OR Books is a

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-based independent publishing house founded by John Oakes and Colin Robinson in 2009. The company sells digital and print-on-demand books directly to the customer and focuses on creative promotion through traditional media and the Internet. On its site, OR Books states that it "embraces progressive change in politics, culture and the way we do business." Not long after its founding in 2009, OR Books became known for publishing '' Going Rouge:

Sarah Palin Sarah Louise Palin (; Heath; born February 11, 1964) is an American politician, commentator, and author who served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until her resignation in 2009. She was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nomi ...

, An American Nightmare'', a parody of Palin's autobiography '' Going Rogue: An American Life''. ''Going Rouge'' became a

best-seller A bestseller is a book or other media noted for its top selling status, with bestseller lists published by newspapers, magazines, and book store chains. Some lists are broken down into classifications and specialties (novel, nonfiction book, cookb ...

as per ''

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''. Since then, the company has published books by

Julian Assange Julian Paul Assange ( ; Hawkins; born 3 July 1971) is an Australian editor, publisher, and activist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006. He came to international attention in 2010 after WikiLeaks published a series of News leak, leaks from Chels ...

, Moustafa Bayoumi, Medea Benjamin,

Patrick Cockburn Patrick Oliver Cockburn ( ; born 5 March 1950) is a journalist who has been a Middle East correspondent for the ''Financial Times'' since 1979 and, from 1990, ''The Independent''. He has also worked as a correspondent in Moscow and Washington ...

, Sue Coe,

Simon Critchley Simon Critchley (born 27 February 1960) is an English philosopher and the Hans Jonas Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City, U.S.A. Biography Critchley was born on 27 February 1960, in Letchworth, Engl ...

, Lisa Dierbeck,

Ariel Dorfman Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman (born May 6, 1942) is an Argentine-Chilean- American novelist, playwright, essayist, academic and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American s ...

Norman Finkelstein Norman Gary Finkelstein ( ; born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist and activist. His primary fields of research are the politics of the Holocaust and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Finkelstein was born in New York Cit ...

Laura Flanders Laura Flanders (born 5 December 1961) is an English broadcast journalist living in the United States who presents the weekly, long-form interview show ''The Laura Flanders Show''. Flanders has described herself as a "lefty person". The brothers ...

, Chris Lehmann, Gordon Lish,

Bill McKibben William Ernest McKibben (born December 8, 1960)"Bill Ernest McKibben." ''Environmental Encyclopedia''. Edited by Deirdre S. Blanchfield. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, December 31, 2017. is a ...

Eileen Myles Eileen Myles (born December 9, 1949) is an American poet and writer who has produced more than twenty volumes of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, libretti, plays, and performance pieces over the last three decades. Novelist Dennis Cooper has des ...

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono (, usually spelled in katakana as ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York ...

Barney Rosset Barnet Lee "Barney" Rosset, Jr. (May 28, 1922 – February 21, 2012) was a pioneering American book and magazine publisher. An avant-garde taste maker, he founded Grove Press in 1951 and ''Evergreen Review'' in 1957, both of which gave him platf ...

Douglas Rushkoff Douglas Mark Rushkoff (born February 18, 1961) is an American media theorist, writer, columnist, lecturer, graphic novelist, and documentarian. He is best known for his association with the early cyberpunk culture and his advocacy of open-source ...

, Elissa Shevinsky, Burhan Sönmez, Jeanne Thornton,

Slavoj Žižek Slavoj Žižek ( ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, Global Distin ...

, and others.

Founders

According to OR's website, John Oakes co-founded the publishing company

Four Walls Eight Windows Four Walls Eight Windows was an American independent book publisher in New York City. Known as 4W8W or Four Walls, the company was notable for its dual commitment to progressive politics and adventurous, edgy literary fiction. History Four W ...

and was subsequently publisher of

Thunder's Mouth Press Perseus Books Group was an American publishing company founded in year 1996 by investor Frank Pearl. Perseus acquired the trade publishing division of Addison-Wesley (including the Merloyd Lawrence imprint) in 1997. In 2005, Perseus acquired ...

and co-publisher of Nation Books. He is publisher of the '' Evergreen Review''. Colin Robinson, a former senior editor at Scribner, was previously managing director of

Verso Books Verso Books (formerly New Left Books) is a publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of ''New Left Review'' (NLR) and includes Tariq Ali and Perry Anderson on its board of directors. According to its webs ...

and publisher of

The New Press The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André SchiffrinReid, Calvin (December 2, 2013)"New Press Founder André Schiffrin Dead at 78" ''Publishers Weekly''. Accessed August 1, 2014. (Chev ...

Joint ventures

In September 2010, OR Books announced a partnership with a writers' collective known as Mischief & Mayhem, whose members include Dale Peck, Lisa Dierbeck, Joshua Furst, DW Gibson, and Choire Sicha. In what the industry newsblog

Shelf Awareness Shelf Awareness is an American publishing company that produces two e-zines focused on bookselling, books, and book reviews: ''Shelf Awareness'' is aimed at general consumers, while ''Shelf Awareness Pro'' caters for industry professionals. ...

termed a "very significant...move," St. Mark’s Bookshop and OR Books announced a joint venture to enable the store’s customers to buy select books on OR’s list from the bookstore’s website. In April 2016, OR Books acquired UK publishing company

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, following the death in 2015 of its founder Stephen Hayward, a former associate of Robinson's. In May 2016, OR Books and

Counterpoint Press Counterpoint LLC was a publishing company that Perseus Books Group launched in 2007. It was formed from the consolidation of three presses: Perseus' Counterpoint Press, Shoemaker & Hoard, and Soft Skull Press. The company published books under b ...

announced a partnership whereby Counterpoint would put several OR titles into stores."Counterpoint, OR Books Partner on New Fall List"
''Publishers Weekly'', May 5, 2016.

References

External links

Company site

OR Books
on Facebook. * John Oakes

''Publishers Weekly'', May 18, 2012. * Colin Robinson

''The New York Times'', January 4, 2014.
Mischief + Mayhem
* Kat Meyer

August 7, 2010. Interview with John Oakes on O'Reilly Media's TOC (Tools of Change for Publishing).

January 3, 2011. * Jim Barnes
"Indie Groundbreaking Publisher: OR Books — A Brave New Publishing Model"
''Independent Publisher'' article about the success of ''Going Rouge''.
Interview with Colin Robinson on NPR's On the Media
* Chad W. Post
"OR Books Preaches Elegant Direct Model"
''Publishing Perspectives'', October 6, 2010.

Nola.com, November 15, 2011 (showdown between OR co-publisher John Oakes and Random House editor). * Dennis Sweeney
"Interview with Colin Robinson, Co-Founder, OR Books"
''Entropy Magazine'', January 2014. {{Authority control Book publishing companies based in New York (state) Political book publishing companies Publishing companies based in New York City Small press publishing companies Publishing companies established in 2009 2009 establishments in New York City American companies established in 2009