My visit with the Ueberreuter Verlag

As the winner of the uebersinnlich writing competition I was invited to visit my publishing house, the Ueberreuter Verlag, last Friday (February 10^th, 2017). Not only was I showed around the premises, I also got a workshop with best seller author Corina Bomann.

 

A big player in the publishing industry playing it low?

If you think about a major publishing house, you would expect something … well, big, impersonal, maybe even mass production. Our welcoming at the Ueberreuter Verlag was nothing like that. It was like being introduced into a big family where everyone is happy to meet you. Maybe 15-20 people work at the publishing house which is a lot less than I expected. On the other side, the publisher’s archive is so big, each office needs to host a part of it.

 

On Friday, the first order of business was inviting the three winners – which would be Jess A. Loup, Rebecca Andel and me – for lunch. The restaurant beneath the publishing house offered creative dishes such as yeast dough with plums and pumpkins, but was very delicious. After that, we got a real tour through the offices.

We get to know the three editors that know our projects by heart and won’t stop with well-meaning compliments. Then we get to know the girls from production and see all the new editions. Too bad that our novels will be E-Book only. In the marketing room though, everyone’s just as excited as us and so are the girls from distribution. Only the publisher himself is missing. Maybe next time.

 

A workshop going off course

The second part of our win was the workshop with Corina Bomann. Corina has been an author for the Ueberreuter Verlag for a long time and knows way around publishers and agents. On this Friday she not only wants to give us tips about capitalising on our recent success, but also invite us to create worlds, characters and plots with her. While we’re at it, we spend so much time on excited chatter that we forget all about the tasks ahead of us.

 

Instead we learn a lot about Corina’s path to success, blabber on about our own plans and dreams and get a notion about where to go from here. The doors of the book world are wide open. Now, it’s our turn to make it work. Nevertheless, Corina and the Ueberreuter Verlag have offered us their valuable time and help and we’re happy to have such great mentors at our side. Maybe a little too happy. Let’s see!

 

Goodies over goodies

But if you thought that that was everything, you (and I then) couldn’t be further off. At the end of the workshop we got ourselves some beautiful diplomas which we had to present to the camera of course. Then there was a bag so full off books and goodies that I almost failed carrying it safely home.

 

But the absolute highlight was the Wall of Fame. On that wall all the authors and illustrators under the publisher have written their names and we were allowed to add ours. Not only that, Mobs got its place of honour as well and who knows, maybe Mobs will not only decorate the wall of Ueberreuter but some book pages in the near future.

I want to thank Kathleen Neumann and her team for the beautiful afternoon, all those gifts and tips, and hopes you’ve passed onto us. It was great visiting you and I’m looking forward to a repeat.

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