Orange Frazer Press is an independent publisher headquartered in
Wilmington, Ohio
Wilmington is a city in and the county seat of Clinton County, Ohio, United States. The population was 12,660 at the 2020 census. At city entrances from state routes, county roads, and U.S. highways, the city slogan of "We Honor Our Champions" is ...
. Founded in 1987, the press is named after Orange Frazer, an
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
man who ran a grocery store in Wilmington with his brother, John. Frazer also traveled the world, clerked for the
Ohio Supreme Court
The Ohio Supreme Court, Officially known as The Supreme Court of the State of Ohio is the highest court in the U.S. state of Ohio, with final authority over interpretations of Ohio law and the Ohio Constitution. The court has seven members, a ...
, and collected enough books to create the county's largest library. The company's motto is "Your Story, Beautifully Told."
History
John Baskin
John Baskin is an American television writer and producer known for series such as ''Three's Company'', '' Good Times'', ''The Jeffersons'', and '' Crazy Like a Fox''. He was twice nominated for the Humanitas Prize
The Humanitas Prize is an aw ...
and Marcy Hawley both worked at ''Ohio Magazine'' in the 1980s, where they accumulated a wealth of minutiae about the Buckeye State. They founded Orange Frazer in order to use the 48 file drawers' worth of information they had, and eventually did so with ''Ohio Matters of Fact'', the company's first published work. The pair sold the books on their own to
independent bookstore
An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store (although there are some multi-store independents). They may be structured as sole proprietorships, cl ...
s, and eventually it went through four printings.
Subsequent works included ''Woody's Boys: 20 Famous Buckeyes Talk Amongst Themselves'', a 1995 book about Ohio State football coach
Woody Hayes
Wayne Woodrow Hayes (February 14, 1913 – March 12, 1987) was an American football player and coach. He served as the head coach at Denison University (1946–1948), Miami University in Oxford, Ohio (1949–1950), and Ohio State University (1951 ...
, as well as biographies of Ohio sports figures
Johnny Bench
John Lee Bench (born December 7, 1947) is an American former professional baseball player. He played his entire Major League Baseball career, which lasted from through , with the Cincinnati Reds, primarily as a catcher. Bench was the leader of t ...
,
Chad Johnson
Chad Ochocinco Johnson (born Chad Javon Johnson; January 9, 1978), known from 2008 to 2012 as Chad Ochocinco, is a former American football wide receiver. He played college football for Santa Monica College and Oregon State University, and pl ...
, and
Joe Nuxhall
Joseph Henry Nuxhall (; July 30, 1928 – November 15, 2007) was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball, primarily for the Cincinnati Reds. Immediately after retiring as a player, he became a radio broadcaster for the Reds f ...
. The Hayes book sold over 25,000 copies, while each of the subsequent biographies sold 20,000 or more.
Today, Orange Frazer Press is Ohio's largest independent book publisher. The company specializes in two niches: regional nonfiction and custom publishing.
Publication statistics
Orange Frazer's subjects generally focus on Ohio, though they have also published works outside of this local scope. First printings range in size from 250 up to 30,000 copies, with commercial projects averaging 3,000 to 5,000. In 2010, ten of the company's 13 releases were custom publications, meaning that the books were privately commissioned and then produced with assistance from Orange Frazer in marketing methods, content production, distribution, etc. Thus far, the company has created over 100 books in this way.
In total, the company has published over 300 commercial and custom titles.
Orange Frazer developed four study guides for the
Ohio Graduation Tests The Ohio Graduation Test (OGT) is the high school graduation examination given to sophomores in the U.S. state of Ohio. Students must pass all five sections (reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies) in order to graduate. Students ...
, tests that every high school student in Ohio must take to graduate. The books were only sold in schools, rather than traditional bookstores, and were written with input from the teachers around the state with backgrounds in math, science, social studies and reading. The project has helped Orange Frazer produce $1.3 million in sales for each of the last two years.
[ ]
Highlights of published work
* ''Chad: I Can't Be Stopped'' by Paul Daugherty
* ''Before Oprah: Ruth Lyons, The Woman Who Created Talk TV'', by Michael Banks
* ''Rags to Riches: The Story of CINTAS'' by Richard T. Farmer with William Holstein
* ''Busted: The Rise and Fall of Art Schlichter'', by Art Schlichter
* ''Earle: A Coach's Life'', by Earle Bruce
* ''Joe: Rounding Third and Heading For Home'' by
Greg Hoard
Greg Hoard is a former newspaper journalist and television sports broadcaster and the author of the Joe Nuxhall biography, ''JOE: Rounding Third And Heading For Home'' ().
He joined the sports department at ''The Cincinnati Post'' in 1979 as a fe ...
"100 Days in the Life of Rutherford Hayes" by Eric Ebinger
References
External links
*
Orange Frazer Custom Books*
Orange Frazer Press{{Authority control
Small press publishing companies
Companies based in Ohio
Book publishing companies based in Ohio
Publishing companies established in 1987