[AT WORK]
Henry Bennett >> "I enjoy the thought of both preserving and sharing ideas. Books, especially educational or scholarly books like those we produce at Kamehameha Schools Press, take knowledge and ideas developed by one or more individuals and translate it into something to be used and enjoyed by thousands of others. People learn about life from books. Plus, in book publishing at Kamehameha Schools, there's the bonus of giving back to the Hawaiian community. Book publisher
Sharing knowledge and meeting
authors among the perks of the job
By Burl Burlingame
bburlingame@starbulletin.com"Good-quality books produced are now expected to last roughly four hundred years, so we're sharing the best of our thoughts with those who will be following us. Books are something we leave behind for generations to come.
"In book publishing you get to work with some really interesting people. Generally, when you're working with an author, you are working with someone with tremendous expertise in their special field, often a top expert. Book writers are always out of the ordinary -- lots of people talk about writing books, but only a few actually follow though.
"No two books are ever the same. There's always the challenge of bringing so many disparate elements together -- writing, editing, design, production, marketing, and management -- to make another book.
"There's also a special pleasure in producing something durable and real, something you can find in libraries and bookstores and pick up and enjoy the sight, the smell, the feel of -- and to be able to know that you were a part of making that book happen."
At Work is a weekly feature that shows and tells what people do for a living in their own words. Send comments and submissions to business@starbulletin.com.