05 Nov University Press Publishing in the Age of Kindle
Leslie Mitchner (Rutgers University Press, Editor in Chief)
Wednesday, November 5 / 4:00 PM
SSMS 2135
In spite of the frequent coverage in the New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Publishers Weekly, Inside Higher Ed, and on listservs, websites, scholarly journal articles and beyond, the information and advice filtering down to graduate students, assistant professors, and even published authors at higher ranks has failed to keep up with the very rapid pace of change in scholarly publishing. Most faculty are unaware of how open access, consortia of presses selling e-books to libraries, the decline of bookstores both chain and independent, cutbacks in library funding, competition of book sales with expensive journal purchases by libraries, decline of review media, and general lack of funding in academia are affecting their prospects in finding an appropriate publisher and the kind of offers that might be made after successful review of manuscripts. If they are approaching publishers for the first time, they also need advice about how to do that successfully.
Discount schedules, “crossover books,” and what it takes to reach so-called general or interdisciplinary readers are topics that few authors truly understand. The finances of e-books mystify many. Publishers need the help of faculty to publicize and promote their books in ways that were not previously needed, and more than ever before, they prefer to publish books by academics highly active in their fields. These are some of the issues Mitchner will address in her visit with faculty and students at UCSB.
Leslie Mitchner is the Associate Director and Editor in Chief at Rutgers University Press, where she has been acquiring books in numerous fields (film and media studies, Latino/a studies, American studies, art history, African American studies, women’s and gender studies, Asian American studies, and more) for over thirty years.
Sponsored by the IHC, the Department of Film and Media Studies, the Department of History, and the Department of English.