Indiana University Press blog

Two IUP employees win Pat Hoefling Memorial Grants

We're pleased to announce that IUP staff members Laura Baich, Electronic Marketing Manager, and June Silay, Project Editor, were recently awarded professional developments grants from the Pat Hoefling Memorial Fund. This fund allows new and mid-career level staff to attend publishing conferences in order to learn about new technologies and practices within the industry. Baich and Silay will use their grants to attend the AAUP annual meeting in Boston this June. 

The Pat Hoefling Memorial Fund, which is supported by donations, has helped send several IUP staff members to AAUP over the last few years. Past winners include Production Coordinator Dan Pyle, Sponsoring Editor Raina Polivka, and Trade Marketing and Publicity Manager Mandy Clarke.

Pat Hoefling was sales and marketing director at IU Press from November 2005 until her death in July 2010. During her tenure at the Press, she positively affected staff members by generously sharing her knowledge and encouraging them to learn new skills to advance their professional development.

Both of this year's winners spoke of how Pat’s legacy endures through these grants. "I'm very honored to receive this grant," Baich said. "Pat was a great advocate of my career development while she my boss, and it means a lot that she can still help me further my professional goals."

"I am pleased and grateful for this opportunity," said Silay. "It is gratifying to know that this memorial fund is stimulating more and more interest and applicants each year. In itself, this is a testament and a tribute to Pat's spirit."

To learn more about the fund or to make a donation, visit the Pat Hoefling page on our website.

Two IUP books featured at ASN World Convention

Shatterzone of Empires and Loyal Unto Death will be featured in panels during the 18th Annual Association for the Study of Nationalities World Convention. The convention will be held at Columbia University from April 18-20. To see a complete list of sessions, download a PDF of the conference program.

Call for Papers: Framing the Global Conference

IU Press, along with the Center for the Study of Global Change, are sponsoring the Framing the Global Conference, to be held September 26-28 on the IU campus. This conference will explore emerging directions and methodologies for global research. We invite you to submit proposals for panels or papers for this conference. Please send your proposals through our online submission page by April 15. Submission guidelines can be found on the conference website.

About Framing the Global:
Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Framing the Global is a five-year collaboration between the Center for the Study of Global Change at Indiana University and IU Press.

Papers that show promise for being developed into books that meet the project's aims may be considered for publication in the Global Research Studies book series, part of the Framing the Global initiative.

Scott Russell Sanders to give keynote at Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts conference

On January 7, Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Conservationist Manifesto and Earth Works, will deliver the keynote address for the Indiana Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts' annual conference. His speech is set for 11 a.m. at Indianapolis Marriott Downtown. For more information, contact Liz Rice at 317-692-7325 or info@iaswcd.org.

Pat Hoefling grant winners report on experiences at AAUP: Part 2

We are pleased to have Mandy Clarke participate in a Q&A with us about her experience at the 2012 Association of American University Presses (AAUP) conference. She and Raina Polivka were recipients of professional development grants from the Pat Hoefling Memorial Fund.

What was the highlight of AAUP for you?
The highlight of the meeting for me was speaking on the regional publishing workshop panel. With a fixed number of attendees, the small space allowed for discussion and analysis that was not possible in the larger, shorter sessions. I spoke on the Building a Big Book portion of this panel, giving a presentation specifically about the quick turnaround to publish This Is INDIANA (within two weeks of the end of March Madness) and the challenges and opportunities this presented. There were many talented and knowledgeable panelists in this session, which was best summarized by Steve Yates of the University Press of Mississippi. “All happy, successful publishers are different; all unhappy, failing publishers are exactly alike. It’s time to stop trying to be some other press whose big books you admire. It’s time to become the focused, niche publishers whose breakout ‘big books’ arise organically from an already perceived and readily engaged market, and are scaled from the beginning to succeed within your publishing program, not someone else’s. Your big book only needs to be ‘big’ to you and in some ways to the author to succeed.” Very perceptive advice.

What are some of the most valuable things you learned at AAUP? What new ideas from AAUP will you incorporate into your job?
The workshop I attended on electronic marketing was remarkable. We will begin implementing a lot of the suggestions given in our next catalog, particularly regarding book trailers which the involved presses are managing to do on a zero budget by means of author resources. Trailers are created 4-5 months pre-publication, when acquisitions editors encourage authors to contact their universities, student interns, qualified friends, etc. to create trailers free of charge, and then brand the trailers with a before and after clip. The book trailers are then used on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as with QR codes in advertisements and in catalogs. They can also be employed by sales reps and bookstores hosting events. As a result of these ideas, IU Press now has a trailer for B.J. Hollars’s Sightings (spring 2013) and we are looking forward to the outcome. Another idea from the University of Georgia Press is to send its electronic marketing manager to conferences to interview and shoot footage of authors. This is the perfect opportunity to promote new series as a whole (in our case, the Break Away Books series would be first in line). It’s also an easy way to work with multiple authors in the same field at once, branding the series, and becoming a tool for both acquisitions and marketing purposes.

For those who haven't been to an AAUP meeting, give some reasons why you should go.
The most important reason to attend AAUP is pretty clear-cut in my opinion—the connections and the camaraderie. Attendees are a group of intelligent and confident individuals, more than willing and excited to share contacts and resources, particularly in the field of publicity.

Pat Hoefling grant winners report on experiences at AAUP: Part 1

We are pleased to have Raina Polivka blogging for us about her experience at the 2012 Association of American University Presses (AAUP) conference. She and Mandy Clarke were recipients of professional development grants from the Pat Hoefling Memorial Fund.

Thanks to the Pat Hoefling grant, I was awarded the invaluable opportunity to attend the 2012 AAUP annual meeting in Chicago. This year’s theme, “Igniting the Future,” resounded throughout the conference as participants and attendees were abuzz with a collective energy to meet the newest challenges to academic publishing head-on. Perhaps the most inspiring aspects of the conference for me can be characterized in two ways: articulation and collaboration.

The articulation of the current state of scholarly publishing and the challenges awaiting us dominated each session, panel, address, and speech. While it is no secret that academic publishers have long been faced with obstacles of one kind or another—contending with trade publishers in the marketplace, working within tight budgets to meet institutional expectations and to maintain sustainability in a tenuous economy—this year was all about recognizing the crossroads in which we all find ourselves and the directions in which many of us are moving. Indeed, instead of discussing the potentials of electronic and multimedia publishing, we explored the realities of e-books and the many creative ways people are re-envisioning content production and consumption.

Which leads me to the spirit of collaboration infused throughout the conference: sharing best practices among presses, listening to and learning the changing needs of our clientele (both authors and readers), and building alliances with various entities in the industry. The most compelling discussions for me focused on the collaborations occurring between academic presses and their home universities. Whether it is in the creation of e-textbooks that supply the university with custom materials for students and faculty or the implementation of other creative initiatives that provide services to the university while also preserving, and even expanding, the mission of the press, strong partnerships are imperative for the future of publishing. 

Many of us working in academic publishing toil away in our offices, correspond through faceless email, and try to stay on target with one schedule in order to start another. There is a frenzy to it all and sometimes a feeling of isolation. Indeed, it is easy to lose sight of the larger publishing landscape and to feel disconnected from our colleagues. The AAUP annual conference is a way to re-connect and to foster new relationships; it leaves one with a profound sense of where we’ve been and where we are going; and it reminds us why we do this in the first place.

Despite the interesting panels and the many fascinating discussions, perhaps the most satisfying and inspiring moments for me were the conversations with my fellow IU Press colleagues that were generated from the annual meeting. We departed Chicago, energized and excited to employ some of the ideas we gleaned from the conference. A sentiment shared by all of us who attended the conference was that IU Press is in many ways already implementing much of what the publishing industry is calling for. One thing is clear: there is a wave of innovation rushing onward—and IU Press is on the crest of that wave.

Tomorrow we will hear Mandy's thoughts about the AAUP conference in Part 2 of this blog series.

March author events for Scott Russell Sanders

Earth Works author Scott Russell Sanders has several events planned for March:

March 1-3

Sanders will attend the 2012 AWP Annual Conference & Bookfair at the Chicago Hilton. Sanders will sign copies of his books Earth Works and A Conservationist Manifesto at noon March 3. For more information on the conference and bookfair, visit the AWP website.

March 15

At 7:30 p.m., Sanders will deliver the Annual Vocation of the Writer Lecture at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. To learn more about this event, visit the College of Holy Cross events page. 

March 24

Sanders will discuss and sign copies of Earthworks from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Village Lights Bookstore in Madison, IN. For more information, call 812-265-1800 or visit the Village Lights Bookstore website.

March 29

Sanders will be the keynote speaker at the 43rd Annual College English Association Conference. The event begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Omni Richmond Hotel in Richmond, VA. You must register online to attend this event. To learn more about the conference, visit the College English Association website.

For more information on these events, please visit the author's website. 

March author events for Jo Paoletti

Pink and Blue author Jo Paoletti has several events lined up for March:

March 5

Paoletti will give a lecture about Pink and Blue at 6 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. Attendees can purchase copies of the book at the event, and Paoletti will be available to sign them. The lecture is free and open to the public.

March 11

Paoletti will be a member of the panel titled "The Science of Gender" at the Tucson Festival of Books. The panel will begin at 11:30 a.m. in Room 218 of the Henry Koffler Building on the University of Arizona campus. This event is free and open to the public, and will be broadcast live on BookTV. Visit the Tucson Festival of Books website to learn more.

March 25

The National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. will hold a Pink and Blue booksigning with Paoletti at noon.

March 29

Paoletti will give a reading and sign copies of Pink and Blue at Atomic Books in Baltimore, MD. The event begins at 7:30 p.m., and is free and open to the public.

For more information on these events, visit Paoletti's blog.

Booksignings for two IUP authors at the AWP conference

Two IU Press authors will sign copies of their books at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs' Annual Conference & Bookfair in Chicago March 3. Robin Hemley will sign copies of his novel The Last Studebaker at 11 a.m., followed at noon by Scott Russell Sanders, who will sign copies of his latest release, Earth Works, and A Conservationist Manifesto. Both signings will take place at IU Press's bookfair exhibit space (E10 and E11 on this map) in the Hilton Chicago hotel.

The bookfair is open to the public on March 3, so please stop by to learn more about our new Break Away Books series and to visit with our staff and authors!

David Baker to be honored at Jazz Education Network conference

David Baker, along with Jamey Aebersold, Jerry Coker and Dan Haerle, will be honored for their contributions to jazz education at the Jazz Education Network (JEN) conference in Louisville, KY, this Friday, January 6. The event takes place from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Fountain Room of the Galt House Hotel & Suites. Tickets are available to the public for $60 and can be purchased through the JEN website.

Baker is the subject of a recent IU Press book by Monika Herzig entitled David Baker: A Legacy in Music. Prior to the ceremony for Baker and the other jazz educators, Herzig will hold a clinic related to her book at 5 p.m. The clinic is open to those who have registered for the JEN conference. For more details on the conference, visit the JEN website.