About Us
Alphabet Publishing is a small, independent publishing company that specializes in teacher resource materials and supplementary student activity books in the area of English language learning. All our products are author-led and all our authors are teachers practicing in the classroom now. That means our materials are 100% teacher-created, classroom tested, and student-approved!
We recognize the key role author-teachers play in creating quality materials, so we offer above-average royalties to our authors.
Hi! I’m Walton Burns, a teacher, teacher-trainer, writer, and editor.
Having worked on several books for major publishers, I was curious to also experiment with self-publishing. I had an idea for a book of activities to do on the first day of school. I didn’t think the big publishers would be interested: it was too short, too niche, and I wasn’t a big enough name to sell it. So I published it myself, with much help and guidance from colleagues, friends, and editing professionals! Then I was approached by a fellow teacher who had a book idea and was willing to take a risk with me.I published a few books after that, learning as I went and not failing spectacularly. I was blessed to find more professionals willing to work with me! When I got my first proposal from an author I didn’t know, I knew I had a proper publishing company!
About Our Name
It so happens that I chose the name of my company on August 10th, 2015.
Now, I chose the name partially on the advice of my son, who was about to turn three at the time. I asked him, “What I should name my publishing company.”
He said, “Alphabet.” So I took his advice. It’s worth noting that he also suggested naming his stuffed puppy Alphabet. And the car. And a girl he played with at the library.
At the time, I thought it odd that lots of alphabet-related domains were taken. Then I looked at the news that Google was creating a new company called Alphabet! We are are in no way affiliated with Google or Alphabet. However, if they feel that my son deserves a commission fee, we won’t say no.
About Our Logo
I’ve always enjoyed playing with letter shapes and turning letters or numbers into images. Having come up with the name Alphabet Publishing, I was very excited to try this technique out. I almost immediately landed on using the Greek letters alpha α and beta β because those are the roots of the word “alphabet”.
It took me a while to see that I could arrange the letters into a little tree, Trees symbolize growth and knowledge. Paper is also made from trees. This seemed like a perfect icon for a publishing company dedicated to educational materials.
You might remember our old logo, which was designed by a very talented designer, Josh Comen. He took my letter-tree design to the next level by making the stalk into a pen nib. The leaves of the tree became spilled ink. It was beautiful and it’s still on our older titles. But too many people commented on the disconnect between the name Alphabet and the tree logo. So we’ve gone back to our roots (pun intended) with an alphabet-inspired logo.