Carson publisher out to promote, respect imagination

She walked away protective of authors and indignant of big publishers. Deana Hoover's novel had been accepted but whittled down to a work she didn't feel was the same book.

"It was just entirely unpleasant," she said.

Hoover now has a slogan, "Independent books for independent minds," to go with her own publishing business, Carson City-based Box Sled Publishing, and is selling what she says are six original books by six creative authors.

The business had a book promotion party this week to support the authors.

"I get tired of walking into the big box store and shopping for a book and picking up one in any genre you can choose and it's the same as the book next to it and the book next to that one," she said.

The business - run by her and another editor - doesn't have an official office yet, but is looking for more authors. Anything creative, she said, excluding pornography and extreme horror.

The authors with Box Sled said they liked being with a small publisher.

Dennis Cassinelli, a Dayton landscaper and author of "Preserving Traces of the Great Basin Indians" said he tired of sending out manuscripts.

"Waiting for a big publisher to pick it up, you end up with a file cabinet full of rejection letters," he said. "Unless you have a million-copy seller it's kind of hard to get in with one of the bigger publishers."

Valerie Kneefel, author of the cook book and adventure "The Magic Cook," said she wanted to tell her story her own way.

"You lose your book (with a big publisher) and your rights to your book," she said. "You lose all the personality that you wanted to control with your own book."

Hoover wants to stock the authors' work in niche areas where they'll sell. Cassinelli's in museums, possibly, and Kneefel in children's museums.

She said they have specific audiences and she doesn't want them to get lost.

Marshall Brodeur, author of a book on dramatic timing, picked Box Sled because he thought it was a good match with his book. He scores movies, too, and said he knows what a rejection letter or bad review can be like.

"When you create anything and put it out there artistically, it's a child and you don't think it's perfect," he said. "You think it's perfect in a certain way until it's actually out there and it's like, oh."

Hoover said she wants authors to review the edits she does and make sure the book maintains its intent. Authors get to help in the cover design, too, which is printed by a contractor.

A book will stay the way it's supposed to if it has a talented enthusiastic author, she said, adding that the company won't make a book something it's not or create a good book where there isn't one to big with.

"I don't want to hack it to pieces and water it down to something it isn't," she said.

On the Net

www.boxsled.com