I assist authors, agents, publishers and publication departments in turning ideas and manuscripts into books. My work includes manuscript evaluations, re-writing or ghost writing of proposals and manuscripts, and book editing from the conceptual and organizational to copyediting. I’ve had much experience with books in translation and maintain extensive contacts among agents, editors, and publishers. I work on an hourly or project fee basis or for a percentage of royalties, depending on the project. Together with my wife, Elisabeth Kaestner, I also provide translation services from the German.

Background

In 30+ years in the book publishing business, I have served as Editor, Editorial Director, or Editor-in-Chief at such publishing companies as St. Martin’s Press, E.P. Dutton and Kodansha America.  I have extensive trade publishing contacts in America, Europe, and some in Japan, and I am fluent in German, French and Italian. 

From 1990 to 1995 I served as Editor-in-Chief and then Editorial Director of Kodansha America, and helped build Kodansha’s New York-based publishing operation, which won the 1994 LMP Adult Trade Corporate Award; while there I personally oversaw the editorial, editorial production, design, manufacturing and foreign rights departments.  During 12 years at E.P. Dutton I was involved in all aspects of a broad publishing program including quality fiction, literature, general nonfiction, translations, and the extensive line of books on spirituality and consciousness.

Since 1997 I have co-published a quarterly in the Rhinebeck-Red Hook-Hudson area of New York state entitled AboutTown devoted to small town life (www.abouttown.us). Since 1996 I have served as the project manager/editorial consultant on the Bard Music Festival volume of essays about a specific composer published every year by Princeton University Press.

I have particular interest and expertise in history, current affairs, music, biography, religion, translations, and popular science. Authors I have worked with include the Delany sisters, Mike Royko, Eric Kraft, Peter Guralnick, Barbara Pym, Jorge Luis Borges, Alexander Dubcek, Sarah Rossbach and Lin Yun, Wataru Ohashi, Bill Griffith, Tiziano Terzani, Peter Vallone.

List of Recent Publications