Best-selling Women Authors Power Peachpit's Publishing Success
Technology has traditionally been a
male-dominated market sector. But when it comes to explaining all that
complicated stuff, no one does it like the women writers of Peachpit
Press. In fact, they're the ones that make the complicated stuff - from
Web design and graphics applications to programming languages and more
- not only comprehensible but truly fun to learn and use.
Peachpit Press, the Berkeley-based
computer publisher operating since 1986, has been a Pearson company
since 1996, and has dominated the field of graphics publishing for more
than a decade. During that time, Peachpit Press has had more women
write more best-selling computer books than any other technology-based
publisher.
Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel
Nancy
Aldrich-Ruenzel took the helm of Peachpit in 1996 and steered the
company through five years of unprecedented growth. She is also a vital
part of what makes Peachpit tick: a strong author community, dedicated
staff, and the desire to make sure Peachpit continues to be one of the
most successful computer book publishing ventures. Nancy has served on
the boards of international graphics organizations, chaired and
presented at graphics and digital design conferences and judged
traditional and digital design and illustration competitions.
"Peachpit's publishing mission is to
help people learn - no matter what their learning style. And my
mission, as I see it, is to ensure Peachpit is a place where authors
and staff members really love to work."
Lynda Weinman
Known
to Web designers everywhere, Lynda Weinman is a Web design guru. She
runs her own training center in Ojai, California, and is author of
Peachpits' best-selling Lynda.com Hands-on Training series. Lynda's Web
site (www.lynda.com) garners over one million independent viewers each
month!
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Robin Williams
Writing as a single mom with three
kids, Robin has become one of the most popular tech writers around with
The Little Mac Book - currently in its eighth edition with more than 1
million copies in print. She has now written over twenty best-selling
and award-winning books including the classic 1994 Non-Designer's
Design Book.
Elizabeth Castro
Elizabeth Castro's HTML 4
for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide has topped every major
booksellers' best-sellers list and remains one of the most popular
computer books of all times, having taught hundreds of thousands how to
make their first Web page. Elizabeth was the technical editor for The
Macintosh Bible (fifth edition) and the founder of Página Uno, a
publishing house based in Barcelona, Spain.
Elaine Weinmann
Elaine Weinmann's best-selling
books on QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop have helped
establish the Visual QuickStart Guides as the most popular teaching
method available on the market today. Her trinity of best-sellers
includes book on QuarkXPress, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Her recipe
for success: "Our books are like computer cookbooks. The instructions
have to be clearly written, they must be tested very carefully for
errors, and the ingredients and measurements must be accurate - or the
cake will be a flop."
Maria Langer
Maria
Langer flies a helicopter. She rides in the rodeo. And when she's not
taming a beast - mechanical or mammal - she's busy writing books on the
MAC OS and MS Office applications. Her reviews and articles pop up in
all the computer magazines and professional journals, and in her spare
time she teaches software and hardware troubleshooting in a classroom
environment. Her latest book, Mac OS X 10.2 Visual QuickStart Guide, is
her fiftieth title in 12 years!
Peachpit Press Facts:
ˇ Peachpit Press is 82% female - with 39 total employees.
ˇ Aldrich-Ruenzel is the only woman publisher - and officer - in the Pearson Technology Group.
ˇ Five of Peachpit's seven managers are also women.
ˇ Peachpit Press is celebrating its 15 year anniversary this year.