Madrona Publishers of Seattle, Washington, was founded by Daniel Levant in 1971 and operated actively until 1988. Over its years of operation, the firm published about eighty books, with approximately twenty more books published or marketed in conjunction with other publishers.
An account of the firm's history is found in the interview with Dan Levant that is included in
The records of Madrona Publishers consist of correspondence, business records, publicity documents, reviews, cover graphics, book illustrations, and selected technical printing paste-ups and mockups. Although not all records were extant at the time of transfer to the Washington State University Libraries, the records do cover the entire period of Madrona's activity, with the bulk dated from about 1977 to about 1983.
The records document the publisher's work with authors and printers, its marketing efforts, and in some cases the review and reception of books. The records also document the business and financial aspects of the firm.
Arrangement of the records generally follows practices used by Madrona Publishers. Alphabetization of folder sequences has been improved, while strayed and unidentified items were fitted into the several record series. Folder titles have been expanded from abbreviations or truncations found on the originals. Internal arrangement within folders is substantially as in the original order.
The records of Madrona Publishers are arranged as fourteen series. Six concern book production and publishing, while five more pertain to business matters. Large-size documents are arranged as oversize series at the end of the collection.
The first six series, those concerning book publishing and production, begin with Series 1, Publishing Records: Madrona Titles. These records were informally known as "book files," consisting of sequences of several folder s grouped around book titles. These files deal variously with authors' biographies, publication contracts, royalty payments, news releases, promotion, technical book production notes, reviews and general correspondence particularly concerning each specific title. The sequence is not inclusive of all Madrona titles.
Series 2, Publishing records: Other publisher's books distributed through Madrona, consists of "book files" concerning the publication of titles from other publishers, and are analogous to similar records concerning Madrona title s. Series 3, Publishing records: Unpublished Madrona books-in-progress, consist of preparatory material and correspondence, organized again as "book files," and related to books that Madrona intended to publish, but which it did not complete. Some are titles later published by other firms.
Series 4, Production records: Madrona titles, consist of cost estimates, technical book production notes and correspondence regarding the production of about 60 specific titles. The production records are nearly comprehensive of the entire Madrona list of books. The production records supplement other production notes included in the "book files" described above. Series 5, Production records: Shared ventures with other publishers consists of further production records, filed separately from those relative to the Madrona books. Series 6, Production: Illustrations, graphic art, photographs also relates to book production. Included are a variety of image records, most copied to photographic paper. Among these are many book cover images, prepared for use in catalogs, along with a variety of other cover and inside illustrations.
Series 7, Financial records, consists of various accounting records, such as balance sheets. Included also are selected samples of bulky records such as canceled checks and various invoicing documents, along with periodic bank statements. Series 8, Legal records include legal documents and correspondence related chiefly to litigation and collections. Series 9, General business records, includes business records and correspondence concerning insurance policies, advertising, logs of manuscripts received, and so forth. Series 10, General correspondence is largely letters with book sellers and other publishers whose books Madrona was distributing or who were selling Madrona titles. Series 11, Foreign publishers' correspondence documents Madrona's relationship with about fifteen publishers outside the United States, mainly in Europe, with whom book selling efforts were shared.
Three series of oversize materials are arranged as such because of the need for special storage apart from the main records. These are: Series 12, Oversize Advertisements, Series 13, Oversize Mechanicals and Cover Paste-ups, and I Series 14, Oversize Illustrations. The predominant oversize materials are "mechanicals" and paste-ups of covers.
This collection is open for research use.
[Item Description]. Cage 660, Madrona Publishers Records, 1973-1988. Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
Records of Madrona Publishers of Seattle, Washington, were donated to the Washington State University Libraries by Daniel Levant, principal owner of the firm, on several occasions from 1981 through 1991 (WSU accession numbers MS81-53, MS84-64, MS88-27, MS89-37, MS89-49, MS91-10, and MS91-29).
Selected records were disposed of following the general guidelines of Archival gold: managing and preserving publishers' records (Vancouver, BC, 1989), chiefly redundant accounting documents and unmarked galleys.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.
The following section contains a detailed listing of the materials in the collection.