ABOUT MEL PARKER BOOKS

Mel Parker Books, LLC is both a book packaging firm and a literary agency.

As a full-service book producer/packager, we specialize in major practical nonfiction, developing titles for individuals, brands, and institutional entities. In our capacity as a book producer and book packager, we create original ideas for books, develop and finance publishing proposals, and deliver fully edited manuscripts or complete electronic files to publishers. Some packaged books include The Structure House Weight Loss Plan for Fireside/Simon & Schuster, One Minute Manners for Doubleday/Broadway, and the American Medical Association Complete Guide to Prevention and Wellness for John Wiley & Sons.

As a literary agency, we also represent authors for projects they bring to us, focusing primarily on high-profile narrative nonfiction, current affairs, science, psychology, lifestyle, and biography. Agented titles include newsmaking nonfiction such as the forthcoming Empire of the Mind: The Dawn of the Techno-Political Age by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen (Knopf), The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century by Dickson Despommier (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press), and Locavesting: The Revolution in Local Investing and How to Profit from It by Amy Cortese (Wiley).

We are always looking for high-profile, media-savvy authors who are thought leaders in their fields of expertise, and who have a unique and marketable message or story that can be conveyed across multiple platforms--from speaking engagements to radio and television appearances to online media.

In both capacities, either as a book producer commissioning and developing our own original projects from start to finish, or as a literary agency representing clients on the sales of their own proposals and manuscripts, Mel Parker Books works with all our authors through every phase of the publishing process, including promotion, marketing and licensing.

BOOK AND AUTHOR NEWS

ERIC SCHMIDT AND JARED COHEN'S EMPIRE OF THE MIND: The Dawn of the Techno-Political Age, was sold to Sonny Mehta at Knopf. EMPIRE OF THE MIND is an examination of how technology can be used to influence global politics, showing how connection technologies -- the tools that connect people both to vast amounts of information and to each other -- can create what Winston Churchill called an "Empire of the Mind," the democratic world that can only be secured by building coalitions of the connected. Rights sold in the UK, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, Brazil, Portugal, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. Audio rights to Audible.

DICKSON DESPOMMIER, author of the THE VERTICAL FARM: Feeding the World in the 21st Century (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press), was recently interviewed by ABC.com and NPR in Los Angeles. Simplified Chinese rights were sold to Hunan Science and Technology Publishing House. Tantor Media also bought audio rights. Traditional Character rights have sold to Marco Polo Press in Taiwan, and Japanese rights have sold, at auction, to NTT Shuppan. He recently appeared at the Seoul Digital Forum, IdeaCity in Toronto, and the Manchester International Festival. The paperback edition of THE VERTICAL FARM will be published by Picador in October. Vertical Farms have been erected in Holland, Japan and Korea.

LOCAVESTING: The Revolution in Local Investing and How to Profit from It by journalist Amy Cortese, who coined the term "Locavestors" in the New York Times Magazine Year in Ideas issue, was sold to Deb Englander at Wiley and was published in June. Amy Cortese appeared on the Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, and will be featured in a segment on Locavesting on PBS's Need to Know in September. Recent endorsements include:

          “An inspiring look at what local businesses can achieve.”

               --Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics

          “Investing locally makes sense as long as you do it with your eyes wide open. And this book is a realistic, up-to-the-minute exploration of the field. After all, it was the local community that invested in Ben & Jerry’s—and it worked out pretty well for them.”

               --Ben Cohen, cofounder of Ben & Jerry’s

DO I GET MY ALLOWANCE BEFORE OR AFTER I'M GROUNDED? by Vanessa Van Petten, a teen parenting expert who has appeared on CNN, and whose blog, RadicalParenting.com, is read by over 300,000 unique visitors per month, was sold to Meghan Stevenson at Plume, which will publish the book on August 30th. Vanessa was just named a parent-teen columnist for CNN.com., and she will be featured on the TODAY Show, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune and Family Circle in September. Publishers Weekly said:

          "Van Petten, founder of the popular Web site RadicalParenting.com, offers parents a candid view of the contemporary teen's world in this eye-opening text. Van Petten uses actual stories about teens and their often anxious, angry, or befuddled parents to introduce each chapter. Pointing out that she is neither a parent nor a teen (nor a doctor, therapist, or counselor), the college-grad author has nevertheless earnestly investigated her subject and includes current research on teens as well as hundreds of "real quotes, interviews, e-mails and advice from actual teens." Van Petten explores a variety of timely subjects, including peer relationships, teen/parent communication, bullying, technology, and "risky business" (smoking, drinking, sex, and more). Her outlook on technology and "Internet savvy" is particularly incisive, emphasizing not only the hazards of "time-suck" activities (i.e., Facebook, chatting on IM, and texting) but also the many social and academic benefits of the digital universe. Like a crafty spy, Van Petten comfortably segues from parent to teen perspective, and while noting that each adolescent is unique, she skillfully opens doors to the collective teen psyche."