NEWARK – She’s living her dream — making books.
“As a kid I loved reading, writing — and ‘Star Trek,’” recalled Emily Hitchcock. “My siblings and I grew up without television and a lot of pop culture touchpoints that other people my age have. Whatever knowledge I lacked of the mainstream, my parents made up for by instilling a deep love of reading and learning. I lived at the local library, and I was allowed to read whatever I wanted.”
“I dreamed of becoming a writer, or an artist, or an astronaut (I really can’t overstate how obsessed I was with ‘Star Trek’)” she said. “I’d hammer out ‘Star Trek’ fan fiction and bad poetry on a thrift store typewriter. I loved books and writing, but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I considered how a piece of writing becomes a book and whose job it was to do the work that comes in between.”
Today, Hitchcock is owner and CEO of Columbus Publishing Lab in Newark.
“My role,” she said, “is to lead the company, support the talented folks who work for me and help educate authors along their publishing path.
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“My favorite project is one that never sold a copy,” she said. “We worked with a client to take a manuscript her father had written after he fought in WWI and turn it into a book. The company was new, and we were small, so I worked on almost every part of that project. What started out as a box of loose-leaf pages, typed on a typewriter and passed down through the family, eventually became a book. The finished book was never for sale, and only a small number of copies were printed for close family, but that didn’t matter to me. We’d still fulfilled a dream.
“That project will always represent why this work is important to me,” she said. “Books are powerful, books are valuable and whether they reach an audience of a single family or they’re the next BookTok trend, every book I get to publish fulfills a dream.”
Hitchcock was born in Dayton and moved to Jackson County the summer before high school, graduating from Oak Hill High School in 2008. She stayed in southeast Ohio and graduated from Ohio University.
“Around 2012, I was living in Columbus and preparing to go to school at Ohio State to study journalism,” she said. “I wanted to get involved with the writing community in Columbus, and I discovered a local writers’ group called Columbus Creative Cooperative (now called the Ohio Writers’ Association). My volunteer work there gave me the first glimpse of what book production and publishing looked like. I began to learn the technical side of how books were published, but I also learned a broader lesson: Book publishing doesn’t have to take place in a big city. There are incredible writers, editors and book designers in big and small corners of the Midwest. I realized that book publishing was a trade I could learn in Ohio.
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“Around that time,” she said, “the former director of Columbus Creative Cooperative, Brad Pauquette, came to me and said he was thinking of founding a publishing company, that he didn’t know what would happen, but there was a place for me if I wanted to take a leap of faith. So I jumped. I quit my corporate job, dropped out of college, ignored the misgivings of friends and family members and came on to help start the company. This one decision changed my life forever. In 2018 I took over as CEO, and in 2021 I bought the business.”
Retired U.S. Navy Capt. Demetri Capetanopoulos is a longtime author and client, currently on an expedition in Antarctica.
“Emily has positioned the Columbus Publishing Lab at the forefront of a sea change in the publishing industry,” Capetanopoulos said. “Her team are expert at managing all aspects of traditional, print-on-demand and self-publishing processes. And for writers that are serious about improving their craft, she offers developmental and copy edits that are top-notch. Perhaps most importantly, Emily is a powerful ally for aspiring authors and an ardent advocate of the literary arts. Her Columbus Publishing Lab is a local gem that we are fortunate to have.”
“Over the past decade,” Hitchcock said, “I’ve had the privilege of working with hundreds of authors at all levels, from first-time novelists to New York Times bestsellers. If this wasn’t my job, it would be my dream job. I get to make books for a living.”
Aces of Trades is a weekly series focusing on people and their jobs — whether they’re unusual jobs, fun jobs or people who take ordinary jobs and make them extraordinary. If you have a suggestion for a future profile, let us know at advocate@newarkadvocate.com.
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