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'''Dorrance Publishing''' is an author services company that markets publishing services directly to individual authors. Since 1920, the company has worked with thousands of authors to create a finished book from their completed manuscript, introduce it to the marketplace, and fulfill orders. The company’s vision statement is, "Building Lasting Relationships, One Satisfied Author at a Time," |
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The company operates from its headquarters building in Pittsburgh in the historic Triangle Building in the heart of the Cultural Center next to [[August Wilson Center for African American Culture]]. |
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Dorrance celebrated its ninety-year anniversary in 2010. John Gordon Dorrance (1890-1957) originally founded the company in 1920. Throughout its history, Dorrance has had only five owners; all have held the company for long periods of time. |
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The Dorrance family owned and operated the company for five decades, then during the 1960s the ad agency Dorrance had worked with in promoting its books, Briggs & Associates, purchased the company. After a number of years Anthony Parrotto, who was the ad agency’s accountant, bought the firm and took on the role of president until the early 1980s. While building Dorrance, Parrotto had spun off a new ad agency and printing firm, The Kingswood Group, and wanted to direct more of his energies into the development of that other business. Elizabeth and Robert House, both of whom had many years of experience in traditional publishing, then purchased the company from Parrotto. Finally in 1989, a successful Pittsburgh businessman, who had founded and owned several businesses in Pittsburgh, purchased the Dorrance name, assets, and inventory. Elizabeth House stayed on as managing director for sixteen years. From its first location in downtown Philadelphia, to Ardmore and Bryn Mawr on the Main Line, the company moved in 1989 to western Pennsylvania and took up headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh, where it remains to this day. |
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On August 6, 2010, the date of the company’s 90th anniversary, the company donated the first copy of the very first edition published by the company to the University of Pennsylvania’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library for archiving and preservation. Elizabeth H. House, former Managing Director of Dorrance and previous owner of the firm, presented the edition to Daniel Traister, Curator Research Services of the Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library and Lynne Farrington, Curator of Printed Books. |
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An original letter from John Gordon Dorrance, the company founder, which confirms the book’s authenticity, accompanied the first edition, Broken Shackles by John Gordon. Broken Shackles, a novel, is unlike many of the Dorrance titles already archived at the University of Pennsylvania’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which are volumes of poetry. |
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In 1955 Dorrance published a volume of poetry titled Ommateum by A. R. Ammons. This collection helped establish Ammons’ career as he went on to win the National Book Award in 1972 and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award in 1981. The 1950s also featured Dorrance in the then new medium of TV as Lucy Ricardo wrote and submitted a novel to Dorrance on Episode 90 of “I Love Lucy.” |
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After receiving rejection notices from traditional publishers, Doris Paul published her seminal work, Navajo Code Talkers, with Dorrance in 1973. This book, having sold almost 100,000 copies over the years, is still in print with Dorrance. It has been featured by the Smithsonian Institution, was the subject of four segments of CBS’s “An American Portrait” series, and provided the basis for a major motion picture released by MGM Studios in 2002 titled Wind Talkers. The book and movie tell the dramatic story of the courageous and critically important platoon of American Marines who were instrumental in cracking the Japanese code during World War II. |
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[[Ken Bruen]], a popular and highly acclaimed mystery writer who has been a finalist for the Edgar, Barry, and Macavity Awards and the winner of the Shamus Award for best novel in 2003, published his first book with Dorrance twenty years ago. |
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Over the years Dorrance has been at the forefront of the technological advances that have transformed the book publishing industry. In the 1960s, when typesetting was first becoming computerized, Dorrance embraced the change and purchased its own typesetting equipment before most publishers would consider the new approach. During the 1990s, when higher quality laser printers became available and could be used in conjunction with offset presses, Dorrance began to experiment with creating its own repro for cameras that produced negatives that were then chemically burned into plastic plates. Later in that decade, Dorrance became the first subsidy publishing company to use print-on-demand technology. Today when the technological explosion is changing the marketplace with high quality e-readers, Dorrance publishes all its titles in both conventional paper format and in all the popular e-reader formats, so that all Dorrance titles are available for purchase electronically. It creates formats that would be suitable for reading on e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader, the iPhone and other cellular smart phones, the iPad, the Nook, personal computers, laptops, personal digital assistants, and other electronic reading devices. |
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Likewise in the area of promotion, while forty years ago Dorrance press releases, media letters, and flyers were reproduced on a mimeograph machine and placed in the mail, today the company utilizes the Internet for much of its book promotion efforts. Dorrance’s use of e-mail to targeted lists, online press releases, a book review web site for reviewers to request copies of books, social networking, virtual book tours, and online bookstores represent an approach to promotion that utilizes the most up-to-date technology available. |
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==External links== |
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* [http://www.dorrancepublishing.com/ Dorrance Publishing website] |
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[[Category:Book publishing companies of the United States]] |
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[[Category:Companies established in 1920]] |
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[[Category:Companies based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]] |
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