LLC, many of whom have earned editing awards from the Society of Technical Editors.
Writing projects are generally handled by Live Oak Press® LLC President David Hamilton. A seasoned writer and long-time member of the Author's Guild, Hamilton has published several books, and contributed to many journals and magazines, (such as The Huntington Library Quarterly, Book Club of California Quarterly Newsletter, Research Guide to Biography and Criticism, Small Press Magazine, Survey of Fiction, Jack London Newsletter, Pacific Historian, IEEE Expert, and AI Magazine.) He also serves as director of publications for an international scientific society, where he advises the editors on publishing matters, aids in the crafting of polished books and magazines, and provides writing and editing services.
The services offered by The Live Oak Press®, LLC include the writing and polishing of books, articles, brochures, pamphlets, and catalogs, including corporate histories, marketing brochures, tutorials and primers, and informational booklets.
Examples of Completed Projects
- Primer on electronic publishing and digital graphics
- Marketing documents for a number of Fortune 50 companies
- Web site content for several profit-making and nonprofit companies
- Publication management
- Ongoing copyediting of a scientific magazine
- Compilation of a bibliography of the first ten years' products for a western US publisher
- Exhibit design, content development, and execution for a nonprofit museum
- Marketing copy for the trade and direct-mail catalogs of a San Francisco publisher
- Encyclopedia articles for a major New York reference book publisher
- Grant proposals for nonprofit groups
- Lectures delivered to groups throughout California
- Course design and outline for an education film on the impact of information systems on society
- Copyediting and source verification of a reference book for a western publisher
- Book management and editing for an eastern scientific association
- Compilation and writing of a bibliography of the library of a US author for publication by a scholarly publisher
- Sales force course materials for a Fortune 10 corporation
- Rewriting and editing of historical material for a nonprofit organization's annual keepsake publication
- Primer on object oriented programming
Research and Consulting
The secret of investigation and research is knowing where to look. It often takes an expert! Librarian David Hamilton (MLIS 1976, UCLA) has been preparing reports and information summaries on a variety of topics for more than twenty years. Having earned a specialization certificate in bibliography, Hamilton offers services including investigation, collection, compilation, and summary of information, literature searches, bibliographies and reading lists, photographic research, collection development, abstracts, publication procurement, and more. Examples of Completed Projects- An exhaustive report on the Santa Cruz mountain wine industry, prepared on behalf of a newly founded winery located in the area. The report included a bibliography of current and historical source material about the region, a listing of grapes grown in the area, and biographies of the original growers and vintners.
- Research, selection, and compilation of the photographs contained in a pictorial biography of a major American writer.
- Compilation of an annotated bibliography of the finest examples of California printing for a club keepsake.
- A report on the contents, market, and research value of the archive of a California writer, prepared for a major US research library.
- A bibliography and report on the impact of information systems on society.
- An archival inventory and finding list of the papers of a prominent literary figure.
- An informal history of a California nonprofit organization.