E-Duke Books Tests New Model
Tracing the Effects of the Google Settlement
A Conference is a Place
Practical Advice on Bridging the Library-Press Divide
Making Information Pay 2009
Advocating for the Humanities in 2009
Miscellany:
New AAUP Member
Books for Understanding Updates
Book Industry Environmental Council Announces Climate Goals
University Presses Receive Mellon Grants for Publishing Initiatives
AAUP Partners
Submission Policy
Calendar: See the Events Calendar at www.aaupnet.org
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Meredith Benjamin
Communications Coordinator, AAUP
Laments on the plight of the monograph abound of late, but Duke University Press is attempting to shake things up with its new program, the e-Duke Books Scholarly Collection. Modeled on the pricing structure of the e-Duke Journals Scholarly Collection, e-Duke Books offers online access to at least 100 new titles per year to subscribing libraries, in addition to access to many of the press’s backlist titles.
Michael McCullough, sales manager for the press, explained that director Steve Cohn “has been a driving force behind this for a number of years,” and had long been seeking to address “two separate but complementary problems,” that is, the decline in sales to academic libraries, and the challenge of finding the best way to make the press’s books available in digital form. As Cohn saw these two issues converging, he and his staff began to look into ways to address them, while “control[ling] our content as much as possible,” and without using multiple aggregators.
The e-Duke Books collection will include at least 100 new electronic books published by the press each year. The press typically publishes 115-120 new titles in a given year, and plans to include the great majority of these titles in the collection, excluding only “titles of regional or popular interest or titles to which Duke does not hold electronic rights.”
The press launched a pilot version of the program in 2008, with the participation of 19 US and Canadian libraries. Following a successful run with the pilot program, the press launched a full version in 2009. Collection prices are based on institutions’ 2005 Basic Carnegie Classifications, and range from $500 to $6,000 per year.
By ordering, libraries also receive access to the over 900 Duke University Press backlist books which are currently available in digital form. As the program continues, this backlist will grow in two ways. The 100+ new books that are included in the collection in a given year will become part of the backlist in subsequent years. Additionally, Duke expects to continue the work of digitizing older titles, further increasing the scope of their available backlist.
Offering such a large swath of its backlist as part of the collection required a substantial amount of digitization work. Some of the press’s titles had already been digitized through BiblioVault, funded by a grant which offered free or low-cost digitization services to university presses. That provided a head start for the press, although the remaining titles have required “fair amount of staff time” from the production department. The digitization efforts will also allow Duke to offer a single-title purchase model of e-books to libraries beginning this summer.
The press’s files are currently digitized as web-ready PDFs, with some of the conversion being handled by their partner, ebrary. The ebrary platform also allows full-text searching, and ensures that Duke’s content is cross-searchable with all ebrary content to which a library has access.
One particularly interesting aspect of Duke’s program is the option to purchase a $500 “print add-on option,” which will include cloth editions of all titles in the current year’s collection. Kimberly Steinle, Duke’s Library Relations Manager, indicated that this has been a very popular option among subscribers, with an uptake rate of more than 75%. She noted that the press wanted to ensure this was an optional add-on, rather than a requirement, as some smaller- to medium-sized libraries may not have the space for all of the books. Not requiring libraries to purchase the add-on also helps ensure that the electronic collection is as inexpensive as possible.
The option also fits well with the way the press envisions users accessing the titles. McCullough said he feels “students still don’t really want to read 40 pages at a time on screen,” and that he anticipates library patrons will more likely “discover the book online, and if they want to read more, we want to make that as easy as possible.” Having a cloth edition of the book available on the shelf facilitates this sort of fluidity.
Piracy issues have been a major concern for university presses of late, particularly with the advent of new e-publishing projects. While acknowledging that they are concerned with piracy in the same way as other university presses, McCullough explained that Duke feels the technology they are using successfully avoids any major risks. Ebrary’s printing and downloading restrictions were attributes that made the company a particularly attractive partner for Duke. With the ebrary technology, users are streaming the content, rather than downloading the material to their own computer. Additionally, ebrary limits the number of pages a user is able to print.
The e-Duke Books FAQ section has a comprehensive delineation of the various user policies of the site license, including interlibrary loan, course packs, electronic reserves, printing, and downloading. Steinle explained that these guidelines were developed in conjunction with ebrary, first looking at ebrary’s guidelines and then tailoring them to best meet the needs of the press’s content. Regarding the printing restrictions for example, she said, “our goal was to try to come as close as possible to how many pages would be in a [typical] chapter.”
Another risk for the press is how this sort of accessibility might affect course adoptions, such a mainstay of many university presses. McCullough said that this is an area in which time will tell how the subscription model affects these sales, but he again pointed to what he had spoken about earlier, that assumption most students still do not want to read book-length material online. Additionally, he pointed out that traditional library sales have not been in competition with paperback course adoptions.
As is the case with so many successful e-publishing initiatives, the press enlisted the help of the university library to provide subscribers to the program with enhanced MARC (MAchine-Readable Cataloging) records. McCullough explained that the press wanted to offer the highest level of metadata available, and thus enlisted the help of the catalogers from the Duke University Perkins/Bostock Library. With the MARC records, the cataloging happens on a chapter level – which results in a “real advantage” for both librarians and patrons. Attesting to the invaluable assistance of the library in this aspect of the project, he said, “we certainly could not be creating them [the MARC records] on our own.” Feedback from librarians was also valuable in making procedural changes to the pilot program, to best tailor the program and its offerings to the needs of libraries.
While hesitant to make any sweeping assessments at this early point in the program’s development, McCullough said the press is “very happy with the way it has gone so far.” He noted that the ability to work with colleagues who have managed the similar e-Duke Journals program has been a great help: “They’ve been through this process before.”
There are of course differences between the two programs, and unique challenges that the e-Duke Books staff is still tackling. While the majority of librarians and patrons are now accustomed to accessing journals electronically, McCullough feels that there is still some need to “sell them on the idea” of accessing books in the same manner. He also noted that librarians may be less likely to take a chance on unfamiliar models in “this challenging economic climate.”
McCullough thinks it is possible that other presses may adopt similar models in the near future, and anticipates that they will each vary them to reflect their press’s particular capacities and strengths. He pointed out that this type of model was particularly well suited to Duke’s publishing program. As their list is reasonably small, they were able to include all of their new titles, while maintaining a workable size for the press and a “cost that would not be prohibitive to libraries.” While some presses may choose to implement similar collections composed of titles in a particular subject area, the interdisciplinary nature of many of Duke’s books made this all-encompassing program a preferable option, as there was no need to fit books into neat categorizations. Duke’s well-known editorial profile as a publisher of interdisciplinary and innovative scholarship seems to have lent itself particularly well to this new model.
Daphne Ireland
Director of Intellectual Property and Documentary Publishing, Princeton University Press
Everyone is talking about the Google settlement. On March 13 the Columbia Law School hosted “The Google Settlement: What Will It Mean for the Long Term?” a day-long symposium with exceptional speakers assembled from the publishing, legal, and academic spheres. Conference attendees, including nine rights professionals from AAUP presses, were privileged to hear expert debate on a broad continuum of issues. The day began by considering whether this class action settlement has the effect of legislation, continued with discussion of anti-trust concerns, and moved to projections about the future of book publishing, Google Book Search as compulsory license, and possible complementary orphan works legislation.
The first session of the day was “Legislating through Settlement.” Mary Beth Peters, U.S. Register of Copyrights, observed that the settlement has a legislative effect without having been considered or approved by Congress. It incorporates aspects of legislation for orphan works, Section 108 library exceptions, treaty obligations, and compulsory licensing. Peters said she had many unanswered questions, including whether the Settlement is actually a compulsory license for the benefit of one company and what effect it might have on foreign authors and journal articles. She found it interesting that she had not been asked by Congress to comment on or study the scope of Settlement.
The technical aspects of the anti-trust question were addressed in “Competition Issues” by Randal C. Picker, Professor of Commercial Law at University of Chicago Law School. He identified in the Settlement three key features to measure how easily they might be multiplied to allow competition: digital files, scope of the rights license, and the mechanism of the Registry. How would competitors gain access to digital scans: will they negotiate anew with libraries for their own access and scanning, or will Google allow copying of their digital files? Is the scope of the settlement’s rights license able to be multiplied among competitors? Is it possible to have multiple registries? For Picker, the core of the settlement is its “one-way most favored nation clause,” which guarantees no other party can be offered license terms that are more favorable than Google’s terms in the settlement. Another anti-trust consideration is that even with competitors in this digital marketplace, Google could privilege its own book material through its Google search engine results ranking. Picker sketched an intriguing analogy between Google’s search engine/digital file access regime and the public utility access regime of the nation’s electricity grid. Finally, he explored the idea of the settlement as a compulsory license, where exclusive right holders are required to license works without prior approval on the condition that they receive royalties – similar to ASCAP and BMI in the music industry.
In “The Future of ‘Books’,” Richard Sarnoff, a chairman at Bertelsmann and Chairman of the Board of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), described the settlement as a confirmation of copyright law that sets up a mutually beneficial framework to speed the co-existence of print and digital publishing. Alan Adler, AAP, explained that it looks backward to resolve litigation and creates a path forward by designing a licensing structure to plug in with other competitors. He suggested that publishers may decide to place new works not covered by settlement terms (i.e., those copyrighted after January 5, 2009) under a Google Partner Program contract, the terms of which will likely parallel settlement terms. Lois Wasoff, former counsel at Houghton Mifflin, confessed to everyone’s relief that the settlement is “a little tough to get your arms around.” Business model and contract differences mean implications will be different among trade publishers, STM publishers, and university presses. Wasoff reported that most publishers will likely opt-in to the settlement, remove many of their works, and continue to participate in Google Book Search through the Partner Program. Richard Sarnoff summarized it well: “If you look at the settlement, there’s one thing that’s shot absolutely through it. It is the rights holder’s choice—in every possible circumstance—that rules what happens with the rights holder’s works. Outside of what I hope will be a radically shrinking number of truly orphaned works that are never claimed by anyone (and even within those, I hope with the right legislation we can handle them more actively), you are going to have the rights holder deciding whether the book will be in there in the first place, what the display uses are… and pricing…The entire settlement is set up with the full flexibility to decide how their work is to be used by Google or by anybody else.”
Authors’ opinions were surveyed in the panel “Authors and Incentives.” Jan Constantine, counsel for the Authors’ Guild, can see no downside for authors whose works are out-of-print, and applauded the development that authors and publishers will now move forward in mutual agreement about how works will be offered digitally. Arthur Klebanoff, a publisher and literary agent, highlighted the involvement of author estates in Book Rights Registry claims. In another vein, he commented that publishers will want to take care to remove previous editions of books from the Google offerings, to prevent inaccurate scholarship and edition confusion. Tracy Armstrong, President of Copyright Clearance Center, pondered the ramifications of Google Book Search, which she said certainly will include more self-publishing by authors. Armstrong speculated that one day Google Book Search’s ubiquitous user-interface could become a storefront for self-publishing intermediaries, such as iUniverse and Blurb. She wondered about legitimate incentives for competitors since Google enjoys the “first-mover advantage from this ‘ask forgiveness, not permission’ model”, and regretted that some parties might therefore imitate that illicit model.
“The Public Interest” panelists discussed whether the settlement sidestepped library and public interest and whether other industries might use this class action structure to settle their legislative issues. In his opening statement, Alex MacGillivray, counsel at Google, said “Google is in this to make search better,” to create access for researchers regardless of whether their library is financially privileged, and to serve the needs of the print-disabled. MacGillivray echoed Alan Adler’s earlier observation that the Registry will be able license the corpus to third parties. Robert Darnton, Professor and Director of Harvard University Library, thoughtfully expressed that the settlement creates the possibility of a reader’s utopia. However, he said that the Google Book Search corpus is so rich and unique that competition may be impossible. He also expressed concern that the settlement gives Google a “monopoly in fact” and that there is too great a potential for abuse of power by “ratcheting up prices” for institutional subscriptions over time, a practice he termed “cocaine pricing.” But not all monopolies are bad, in particular those providing public services. Memorably, Darnton quoted an old General Motors motto, having adapted it to: “What’s good for Google is good for the United States.” He openly invited Congress to examine the settlement and its effect on public interest. Jeffrey Cunard, counsel for AAP at DeBevoise & Plimpton, expanded on the notion that the Registry can be a licensing agency, adding that it could administrate a compulsory license for non-commercially available works, should Congress decide to enact such a license. James Grimmelman, Associate Professor at New York Law School, was insightful and brief. He is concerned about concentrated power: direct price setting, a single dominant cultural source, preservation and quality issues, changing fair use, library Section 108, first-sale doctrine, and the incentive to remain exclusive. Grimmelman believes the settlement is workable with discrete changes, which include guarantees about privacy, making the Registry accountable through transparency and oversight by the Federal Trade Commission, and a modified “most favored nation clause.” He believes this class-action settlement risks interpretation as a privately negotiated substitute for orphan works legislation.
Threaded through every panel were the topics of “out-of-print” and “non-commercially available works,” at times imprecisely discussed as “orphan works.” Google’s exclusive possession of digital scans of orphan works from libraries is an indicator of monopoly. Yet all agreed that the settlement’s greatest impact is the creation of new access to non-commercially available works. In Paul Courant’s words: “What I’ve gotten out of today is that absolutely everybody thinks that meaningful orphan works legislation would greatly improve the quality of this settlement.” Google and AAP have actively supported orphan works legislation for several years (as has AAUP). Access to truly orphan works is certainly in the public’s interest. In listening to panelists, one can imagine Congress considering orphan works legislation in the form of a compulsory license to be administered by the Registry.
There have been a couple of developments since the outstanding March conference. On April 28, the Federal District of New York postponed the deadline for right holders to opt-out and/or file oppositions to the settlement, which is now September 5, 2009. In a separate move on the same day, the Justice Department announced its inquiry into the settlement’s anti-trust issues.
There were many more speakers and compelling ideas, but this report attempts only to trace a continuum, highlighting possible long-term implications. It is likely the settlement will be approved in some form at some point in the coming year, and it has surely awakened interest on all sides.
Peter Givler was instrumental in planning the conference and roster of distinguished speakers. The following university press attendees enjoyed this stellar symposium, as well as each others’ views and good company at lunch: Lisa Bayer, Barbara Cohen, Carol Hupping, Daphne Ireland, Linda Klein, Mindy Koyanis, Jill Phillips, Clare Wellnitz, and Vicky Wells. No briefing can adequately convey the depth of the conference; fortunately, a video is available online. For details and discussion, please watch the symposium at http://kernochancenter.org/Googlebookssettlementrecording.htm
Tools of Change 2009 and Other Interesting Meetings
Brenna McLaughlin
Electronic and Strategic Initiative Director, AAUP
In February, I attended the third O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference (TOC) at the Times Square Marriott Marquis in New York. I found myself thinking that the ecstatic vision of a changed human relationship with “content” is growing stale apace, even as e-publishing platforms, models, and devices become a more workable reality.
As the economic picture seemed to get bleaker each day, it was mildly surprising how few of the sessions made reference to how the changing financial climate may affect not only publishers’ ability to retool, but readers’ desire to pay for gadgets and access. To be fair, this conference (like some others we’re familiar with!) suffers from an embarrassment of interesting session topics scheduled concurrently, so I hope that I simply missed the speakers who addressed the economic downturn. And once again the buzz of interest in the hallways and breaks and the information about new platforms and working models shared freely by the attendees more than balanced out the occasional empty blast of rhetoric.
As I wandered from session to session with a (paper) notebook and a cranky PDA that refused to log on to the conference WiFi, my fellow attendees demonstrated the power of one “tool of change” as they twittered up a storm. While drinking in the tips and stories from one set of panelists, anyone with a connected laptop, netbook, or the ubiquitous iPhone freely eavesdropped on the other sessions. In one respect, this was fantastic—you didn’t have to miss much. In another, it easily led to what one such equipped colleague ruefully termed “session envy” as I shamelessly peered over her shoulder to get a look at what was going on down the hall. (Interestingly, in May a paper analyzing the effect active twittering has on academic conference attendees was released.)
Fortunately, it is still possible to virtually attend many of the sessions, and at more than 140 often-cryptic characters at a time, too. The TOC 2009 web site makes available videos of many of the sessions, presentation files, and access to lively and continuing discussions via the conference blog, Twitter, and Facebook page. Go to http://www.toccon.com/toc2009 for an immersion into the events and ideas of the conference. If that’s not enough, the 2010 TOC is scheduled for February 22-24 in New York City.
One of the videos available is of Bob Stein’s talk “A Book is a Place…” Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book, spoke of his concept of a book as a place to meet and discuss and learn; it’s a concept that the Institute’s projects—CommentPress, Sophie, and the networked books they’ve supported—have all been reaching for. The day before the Tools of Change Conference began, Stein hosted a small meeting of mostly scholarly publishing representatives and the CEO of GiantChair, a Paris-based digital distribution platform. The group, including folks from NYU, MIT, Duke, the Michigan Office of Scholarly Publishing, and California amongst others, brainstormed about the role of publishers and possibilities of collaboration both upstream and down in a digital book environment.
It was clear that the usual suspects will continue to dog university press and other scholarly e-initiatives: sorting out rights and the dirty question of financial support. But it was also clear that local realities could lead to successful ventures for university presses. Harvard shared a bit of their experience launching the Journal of Legal Analysis, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of law scholarship supported by and developed from the university’s law school. California indicated that they had seen—and filled—a need by developing a suite of publication services available to units across the California system, UCPubS. Both of these initiatives are fairly new, and each press is waiting to judge its effects, but they are hopeful signs of the innovation and cooperation possible amongst the scholarly communications community.
New Resource Center for Campus-Based Publishing Partnerships
Meredith Benjamin
Communications Coordinator, AAUP
Libraries and university presses have always been inextricably bound up in each other’s success. While at its best this relationship can provide extensive benefits to the whole of scholarly communication, too often a lack of common understanding has led to conflicting interests. With the advent of digital publishing and the demand for new methods of scholarly communication, the need for the two institutions to share their strengths and resources is increasingly evident.
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition’s (SPARC) new Campus-Based Publishing Partnerships Resource Center is designed to help institutions meet that need. SPARC Senior Consultant Raym Crow explained that the idea for the guide and resource center came from “a meeting on library-press collaborations in June 2007, sponsored by the libraries and presses of the University of California and the University of Michigan.” Crow said that participants at the meeting, all actively involved in collaborative publishing initiatives, were “describ[ing] a common set of issues that they needed to address,” and it became clear that there was “a great deal of duplicative effort being expended as new partnerships wrestled with the same issues.”
It was this convergence of concerns that led Crow to create the “Guide to Critical Issues.” The guide is a five-part, comprehensive overview of what form these partnerships might take and practical considerations of how they might work.
Out of the guide grew the web resource center, which expands on issues covered therein, and keeps the information in the guide dynamic and relevant. Among the resources available are case studies, a bibliography, and LIBPRESS, an email list devoted to discussion of publishing partnerships. The resource is unique in that it gathered perspectives from librarians, press staff, and some who are straddling the divide (such as Monica McCormick, Program Officer for Digital Scholarly Publishing at New York University).
The guide and case studies are focused specifically on library-press collaborations, but the guide’s introduction indicates that “most of the discussion applies as well to other academic units that may participate in campus-based publishing partnerships.”
The accompanying resources have been compiled by the editorial board, which was formed after the completion of the guide to direct and support the web resource. Crow emphasized the collaborative and interactive nature of the resource center, explaining that it is “designed to grow based on user feedback and participation.” Presses are encouraged both to submit sample planning documents and resources, and to submit suggestions on topics that they feel should be added or expanded to make the resources practically useful. The direction and experience of the editorial board has been particularly valuable in developing these resources, says Crow: “These are people who know what’s relevant, what’s current, and what’s needed by participants on both the press and library sides of a partnership.”
Laura Cerruti, Director of Digital Content Development at the University of California Press, and Catherine Mitchell, Director of the California Digital Library’s e-Scholarship Publishing Program at the University of California, are both editorial board members who bring to the table their experience of collaboration on University of California Publishing Services (UCPubS). Mitchell described how the two organizations had been “unofficially collaborating in an episodic or opportunistic way,” and eventually came to the realization that they lacked “any kind of ongoing formal relationship that took into account the formal structure of the collaboration.” It was at this point that they decided to work with Crow, as they “decided one-off projects were not going to be sustainable in the long-run,” and establish a more formal collaboration that takes into account “sustainability and scalability.”
UCPubS combines the open access expertise of the library with the production, print-on-demand, marketing, and distribution strengths of the press to serve the wider University of California community. Cerruti commented that it was a “reality check” for both the press and the library when Crow helped them put numbers to things and be realistic about the financial picture for their projects. The hope is that more partnerships will benefit from this sort of practical approach, and undertake the “explicit planning” Crow advocates.
Cerruti said she sees the partnerships as particularly important for presses in that they allow them to “take steps forward towards some of the new business models that are out there – especially open access.” She believes presses know that open access is becoming increasingly important, but may not always be sure how to implement it. Both Cerruti and Mitchell agree that partnering with libraries, many of which are already working on open access, can facilitate a press’s move toward open access models.
On the flip side, as libraries are increasingly called upon by their universities to take on publishing roles, it is important for them to take advantage of the valuable experience and expertise of presses. Mitchell explained that these partnerships also benefit content providers who “feel strongly about open access, but also want to provide print publication,” emphasizing the importance of providing all of these options in a way that is not detrimental to a press’s business model.
Both Cerruti and Mitchell highlighted the fact that partnerships strengthen the case for university support of a press, as they demonstrate the institutional service provided. Cerruti pointed out that the practical nature of the guide makes it very easy for presses to make a case to their university about the relevance of university presses.
In terms of early feedback from presses and libraries, Crow noted that a survey of LIBPRESS participants indicated that the practical examples have been the most valuable. The editorial board now “intend[s] to increase the number of case studies, sample plans, and financial templates, as well as the networking support available through the site.”
Once the resource center is completely populated, Mitchell envisions it “enabling people to get a picture of the different models of what this kind of collaboration can be,” and that this will assist in getting partners to a point where “libraries and presses speak the same language, or at least a compatible language.” Crow hopes that the resources may encourage presses to “take the lead in creating publishing partnerships.”
Cerruti described the resource center as “one-stop shopping for resources and papers published every week,” facilitating easier access to curated content for users who may not have the time to devote on their own. Her hope is that the guide and resources will “reduce some of the duplicative experiments going on so that we can learn from each other.”
A more in-depth look at the guide and resource center is well worth it to anyone interested in campus-based publishing partnerships and their associated issues.
Those interested in joining LIBPRESS, the online discussion forum on issues of “collaborative digital publishing projects and models,” may do so here: http://listserv.ucop.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A0=LIBPRESS-L.
Hear more about press collaborations at the AAUP Annual Meeting!
Friday, June 19: 1:45-3:00 pm
Plenary 2: Interpress Collaborations and Cross-Marketing Partnerships: Future Visions of Scholarly Communication (Panelists include Raym Crow and Laura Cerruti)
Saturday, June 20: 3:30-4:45
Library-Press Cooperation
(Moderator: Patrick Alexander, member of SPARC editorial board)
Meredith Benjamin
Communications Coordinator, AAUP
The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) presented its sixth annual Making Information Pay conference on May 7, at the McGraw-Hill Auditorium in New York. The conference‘s focus this year was “Shifting Sales Channels: and what publishers are doing about them” and featured presentations by eight industry leaders, in addition to remarks by BISG Executive Director Michael Healy.
As Healy made his opening remarks, hash tags for those intending to twitter the conference were displayed. And twitter they did: read tweets on the program by searching #mip or #BISG.
The first half of the program, entitled “State of the Markets,” focused on the question “What’s really going on today?” which Healy described as the genesis of the program.
Leigh Watson Healy, chief analyst for the advisory firm Outsell, Inc., gave the keynote speech and emphasized that the current recession will fundamentally change the market: “we have seen the last vestiges of the industrial age, [and are] now moving truly to the knowledge age.” Hackneyed as it may be, she said the catchphrase “flat is the new up” was confirmed by BISG data. On an encouraging note for university presses, the companies she sees thriving are “market share/brand leaders, and innovators/boutiques.” The increasing importance of specialization and niche markets was addressed several times throughout the morning.
Jim King of Nielsen BookScan US and Kelly Gallagher of R.R. Bowker gave presentations on the strategic use of data, on retailers and book buyers, respectively. King encouraged publishers to look closely at data on BISAC categories—in particular the very specific subcategories—to determine trends. He also noted that BookScan just began tracking book sales in non-traditional outlets (i.e., supermarkets) in 2008, and there are other venues, including digital downloads and comic book stores, that they have yet to begin tracking. Gallagher suggested that publishers do not always know their customers well enough, and need to look more closely at the data on book buyers. He also emphasized that the majority of “book awareness” (where a customer first learned of a book) is now coming from online sources.
A particularly engaging presentation kicking off the “Publishing Innovations” portion of the program came from Dominique Raccah, publisher and CEO of Sourcebooks. She said her focus has been on what the next iteration of a publishing company looks like. Like Healy, she emphasized the benefits of category leadership, and predicted a “real return to the value of niche publishing.” Sourcebooks has created a toolkit for their authors to engage in their own digital marketing, and is focusing on creating new approaches to content by exploring options such as enhanced digital books and iPhone applications. Raccah asked publishers whether we can “create a zero inventory model” and if not, “how low can we go?”
Marcus Leaver, president of Sterling Publishing, speaking on “The New Marketing Budget,” began with a slide reading: “Question everything.” He emphasized that doing things just because that’s the way they’ve always been done has to end, and that we must only do things we can measure. He described various measures taken at Sterling, which include drastic reductions in their trade show budget (“I’m not going to Frankfurt…the trade show is over”), and cutting their list by 25%, but increasing title-by-title marketing by 33%.
The move to electronic catalogs has been a hot topic of discussion for university presses, as well as the larger publishing community. Josh Marwell, president of sales for HarperCollins, explained the various advantages of e-catalogs that pushed his company to make the move (easier to update, more immediate, increased shareability), and how they’ve confronted the challenges inherent in the switch (creating a new workflow, outreach to reps and customers). He mentioned that HarperCollins will be supporting Edelweiss as well, an e-catalog system that some university presses have begun to work with.
The morning’s final presenter, Dave Thompson, vice president of sales analysis for Random House, ended the program on an optimistic note, pointing out that, “even in the worst economy in our lifetimes, book sales are only down 1.2 percent.” He advocated using the data available from sources like Bowker and Nielsen BookScan in innovative ways and focused in particular on indicators of “book awareness,” and where particular demographics of buyers are purchasing their books, echoing Gallagher’s points about the need to know more about book buyers.
The program’s sentiment seemed to be best encapsulated in Raccah’s paraphrase of a quote from Simon and Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy, when she said that most publishing executives are currently running two companies: “the one that is, and the one that will be.”
Presentations from the conference may be viewed here: http://www.slideshare.net/event/making-information-pay-2009
Brenna McLaughlin
Electronic and Strategic Initiatives Director, AAUP
On March 11, 380 representatives of universities, colleges, museums, historical and scholarly societies, humanities councils, and (of course) scholarly publishers fanned out across Capitol Hill to make the case for continued support and increased funding of federal humanities agencies. Big numbers were the theme of the 2009 National Humanities Alliance (NHA) Annual Conference and Humanities Advocacy Day. The NHA was requesting an additional an additional $75 million for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and (NEH) and a total of $22 million for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).
These big numbers were justified by the much smaller number that NHA presented to delegates: 16%. That is the rate at which the NEH was able to fund competitive, peer-reviewed proposals, as compared to the 26% funding rate for merit-reviewed projects at the National Science Foundation. As a result, the NHA request was specifically geared toward increasing the funding available to the core programs of the NEH, including preservation and access, education, and research. At its funding peak in 1979, the Endowment demonstrated the capacity to operate at much higher funding levels ($431 million adjusted for inflation). The NHPRC is up for reauthorization, and humanities advocates hope to double its funding limit.
The timing of Humanities Advocacy Day happened to coincide with the belated passage, on March 10, of the FY 2009 omnibus spending bill. We entered the congressional visits knowing that the legislature had just passed a $155 million NEH budget, itself a comparatively handsome increase over 2008 funding levels. The NHPRC grants program, authorized at a $10 million level, received $9.25 million for FY 2009, after being zeroed out in the Bush Administration budget request for several years. Humanities advocates needed to thank the representatives and senators who had fought for that funding and make a strong case for even greater levels of support in a time of economic crisis.
What was surprising, at least on the visits I participated in (to members of the Senate Appropriations Interior subcommittee), was how few eyebrows were raised by our requests. While offered with the caveat that nothing was assured, we heard often that the need for humanities funding was recognized and appreciated, and that Senate offices were prepared to consider these larger increases.
In early May, President Obama’s budget request for FY 2010 was released. While our moderately extravagant hopes were not met here, it is certainly a better starting point for humanities advocates than in recent budget fights. NEH would see a $16.3 million increase, although $10 million of that would be earmarked for taking over the National Capital Arts and Cultural Affairs program. Obama is also requesting the full $10 million currently authorized for NHPRC. Unfortunately, due to funding allocations in the president’s request, this includes a “cut of 55% for NHPRC supported publications projects,” according to the May 2009 NHA Policy Digest.
It is particularly key this year that NHA and its members help policymakers understand that funding for the humanities is essential to our nation’s health; that work in the humanities is an integral part of our economic life and future. Fortunately, we were given a great new tool to make that case with the launch of the “Humanities Indicators Prototype” from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS). These indicators provide the kind of data on the humanities workforce, education, funding, and research that fields of sciences and engineering have long had at their fingertips. One of the most important data points for a Congress looking at a faltering economy: the humanities sector represents at least 2.5 million jobs—distributed across every state and district in America. (NHA) Annual Conference and Humanities Advocacy Day. The NHA was requesting an additional an additional $75 million for the
In May, AAUP welcomed RIT Cary Graphic Arts Press as an Introductory Member. The press is the scholarly publishing enterprise of the Rochester Institute of Technology and is affiliated with the Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection. In addition to the graphic arts, the press also publishes in deaf studies, business, engineering, and science.
Having long played a highly visible role in international relations, Cuba is once again much in the news, with the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, the loosening of U.S. policy restrictions regarding the nation, and transitions of power. AAUP has assembled a bibliography of scholarly works that includes information and links to over 150 works on Cuban politics, history, foreign relations, and culture from 24 scholarly presses. The list also includes a “Directory of Experts,” which provides contact information and areas of expertise for scholars and writers available to speak to the media on these topics.
Books for Understanding Cuba: http://aaupnet.org/news/bfu/cuba/list.html
In order to ensure that AAUP’s Books for Understanding lists consistently feature the most up-to-date scholarship and analysis, a monthly update schedule was instituted in March 2009. Existing lists will be updated on a rotating monthly basis, in addition to more extensive re-launches of older lists and the continuing creation of new bibliographies on current events. In May, the North Korea, China, and Tibet lists were updated.
Books for Understanding: http://booksforunderstanding.org
On April 16, the Book Industry Environmental Council (BIEC) announced an ambitious set of goals for the book publishing industry. Called a “global first in publishing,” the council’s goal is a 20% reduction of the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 (from a 2006 baseline) and an 80% reduction by 2050. Pete Datos, chair of BIEC’s climate subcommittee and vice president of Hachette Book Group, called the goals “aggressive but achievable,” and predicted they would be precedent-setting for other industries.
To achieve the goals, BIEC indicated that the industry will need to focus on “increasing the use of recycled paper, using paper efficiently, reducing returns, and preventing books from ending up in landfills,” in addition to increasing sustainability in the areas of transportation, energy consumption, and chemicals.
BIEC is coordinated by the Green Press Initiative (GPI) and the Book Industry Study Group, and is comprised of representatives from more than 40 industry stakeholders. Julia Fauci and Brenna McLaughlin are the current AAUP representatives to BIEC.
Read an interview with BIEC members Pete Datos and Todd Pollak.
In recent months, five new university press collaborations have received grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Three groups of presses received grants for monograph series in underserved areas of study. Two presses have received grants from the Mellon Foundation to facilitate publishing projects in collaboration with their parent universities and other institutions.
In February, the Mellon Foundation awarded a collaborative publishing grant of $1.16 million to Fordham University Press, University of California Press (FlashPoints series), University of Pennsylvania Press, University of Virginia Press, and University of Washington Press. The five presses will form the Modern Language Initiative (MLI), which will focus on the publication of scholarly books on the literatures of the non-Anglophone world.
In late March, the Early American Places series was announced, with a grant of $648,000 going to the University of Georgia Press, NYU Press, and Northern Illinois University Press over five years to support the publication of early North American History.
A $282,000 one-year planning grant will go to the University Press of Colorado, Texas A&M University Press, University of Alabama Press, University of Arizona Press, University Press of Florida and University of Utah Press to support the Archaeology of the Americas Digital Monograph Initiative.
The University of Pittsburgh Press, in partnership with the university’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science and the Department of History’s World History Center, has been awarded a five-year, $750,000 grant to pursue a book publishing initiative in the history of science.
The University of California Press has received a $722,000 grant to fund a strategic initiative in California Studies in collaboration with the UC Humanities Research Institute (UCHRI), the UC California Studies Consortium (UCCSC), and the California Digital Library (CDL). The grant will support the creation of a journal, a working papers collection, and an annual conference in this emerging field.
The AAUP Partners Program allows key service providers and related organizations to give annual support to AAUP and be formally recognized by AAUP for that support. AAUP is pleased to announce its nine partners in 2009:
Books International
BookMasters, Inc.
BookMobile
Cushing-Malloy, Inc.
codeMantra
ebrary
Maple-Vail
Marquis
Thomson-Shore
AAUP Partners Program
Staff at AAUP member presses are encouraged to submit article proposals to the Exchange about initiatives at member presses, industry news or trends, and other topics of interest to the scholarly publishing community. Feature articles are typically 700-1300 words in length.
The copy deadline for the summer 2009 issue of the Exchange will be Tuesday, August 4. Initial proposals should generally be submitted at least one month in advance of the copy deadline.
Proposals may be sent to the Exchange editor, Meredith Benjamin, at mbenjamin@aaupnet.org.
Perspectives on Publishing Personal Essays on Nature and Environment
by Ann Wendland
This article was first published in The Exchange, Spring 2003.
University presses have a proud tradition of regional publishing. It is an area that fulfills a stated mission of many AAUP members— to publish for and about the communities that surround and support them. Regional publishing can also be an opportunity for a press to build a strong trade publishing program, and some regional titles have the potential for national appeal. Literary nonfiction that emphasizes nature and environment is one of the most important and vibrant genres within regional publishing. Ann Wendland, Publicity Manager at the University of Arizona Press and Exchange Contributing Editor, has undertaken to explore the place of writing of place within the changing worlds of publishing, writing, and reading. In this issue she talks to editors and publishers; look to future issues for perspectives on these titles from the marketing and sales departments.
The View from the Editor’s Desk
Literary nonfiction about the places where we live has held its own through these tough times. An April 28 Publisher’s Weekly feature attributes the success to the uplifting spirit of books about nature and their focus on areas close to home in times when Americans have cut travel.
After talking with five of the best editors and publishers in the field, I believe that these books have enduring success because their intense specificity, powerful writing, and close attention create transcendent experiences for readers in a time that is otherwise dislocated, hurried, and unfocused. A great essay is a big moon rising behind the streetlights and exhaust—all of our forgotten wonder and longing for life come brimming up.
Barbara Ras, now director of Trinity University Press, created and shaped stellar environmental literature lists as an editor at University of Georgia Press and Sierra Club Books. Ras, who won the Walt Whitman Award for her own poetry collection, Bite Every Sorrow (LSU), has published such writers as Barry Lopez, Rebecca Solnit, Paul Shepard, David Kline, and Rick Bass.
I asked how she knows when she’s reading important new work with a broad audience.
“It’s hard to predict. You have to gauge the level of raw enthusiasm that you feel as an editor, whether the work possesses that irresistible style and personal magnetism that makes you want to leap over all the obstacles to publish it.”
I wondered if university presses have a special niche in publishing personal essays on nature and environment; Ras doesn’t consider it a niche so much as an opportunity.
“University presses have a better shot at publishing some of these books because the New York houses need to be certain of high sales.” She also sees our regional readers as significant assets.
“In my experience, trying to break out a regional book to a national audience is overrated. It’s a better strategy to build from a concentrated center and move out in concentric circles.”
I asked Barbara if she sees any trends in the writing.
“Writers are getting more sophisticated and content-conscious. I’m not interested in what Kim Stafford called ‘first-person rhapsodic’ because it’s just too bland and vapid. I’m interested in something that’s going to deliver local lore and legend, culture, history, and natural history—coherent useful knowledge that not only informs you about a place but instructs you about how to be in the world.”
Emilie Buchwald is newly publisher emeritus of Milkweed Editions, the small press that has profoundly shaped the field of personal essays on nature and environment. Milkweed publishes series including Credo and Literature for a Land Ethic, and has recently published Janisse Ray, Annick Smith, William Kittredge, Alison Deming, Terry Tempest Williams, and many others vital to this field.
Buchwald feels that she’s discovered significant work with broad appeal if “a writer has written with verve about place—highly localized place. The more details the better. The best writing is made vivid by the choice of details that will make readers everywhere able to take part imaginatively in the writing.”
When I asked about trends in the genre, Emilie answered, “I see writers recognizing that their greatest strength lies in writing about a place they feel inside their bones.
“I would like to see writing that is not merely elegiac—about the loss of place—but filled with ideas for how to preserve, rebuild, rewild and rethink the issue. I don’t know whether that’s a trend, but it’s certainly the kind of book I’m interested in. We’ve just published Janisse Ray’s Wild Card Quilt, which represents exactly that kind of attitude.”
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of the University of Arizona Press, Gregory McNamee is a highly regarded essayist and anthologist. McNamee edits Arizona’s new Desert Places series, in which writers and photographers work together to portray their experience of a favorite corner of the desert.
I asked Gregory if he thought university presses would, and should, continue to be important publishers of personal essays on nature and environment.
“A university press
properly situated should stake claim for its region,” Gregory answered.
“It has the constituency and the tradition of literary quality and
excellence—from natural history to landscape writing. Editors should
look for good books that interpret the places we live and, indeed,
advocate for them.”
Why does some place-based work fascinate readers
everywhere? Gregory feels the stories transcend place to make a
difference in the world.
“It’s the quality of work, not the familiarity
of setting that’s important to readers. No one calls Walden a regional
book.”
I asked Gregory what trends he saw, or hoped he saw, in the
literature.
“There’s been a powerful strain of rhetorical posing,
self-indulgence, and moralism in nature writing,” Gregory commented.
“The genre could benefit from a purging of this moralism.” He sees the
writing becoming even more resistant to categorization and working
along the connections between art, literature, and science. He
celebrates the trend toward writing about livable cities and lived-in
landscapes, rather than pristine nature.
Mary Elizabeth Braun, an
acquisitions editor at Oregon State University Press, also sees nature
writing venturing into cities and into multiple fields. Oregon is well
known for a distinguished list that investigates life in the Northwest
from every angle—from macrolichen guidebooks to edgy essays.
Asked
about trends, Mary answered that current environmental concerns have
strongly affected the field, that writing is expanding beyond
traditional wilderness settings, and that the cadre of authors is
changing.
“Rather than just penning rhapsodic tributes to the wonders
of supposedly pristine nature,” Mary said, “writers are working to
educate and motivate their readers—tackling health, food, agriculture, and quality of-life issues, and paying more attention to environmental justice.”
Nature and science writers are writing about urban and suburban environments in books such as Sagebrush and Cappucino (Sierra Club), Suburban Wild (Georgia), and City Wilds (Georgia). More people trained in the natural sciences are writing books for broad audiences, often including personal narratives such as bryologist Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Gathering Moss (Oregon).
With all the expansion and diversification in the field, what does an editor home in on?
“The primary quality I look for is fluid, intelligent writing. Secondary qualities include a subject matter of timely interest, a good fit with our list, and an author willing to help promote the book.”
I asked Mary if she thought that university presses have unique advantages in this area.
“Perhaps we do, although many of the more notable titles in recent years have come from commercial houses, not just university presses. We may be in a better position because we’re willing to take risks on such books, which may be written by less well known writers than a commercial house might want. Also, such authors and books may receive closer attention from university presses.”
Karen Orchard is the new director of Oregon State University Press and former director of the University of Georgia Press. Georgia grew into one of the country’s best mid-sized presses in Karen’s 28 years there, establishing exceptional fiction, poetry, and literary nonfiction lists.
She and I talked about the national appeal of place-specific work like Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood (Milkweed), much of which is set in a junkyard.
“When the author is a master storyteller and you know that, it doesn’t matter whether the junkyard was in south Georgia or northern California—what matters is the truth and power of the story.”
She feels that university presses have claimed a special place in publishing personal essays on nature and environment.
“At a time when authors of short fiction collections were having difficulty finding publishers, a few university presses (Georgia, LSU, Pittsburgh, and Illinois among them) made ongoing commitments to publishing book-length short fiction and contributed to a renaissance of that genre. I think that the same has been true more recently for literary nonfiction.
“Essays on nature and the environment, in particular, are a good fit for regional trade publishing programs. Those titles often hold the promise and possibility of breaking into the national trade. They have done especially well on the regional trade lists of university presses because we are very good at reaching their core market—general readers who care deeply about the place they call home.
“These books also often present opportunities for building on strengths a press already has. When I became director of the University of Georgia Press in the mid-1990s, one of the initiatives we pursued was an interdisciplinary list in environmental studies. Our tradition of literary publishing made creative works a natural addition to the scholarly studies, handbooks, and field guides that we planned for that list.”
Personal essays about nature appear to be venturing off of high ground to risky, complex new turf— our own very diverse homes. Because home is where the heart is, these essays engage and provoke readers.
According to AAUP’s “The Value of University Presses,” our publishing programs promote engagement with ideas, preserve the distinctiveness of local cultures, and sustain a literate culture. Perhaps we have a special opportunity to distinguish our presses in this genre because so many of our goals and strengths are at work in it.
by Ann Wendland
This article originally appeared in The Exchange, Summer 2003.
Regional publishing, a proud tradition for university presses, provides an opportunity for presses to build strong trade publishing programs and fulfills a stated mission of many AAUP members—to publish for and about the communities that surround and support them. Some regional titles have met widespread acclaim and maintained strong sales; many of these are books of creative nonfiction emphasizing nature and environment.
In this series of four articles, Ann Wendland, Publicity Manager at the University of Arizona Press and Exchange Contributing Editor, focuses on aspects of publishing in this genre. The first article shared the views of several editors and publishers, our second focuses on the market through the eyes of booksellers, and the remaining two articles will highlight critics’ perspectives and case studies in book promotion.
This article focuses on the market for these books, sharing the insights of eight booksellers with more than 150 years of collective experience selling in this genre. Wendland asked each bookseller four questions. Their answers are compiled here.
Sharon Bosley is the national nature buyer for Barnes & Noble. Krista Hunter is book buyer for Village Books in Bellingham, Washington. University press buyer Cathy Langer and Rocky Mountain Land Series event coordinator Jeff Lee hail from Denver’s venerable Tattered Cover. Karl Pohrt owns Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Linda Ramsdell owns Galaxy Books in rural Hardwick, Vermont. Melissa Sanders manages Salt Lake City’s Ken Sanders Rare Books, which specializes in new and antiquarian editions in this genre. Phil Wikelund owns Great Northwest Books in Portland, Oregon.
Can you characterize readers in the genre of personal essays with environmental themes?
Barnes & Noble’s Sharon Bosley sees broad interest in this genre, with no significant demographic trends. Krista Hunter, too, finds a broad spectrum of outdoor enthusiasts and conservationists poring over the nature-writing shelves. She points out that many of them have been at this a while: “a lot of the active hikers are in their sixties.” Karl Pohrt of Shaman Drum agrees that there is a diversity of age within this market. He also feels that this genre has the same audience that university presses reach in general—well educated, socially and politically active. These readers, he finds, also buy in poetry and in religion. Jeff Lee characterizes the people who attend Rocky Mountain Land Series events as “naturally curious about things—their education didn’t stop at college.”
Many readers are looking to explore issues. Bosley notes: “Of course, there are the die-hard nature people who will read everything in the field, but others have specific interests, like birders or people who want to save wolves.” Cathy Langer adds: “Something on water issues that’s kind of personal is going to do nicely, because that’s big right now.” Phil Wikelund sees a steady stream of issue-driven readers from Portland’s environmental movement, but he also hand-sells books in the genre to cowboys from Oregon’s east side. “You have to know exactly who you’re talking to,” Phil says.
The readers can’t all be grouped as environmentalists. According to Bosley, “There are people who read these books because they’re for the environment, but there are also books in this genre that are against the environment, and there are readers interested in that too.” Linda Ramsdell finds Vermont hunters and anglers dipping into the environmental nonfiction shelves: “That kind of writing blends with more reflective writing about fishing or hunting.” Like other booksellers, she identifies the primary customers simply as people who care about the environment and spend a lot of time outdoors. Melissa Sanders sees readership crossing battle-lines in Salt Lake City. “…One of our best customers in this genre is a muckety-muck at Chevron. Most people here are interested in books that present an issue completely. This place has such a strong history of being one-sided, and there’s such a deep resentment here about that. …People work very proactively to read books that include a variety of ideas and perspectives.”
Over all, Tattered Cover’s Langer finds a “really solid, if not always huge market for that kind of book. …People who live here really understand the importance of a sense of place, and people who are new here are trying to get to know the place.” Krista Hunter, Melissa Sanders, and Linda Ramsdell also find that newcomers to their regions turn to personal essays. According to Hunter, “They choose the personal essays because nature for a lot of people is personal.” Phil Wikelund agrees that readers look for great writers to explore with: “The beauty of the prose characterizes the beauty of nature…[readers] feel as if ‘somebody has said what I feel about nature better than I could.’”
What trends do you see in readers’ interests?
Interest in the entire genre is up, says Sharon Bosley, particularly in trade paper. Linda Ramsdell of Galaxy Books celebrates new generations and readers coming to the literature. “I wouldn’t say that their interests change, but some of the writing is more scientific now, whereas before the more scientific writing might have been separate or had a separate readership— that readership has joined with the personal essay readers. People are just going deeper into this subject.” Karl Pohrt agrees that his Ann Arbor readers increasingly eschew “general feel-good work that’s less grounded—they want to read something…where they’re going to learn some hard information and enjoy an excellent narrative.”
Melissa Sanders feels that a recent generation of writers marked a sea change for this genre—writers who reflect on humanity such as Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, or, currently, Scott Carrier or Andrea Peacock. “For a lot of people involved in activism and environmental work, it’s a lot easier to relate to their work than to the work of earlier naturalists,” she believes.
Jeff Lee comments, “Place-based writing seems to appeal to people…whereas before I was more aware of the straight natural history books. There seems to be more of a desire for reflective writing.” Great Northwest Books’ Wikelund adds, “There’s an increased sense of the pressure of population on the places that people love—while I wouldn’t say there’s a chronology that goes from soft-spoken to desperation, there is more and more firmness, more polemic and stronger prose.” Krista Hunter sees readers searching for connection with nature as it becomes more politicized. “Barry Lopez, David James Duncan, Wendell Berry and Terry Tempest Williams have spoken out in a very personal way. We have a real core of great writers out there who don’t see a separation between humans and nature.” And that, she feels, encourages readers.
Cathy Langer observes that “there’s more being published in this area. It’s something that people care about. This is a heavily browsed and searched out kind of area, and obscure books sell more quickly than in other areas.”
How do readers in this genre learn about new books—how do you promote them?
Readers can expect hand-selling of these books. “A lot of staff members here read in this area and recommend books to customers, coming from different angles from gardening and farming to hiking and kayaking,” says Krista Hunter. Phil Wikelund leads readers from their cherished authors to similar writers, and steers issue driven readers to related issues. Cathy Langer admits a helpful bias: “A lot of us [at Tattered Cover] really like that kind of book, so we tend to nurture them a little more.”
One thing Hunter hasn’t seen much is adoption into the Book Sense program. “If you’re really hot on a book, press kits and cardboard posters for the books are helpful…reader’s copies might be a good consideration for a particular book that you want mainstream attention for.” Karl Pohrt also notes the absence and suggests sending galleys and talking with individual booksellers who might particularly like an important book. He encourages presses to consider devoting special attention to the 50 or 100 bookshops with the strongest markets for a particular book in order to break into Book Sense.
Partly because of their beauty, books in this genre can get great placement. At Galaxy Books, Linda Ramsdell keeps them prominent. “These books are really core to what we have here to sell, they’re up front and center. Vermont books are right there by the door…nature essays are on the way to the cash register.” Village Books devotes extensive primary floor space to nature writing, and offers publications that frequently review this genre—Bloomsbury, High Country News, and its own Chuckanut Reader.
“Not that looks are everything,” says Krista Hunter, “but I think that academic presses understand the trade market now, and produce books that have the look and the feel that people expect.” Karl Pohrt agrees that “this is a really visually oriented culture. Even for academic and scholarly people to whom this shouldn’t matter, a good cover design is really critical.”
While intriguing cover art or timely topics help carry the books, Sharon Bosley believes they really need media reviews and coverage to get attention. “You get someone like Janisse Ray, who’s out there talking about her book, and if she has a strong personal presence that really sells the book. A nonfiction book that has a strong, well-written narrative is the likeliest candidate for breakout to a wider audience.”
Author events shine a spotlight on these books. Tattered Cover draws attention to the genre with a special event series developed in partnership with the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Land Library and organized by Jeff Lee. The series attracts frequent CSpan coverage. “The event series embeds the store further in its community, which is what an independent really wants to do,” Lee says. “There’s a nice mix of new faces— each author or subject brings in a fresh batch—with regulars.”
Melissa Sanders notes, “Events are critical…We don’t make money on events or on keeping our doors open late, but it’s the only way for us to be a living, breathing bookstore. We want to attract people who haven’t been to the store, and also to maintain our involvement with long-time customers.” Village Books has a tremendously successful reading series, and place-based writers are particular hits. “When Barry Lopez comes it’s like sardines in here,” Hunter laughs. “People like Mary Oliver have been a tremendous boost—people who aren’t necessarily hikers and campers enjoy her thoughtfulness.”
Do you see a special niche for university presses in this area of publishing?
All of the booksellers agree that university presses do have a special niche in this genre. Linda Ramsdell sums up the consensus: “University presses are so good at finding the books and keeping them in print. UPNE [University Press of New England] books are really core to what we sell here, and I can’t picture anybody else publishing them. I also think of Nebraska keeping Loren Eiseley’s books in print. And when books come from university presses, I implicitly trust the scholarship and seriousness. A book from a trade house I’d scrutinize more.” Sharon Bosley confirms, “It’s the university presses that lend authority to this subject.”
Melissa Sanders feels that university presses will continue to succeed by “getting in on the ground level with a writer who’s very talented, like Rick Bass [The Deer Pasture, Texas A&M University Press]. The list of naturalist authors who were first published by university presses is endless—it’s definitely an area where university presses have led the pack. They are very in-tune with their area and with what’s happening in it…university presses add regional significance to what would otherwise be a very bland national market.”
by Ann Wendland
This article originally appeared in The Exchange, Fall 2003.
Third in a series of four articles on publishing creative nonfiction that emphasizes nature, this article addresses marketing methods. The first article shared the viewpoints of five acquiring editors, and the second featured interviews with eight booksellers with special experience in this genre. The author is Publicity Manager at the University of Arizona Press. Nature writing has been a perennial favorite with Arizona’s customers and is an important and growing part of its publication program.
In two previous articles in this series, booksellers and acquiring editors affirmed university presses’ niche in publishing nature writing—how publishing place-based creative nonfiction fits our missions and our strengths. University presses have a reputation for finding important new nature writers and for keeping classics in print, for staying at the forefront of trends, and for producing gorgeous books that appeal to a trade audience.
So, to be blunt, why the short print runs?
To find out, it’s back to the publishing house for an inside look at the challenges and opportunities involved in marketing nature writing.
Selling nature writing demands unusual approaches, knowledge, and decisions in direct and academic mail, exhibits, sales, and publicity.
Direct mail is the most problematic tool for marketing nature writing. The irony of mass-mailing leaflets that advertise books about our fragile environment is not lost on recipients. For this reason, a perfectly well targeted mailing can earn a response of thunderous silence.
It’s not much easier to get word to the academic community. There is only one strong mailing list and one conference dedicated to literature and the environment; interested professors are scattered across disciplines. Faculty teaching environmental studies, environmental education, creative nonfiction, and American literature courses might assign these books. But the genre falls between disciplines, and lists blanketing all faculty in one or another of these areas can’t be counted on to return cost effective numbers of course adoptions.
Many professors likely to assign these books self-identify by joining the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment. The ASLE mailing list of about 800 names is the best bet for academic mailings. The College Mailing List Directory includes a few applicable lists of faculty—250 teaching nature-in-literature, 150 teaching environmental education, 4,600 teaching creative writing, and 250 teaching literature of the American West. These may, in select cases, offer reasonable return on marketing dollars.
Professors who do assign these books often stick with classics, making course adoption especially unlikely for new authors. The lively discourse, niche schools, and highbrow journals characteristic of some genres haven’t developed in nature writing. The larger genre of creative nonfiction itself is just beginning to come into its own, increasingly featured in MFA programs that once included only poetry and fiction.
Do academics find these books at exhibits? Yes, if they’re among the 400 or so participants in the ASLE conference, attended by up to eight university presses. But nature writing sells slowly at other literary and environmental conferences, unless those conferences take place in the region described in the books. The University of Arizona Press’s Ecological Society of America exhibit sales quadrupled at the 2002 conference held in Tucson. Nature writing represented an unusually high percentage of unit sales.
Nature writing makes life interesting for sales managers, too. Most books sell best, especially at first, in the place that the essays describe. Perhaps that explains part of the trend toward urban nature writing— Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire aside, it may help sales if the book describes an area that includes more than one trailer and a thousand square miles of scorching, bookstore-free desert.
Even if a press publishes nature writing frequently, sales managers must handcraft a list of outlets for each book, because each focuses on a unique place. Gift distributors rarely succeed selling books of nature writing except for coffee-table picture-books.
Nontraditional bookstores not visited by sales representatives may dominate a book’s potential sales outlets, requiring special calls and mailings. Mainstays for nature writing include visitor centers at parks and the sales outlets of local nonprofit groups, such as Audubon societies. Some natural history museums carry nature writing, but budget cuts at most museums have forced store managers to emphasize higher-margin souvenirs.
Sales managers have extra steps to take with the cooperating associations or friends groups that run National Park and National Forest bookstores. Book buyers require a review copy and a waiting period while the cooperating association and the agency decide if the book promotes their mission. The review process and staff support take on special meaning to the publisher when one store is the make-or-break outlet for the book.
The publicist may help by pitching signings at the best possible sales outlets to encourage them to sell the book and draw the staff’s attention to the publication. At Arizona, we’ve successfully jump-started the review process by offering author events.
Publicity for nature writing also differs from publicity for other trade publishing genres. Blurbs, review lists, media relations, events, and award nominations for nature writing all require unconventional approaches and specialized knowledge or research.
Blurbs may have particular importance in this genre because of the difficulty of selling books by unknown authors. According to booksellers interviewed in the previous article in this series, nature writing sells in two categories—books by well-known authors and books with a local focus. Fans of well-known authors might try out a new writer if they see an accolade from a favorite author. Readers interested in learning about their local area may trust an unknown author if the director of a regional conservation group or the author of a best-selling guidebook praises the book.
Nature writing has wonderful creative potential for events. Place based books, with their more concentrated sales outlets, demand diverse events. Rather than dragging the author through a string of diminishing-returns signings at every local bookstore, the publicist and author can craft a series of workshops, excursions, signings, and lectures.
Co-sponsoring events with outdoor and environmental groups helps attract varied audiences and gives the publicist one-time access to the organization’s mailing list for postcard mailings and e-mail announcements. The co-sponsor may include a feature about the book, an author interview, and event publicity in its newsletter. They may help create, pay for, and distribute postcards and fliers. The group may also buy autographed copies as development gifts. Bookstores appreciate co-sponsored events because they help attract new customers and increase chances of media attention.
While events at core outlets generate sales momentum and staff support, events outside of bookstores and visitor centers offer tasty possibilities. Authors may lead workshops or outdoor adventures with a local field institute, speak at monthly meetings of local Sierra Club and Audubon chapters, or participate in a lecture series in campus creative writing or environmental studies departments.
Authors in this field often participate in e-mail lists and hold memberships in relevant organizations. Follow-up on these memberships can boost possibilities for coverage in chapter newsletters and national membership magazines, such as Audubon, Sierra, OnEarth, Defenders, Environmental Defense Letter, Nature Conservancy, Land & People, and Wilderness.
The publicist is the ray of hope when it comes to coverage in newspapers, national magazines, and destination travel magazines, which have prohibitive ad rates. Several magazines in this field don’t run ads at all because of state sponsorship or editorial policy.
Magazines that focus on nature, environment, outdoor sports and travel may carry a book review, a profile of the author as a conservationist, a mention in an annual gift roundup, or a story that depends on the book as a reference. State-published travel magazines or destination-specific travel magazines such as Arizona Highways, Colorado Outdoors, or Massachusetts Wildlife offer excellent potential for excerpts, author profiles, and book reviews.
Regional newspapers such as High Country News, Rocky Mountain News, The Denver Post, Salt Lake Tribune, Albuquerque Journal, and Portland Oregonian frequently review place-based creative nonfiction. But in general, getting into the daily news requires ingenuity; as nature writing is reflective, not newsy. The publicist might pitch stories linked to a special author event, travel stories about the site described in the book, or stories about the author’s personal journey (culminating, of course, in the book.)
Some books of personal essays center on topics of news interest— wildfire, water, sprawl-endangered wetlands or forests, for instance— and have potential for issue-driven publicity. When a relevant conservation issue hits the news, the author may publish an op-ed or be interviewed on television and radio. Books with a chronological progression may serialize in newspapers or on the radio. Fiveminute “almanac” readings by two University of Arizona Press nature writers have become listener favorites on a local radio station.
The review lists are rich, labor intensive, and eclectic before the publicist even gets to the creative nonfiction reviewers. The jewels of the genre, in terms of frequency and thoughtfulness of nature-writing reviews, include High Country News, Orion, Bloomsbury Review, ISLE, and regional literary reviews like Ruminator Review or Chuckanut Reader. The publicist can also send review copies to dozens of literary reviews that cover nonfiction, such as Creative Nonfiction, The Georgia Review, and Salon.com.
Publicists may quail before sending galleys of place-based books to out-of-region newspapers and prepublication reviewers. Is the book a delightful evocation of a region or is it literature? Reviews of Janisse Ray’s Ecology of a Cracker Childhood appeared in The New York Times, Booklist, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and many out-of-region newspapers. Publishers Weekly caught Rick Bass’s Oil Notes back when the Montana nature writer still worked as a southern petroleum geologist.
Award nominations also require attention to both local and national possibilities. National awards such as the John Burroughs Medal offer a huge boost in visibility, but well publicized regional awards and inclusion in holiday gift lists may boost sales equally.
All in all, marketing nature writing requires original work, broad and deep knowledge or research, hand-selling and hand-pitching to new and established contacts. Introducing a new writer or a new nature writing list can be daunting, with so much of the field revolving around a select set of authors, publishers, and booksellers. As unique as the places that inspire them, these books require careful reading and creative, individualized marketing plans. Presses planning to sell more nature writing must recognize the atypical, hand-crafted outreach that these books demand and gear up to commit significant marketing energy.
Place-Based Personal Essays with the Power to Change Us
by Ann Wendland
Originally published in The Exchange, Winter 2004.
This is the final article in a series about publishing creative nonfiction that emphasizes place and nature. The first article shared the viewpoints of acquiring editors, the second featured interviews with booksellers with outstanding records selling this genre, and the third focused on marketing. This final article takes a step back to suggest the telltale signs of the next Thoreau, analyze the earlier articles for an overall look at trends, and offer a few compelling reasons for University presses to publish in this genre. The writer, Ann Wendland, has been Publicity Manager at the University of Arizona Press for three years. She is moving to Boulder, Colorado, and would be happy to respond to any comments on this article; e-mail her at wendland@earthlink.net.
Jacket-copy comparisons of new nature writers to Henry David Thoreau or Rachel Carson (if female) have been made on such a regular basis as to keep both of these greats in a perpetual spin in their graves. In fact, Thoreaus and Carsons aren’t popping up daily. Many place-based memoirs and collections of personal essays run thick with rhapsody, enlightenment, moral outrage and despair, but very few generate sweeping activism and alter our views of nature and of ourselves the way that Carson and Thoreau did.
How can publishers identify stand-out work with potential to make a tremendous social impact—in advance of the rapid-fire of reviews, the J-curve of sales, and the appearance of the author on the Today Show and the House and Senate floors?
The old-fashioned way, say editors: look at the writing. And what do they look for?
Verve, irresistible style and personal magnetism, transcendence, masterful storytelling, and fluid, intelligent writing are the qualities editors singled out when interviewed for the first article in this series.
The booksellers who shared their experience selling place-based writing agree with the editors. Their reports from the field show readers turning away from “general feel-good work that’s less grounded” and toward writing with strong, well-written narrative, a reflective, personal style and lots of interesting detail. Linda Ramsdell, a bookseller in Vermont, sees clienteles merging as more science shows up in essays and more reflection appears in science-writing. Melissa Sanders, in Salt Lake City, believes that customers involved in activism and environmental work relate more easily to writers whose work includes deliberation on culture than to the earlier naturalists.
Editors and readers are looking for the same traits in these books: powerful narrative, fascinating information, and insightful reflection.
The reflection in place-based writing is unusual. It sustains a singular cultural conversation that’s important to American identity and social development. Writers speak from a specific place—as small as Thoreau’s reflecting pool or as large as Carson’s U.S. farmland—to show us how we look from the outside and how we’re operating in relation to other life. The intertwined reflection on people and nature distinguishes nature writing from science writing, which shines its light at natures other than our own, and from outdoor sports writing, which focuses on empowerment and really big blisters, with nature as enabling mechanism.
Another identifying characteristic of books that shake up culture is that they sell. Any book that’s going to make a big difference in a place has to get a critical mass of people in that place talking. Editors can predict marketability through their long perspective on developments in the field. Booksellers can help by telling us what their readers want from those shelves of nature writing and regional books.
Readers want imaginative, enthusiastic engagement, but in this genre, there’s a hurdle for writers to leap before they can provide it. They must suspend our disbelief that nature matters. It takes a dose of disbelief in the significance of nature just to get through a day. Mindboggling impact to the places we live combines nastily with increasingly busy lives; and both the casual indifference of industry and the moralistic orientation of the environmental movement have made intimacy with place seem a tedious and discouraging duty, not a continuing pleasure. So, how do writers suspend our disbelief and reengage us?
Writers recognize that their greatest strength lies in writing about a place they feel inside their bones, says Milkweed Publisher Emeritus Emilie Buchwald. Great work, she feels, is crammed with details about a highly localized place, each chosen to bring readers there in their imaginations. The writers live for the places they write about. The initial attraction of their strange ardor turns to intrigue and then to full engagement for the reader.
Two western booksellers, Utah’s Sanders and Cathy Langer of Colorado’s Tattered Cover, share the sense that people increasingly want to experience the place they live deeply. Now that nature writers are publishing work set in cities, rural places, and suburbs (a trend confirmed by every editor interviewed), they’re in a perfect position to answer this hunger for connection.
Booksellers from Vermont to Utah to Washington say that they’re finding the clientele for placebased nonfiction expanding and diversifying. The wider audience expects exploration of issues from a variety of viewpoints, even opposing viewpoints. Rather than reading broadly in the genre, a growing number of customers select titles that offer more thoughtful, well-rounded and innovative look at particular issues that are important to them.
Editors are looking for work to match these readers’ interests— timely, issue-driven work that investigates many sides of a problem. Mary Elizabeth Braun, of Oregon State University Press, sees writers tackling health, food, agriculture, environmental justice, and quality-oflife issues. Buchwald looks for ideas for how to preserve, rebuild, rewild and rethink. And Barbara Ras of Trinity University Press wants work that not only informs but instructs people about how to be in the world. Rachel Carson might have been excited to see this confluence in the interests of readers, writers, and publishers, the new energy pouring into the search for ways to think about and address issues.
Readers are looking for the next Thoreau, the next Carson, the next great writer who can tell powerful stories, reflect on our culture in relation to the rest of life, teach and provoke us.
University presses, as regional publishers, have a perfect opportunity in this field because we know the places, know the markets, and can take risks on publishing books that might or might not break out to a national audience. The books answer our commitment to help to preserve the distinctiveness of local cultures through publication of works on our home regions. We’re good at discovering talent; once in a great while, we’ll find even those writers who can shake up culture with a book of nature writing.
In The Log from the Sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck says: “A child’s world spreads only a little beyond his understanding while that of a great scientist thrusts outward immeasurably. An answer is invariably the parent of a great family of new questions.” University presses exist to perpetuate questions, analysis, reflection, and cultural conversation. Place-based creative nonfiction sustains a singular line of inquiry with its intertwined reflection on people and nature. It’s a perfect match.
University Presses in Tough Times
Minnesota Archive Editions Brings the Past Back Into Print
The Carol Franz Memorial Fund
Rotunda Showcases History By Looking to the Future
Task Force on Committees Survey
In Remembrance of L.E. “Les” Phillabaum
AAUP Presses at MLA 2008
Miscellany:
Update: Children’s Book Publishing and the CPSIA
2009 Book, Jacket, and Journal Show Judging
Two New Mellon Grants Awarded to University Press Groups
Obama on Presidential Records and FOIA
Calendar: See the Events Calendar at www.aaupnet.org
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Brenna McLaughlin
Electronic & Strategic Initiatives Director, AAUP
In these economically troubled times, people are hungry for information and knowledge. The news media is essential for the first of those—details on the latest wrangling over the U.S. economic stimulus plan, the latest employment numbers, and a global view of the world-wide effects of the economic crisis. University presses, however, are key to the second: knowledge. For economists’ comprehensive understanding of the roots of the crisis, for historical analysis of how New Deal policies worked to end the Great Depression, and for detailed study of the effects of infrastructure projects on recovery and development, the public can turn to books published by members of the AAUP.
Despite this value of university press output to communities both local and global, we are no more protected from the economic downturn than other sectors of the U.S. economy and culture. The pain has been widely shared. A new survey from AAUP indicates that sales, in both units and dollars, are down 10% across the association.
The survey compared the figures for the six-month period of July to December 2008 to those of the same period in 2007 from sixty-two participating presses. Designed to quickly solicit a general picture of the business climate, the data is a useful tool as individual presses face difficult budget decisions. The association is now looking at rolling together the particular data collected here with the quarterly sales and returns survey that has been conducted since 2003.
That difficult budgetary times are ahead, and in many cases already with us, is unquestionable. Widespread reports of slashed travel budgets forced the cancellation of the 2009 financial managers and production managers meetings. Staff lay-offs at SUNY Press and the U.S. offices of Oxford University Press were an even more sobering sign of the strain felt by university presses from market realities and looming state budget cuts. These last affect not only the presses at public universities, but also the state-affiliated college and research libraries that remain key purchasers of scholarly material.
Perhaps the most shocking news has been the possibility that drastic cuts to the higher education budget of Utah might lead to the shuttering of the press at Utah State University. While a small press on an industry-wide scale, with 5 employees and an output of approximately 20 books a year, within its fields of publication Utah State University Press is an institution of central importance. Numerous award-winning books in rhetoric and composition, folklore, Mormon studies, and Utah history have garnered lasting national and international respect for both the press and Utah State. Despite this reputation, the press has been warned that if the worst case scenario of a 19% cut in state funds comes to pass, the press is on a list of non-essential units that may be eliminated.
The press director, Michael Spooner, has told the Chronicle of Higher Education that he understands the financial pressures that the administration is facing, but that the press is “operationally sound, financially stable, and over-achieving its given mission.” As was pointed out by Peter Givler, executive director of AAUP, while the move may save the university 3.5 salaries in the short run, in the long term they may never be able to afford to rebuild a press of such value or buy back the prestige that will be lost. University presses are not alone in being targeted as non-essential despite serving a core scholarly function. Recent news of the proposed closure of the Brandeis University Rose Art Museum (and sale of its esteemed collection of contemporary art) and the University of Pennsylvania’s move to shut down the research arm of their Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology are equally disturbing signs of the devaluation of a university’s work outside of teaching departments.
Despite these warning signs of potential university press casualties during the coming economic distress, the important work of AAUP members goes on. There are even things to celebrate: Mrs. Ramsay’s Knee, a work of poetry by Iris Anderson published by the Utah State University Press caught the national attention on Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac” on January 10; SUNY Press announced the publication of Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady in time for the inauguration of Barack Obama. Looking to history provides some promise as well. After all, as the late L.E. Phillabaum and Sheldon Meyer wrote in “What is a University Press?,” the Great Depression saw one of the greatest booms in university publishing.
As the members of AAUP face the fear of a second such depression, the association and its community of colleagues will work together to manage continued technological and economic change creatively and successfully. In addition to the data provided by such efforts as the six-month sales survey, the AAUP Board recently requested the revision and distribution of “Tips for Hard Times” originally put together in 2001. AAUP will continue to develop collaborative services for members, and act as an advocate for members’ work to the wider world. And when the AAUP Annual Meeting gathers in Salt Lake City in June 2010, we very much hope to be returning to a two-press state.
Password information for members-only links.
Meredith Benjamin
Communications Coordinator, AAUP
The Minnesota Archive Editions program will bring back into print virtually every book published in the University of Minnesota Press’s history. This ambitious project had a three-fold source of inspiration, says press director Doug Armato. The first was a notification from Google about the high number of searches they were identifying for out-of-print books linked to the press. “This wasn’t a question we were asking,” said Armato, but the tip-off from Google got the wheels turning in the heads of Minnesota staff members.
Minnesota’s internal digital assets team “had on our minds that there was more to the backlist than you would have figured.” During BookExpo America 2007, a representative from BookSurge approached the press to talk about the company’s work with Amazon, and about their interests in putting out-of-print university press books back online. This idea was intriguing to the press, as staff had been thinking about whether digitization and access to older titles should be entirely the province of libraries and programs like Google Book Search, or whether it was the press’s responsibility to get involved as well.
The third piece of the puzzle was the massive new database that Minnesota had recently created, for which they had begun extensive research on their backlist and the documentation of what rights they currently had. With demonstrated proof of interest in their out-of-print titles, an offer from commercial partners to help put them back into print, and a database of their own which would facilitate doing so, everything came together. And thus was born Minnesota Archive Editions.
The rights database had originally been researched and maintained by regular press staff, but with the official arrival of the Minnesota Archive Editions, the increased demands of research necessitated additional assistance. The press found a student who Armato praised as “perfectly suited to this kind of project,” and whom the press was able to keep on staff after his graduation.
As Minnesota was examining their out-of-print books from the past decade, they realized that with today’s market and technologies, many of the titles probably would not have been put out-of-print. It became evident that creating any sort of definitive criteria for what titles should or should not go out of print was extremely difficult with so many shifting factors involved. The Archive Editions program eliminated the need for this sort of dividing line, as it gave the press the opportunity to put back into print virtually every book it had published since its inception in 1925.
While many presses today may have some sort of print-on-demand capabilities or arrangements, Armato believes it is the “universality” of the Archive Editions program that sets it apart from more traditional POD. Generally speaking, print -on-demand programs “are only forward looking” and in Armato’s mind, create what he views as an “artificial boundary,” in that these programs are usually options for books currently being published and those that will be published in the future.
Minnesota’s relationships with its commercial partners in this venture – Google, Amazon/BookSurge, and BookMobile – are what Armato called “true partnerships.” Amazon/BookSurge covered the capital costs associated with the digitization of the books, which will be recouped as books are sold. The books have been digitized in a print-ready PDF format. As these titles were out-of-print, and Minnesota had opted-out of Google’s library scanning initiative, they had not been previously digitized by Google. Minnesota is now submitting the PDFs provided by Amazon for inclusion in Google Book Search, where “buy” links will be included to the press’s website and Amazon. The titles available through the Archive Editions initiative are produced in limited quantities according to customer demand and can be ordered through Amazon and through the Chicago Distribution Center, which will forward orders to BookMobile for printing and fulfillment. Armato added, “Eventually, we’d like to move those books to e-book distributors as well, but that will take an extra conversion (to “Universal PDF”).”
While there have been occasional copyright issues concerning images in the Archive Editions, Armato explained that for the most part, the fact that the press hasn’t “changed the medium…in reality these are still books,” has eliminated many of the image copyright issues that arise “when you start to create truly digital projects.”
Explaining the appeal of the program, Armato expressed his feeling that “for the most part at this point, people still want to read physical books…this really covers all the bases…people can discover the titles online and still get a physical book.” Facilitating this online discovery, books in the program will be full-text searchable through both Amazon’s Search Inside the Book program and Google’s Book Search. He emphasized that the idea behind the program was something the press had been thinking about for a long time as part of its stated mission “to disseminate through book publication work of exceptional scholarly quality and originality.”
Only two months after its official launch in late November 2008, the press has already seen quantifiable gains from the program. While Armato noted that the press is still watching to see how the program fares in the long run, they are extremely pleased with the early results. Beyond the scholarly advantage of continuing access to these titles, the press has seen steady monthly revenue from the program, and it is now their most profitable channel of digital distribution. Further proving that formerly out-of-print books may generate significant interest, Armato indicated that the press was beginning to get course adoptions for some previously out-of-print books.
With the success of this program, and the relatively small financial cost to the press, Armato predicted that similar programs will soon be instituted at other university presses. He cited the recent announcement of the University of North Carolina Press’s Enduring Editions Program as an example of a similar venture. With the current state of the economy forcing university presses to take a hard look at their budgets, this sort of program may offer an attractive option for presses looking to increase the availability of their backlist, while reaping a profit through a minimal initial investment.