Indiana University Press blog

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.

Author event: George Gmelch to speak at AAA conference

George Gmelch, author of Behind the Smile and Tasting the Good Life, will speak Nov. 16 at the American Anthropological Association meeting in Montreal. He will co-host a workshop titled "Ideas and Techniques for Organizing an Ethnographic Field School" from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Registration is required to attend the meeting. For more information, visit the AAA website.

P.S. Be sure to stop by the IU Press booth if you're at AAA!

Author event: Two IU Press authors to appear at GLiBA Trade Show

This year's Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association's (GLiBA) Trade Show will feature two of our Break Away Books series authors. Marianne Boruch, author of The Glimpse Traveler, will give a reading October 14 at 6:15 p.m. She will also sign copies of her book at the Regional Authors booth on October 15 at 10:00 a.m. Jim Cohee, author of The Swan, will be at the Saturday Reception on October 15 at 5:30 p.m., where he will also sign copies of his book.

The GLiBA trade show is a three day event beginning October 14, and will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn, MI. A fee for membership to GLiBA is required to attend this event. Visit GLiBA's website for more information. 

Author event: Daniel Orr to speak at The Entrepreneurial Network Conference

FARMbloomington owner Daniel Orr will be one of ten speakers featured at The Entrepreneurial Network (TEN) Conference. The speakers, who are all Indiana entrepreneurs, will discuss their experiences of starting businesses. The conference takes place Sept. 15 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at The Commons Center in Columbus, IN. Registration information is available on the TEN Conference website. 

Chef Daniel Orr is author of Paradise Kitchen and FARMfood and host of Earth Eats on NPR affiliate station WFIU.

Top 5 things I learned at Blog Indiana

Last Thursday and Friday, I attended my third Blog Indiana conference to learn more about what my fellow Hoosiers are doing with social media and blogging. This year's conference took place at the Fishers Conference Center instead of IUPUI, where it had been held previously. There were a couple of benefits to the change of venue, the first being the fabulous food! I think there were at least six choices of bread for your sandwich and unlimited brownies and cookies for dessert. Yum! The second (and more important) benefit was the set up of the conference. We were seated at round tables in a ballroom, which was more conducive for having conversations with fellow attendees. It was nice to see people's faces instead of staring at the back of their heads in some IUPUI classroom or lecture hall. Because of the set up, I feel that I met more people at this year's conference, but dumb me forgot to bring business cards. So I hope all those wonderful people I met remember me!

Taking a cue from Vince Robisch's session on blog headlines, I'm posting a list of the top 5 things I learned from this year's Blog Indiana. If you're interested in more than just the highlights, you can read my full conference notes here.

1. Just because you're at a blogging conference doesn't guarantee that you'll have a good wireless connection.

I think we all got spoiled by the great wi-fi connection at IUPUI. With all the students, faculty, and staff on campus, universities are prepared for high demands for connectivity. The Fishers Conference Center—not so much. Despite all the amenities I mentioned about the venue, not having a decent wi-fi connection is a BIG drawback to people who are online 24-7. (Of course, we all whipped out our smart phones and used the 3G instead, but still...) I felt sorry for one speaker whose presentation tanked when he couldn't access YouTube to show us video clips, which comprised the bulk of his talk. The conference organizers will need to take the weak wi-fi into consideration before scheduling another meeting here.

2. Hemingway would have been a good blogger.

Keynote speaker Erik Deckers gave an excellent talk on writing. He said that a clear, consise journalistic style is best for blogging (or really any writing, in my opinion). He noted Hemigway as a model for this style. Now I'm no Hemigway, but I do strive to emulate him in my writing. Good to know that Erik does the same.

3. I've got 99 problems, but a good blog post topic ain't one.

I think Vince Robisch wins the award for best presentation title. In "This Session Speaker Smells Fantastic," Vince gave advice on writing good headlines, distilling it down to this simple formula: "Find the interest of your readers + solve their problems." He presented several different types of posts that utilize this formula (the list post, which I'm using, being one of them). I know that many people walked away from the session with several new topics to blog about, thanks to Vince's two-minute headline writing drills. I've got plenty of content, just not enough hands to type it all. (I'm eagerly awaiting our new crop of fall interns to help me with this.) Although I didn't need any additional topics, I did appreciate Vince's ideas for new ways to present the content and tailor it toward the readers' needs. Very helpful.

4. If you don't want your pitch to be pitched, do your research.

Casey Mullins gave a great talk on how businesses should pitch to bloggers, and vice versa. The key takeaway was knowing who you're pitching to. If you don't take some time to research what the blogger/business is about before you pitch to them, they won't give you the time of day. She also shared some of the best and worst pitches she received. (BTW, we plan to take her advice so we land on the top of a blogger's "best" pile.) I also enjoyed seeing Casey's three-month-old daughter Vivi, who contently lied in her stroller as her mom presented. Awww... :)

5. People at social media conferences love to ring the death knell for email.

Sorry folks, it's not dead (well, at least not yet). I believe it was keynote speaker Jay Baer who talked about social media being just one channel in an overall marketing plan. You have to meet people on their preferred platform. If your audience only uses social media, then yes, it makes total sense to ditch email. But our email marketing program drives more e-commerce to our site than social media, blogging, and online advertising combined. So I'm not writing off the power of email just yet. Yes, I've built some great relationships through social media, but do you know how many times I've had to email these people when 140 characters didn't suffice? :)

More than anything, this year's conference was a validation for me that I'm on the right track with our social media strategy. But I did learn some new things, and I hope that the conference organizers will continue to offer more intermediate level sessions at next year's conference. If you're involved with blogging and social media in Indiana and have never attended, I highly recommend it. Follow Blog Indiana on Twitter for more information.

AAUP 2011 recap

By Peter Froehlich

As the recipient of the AAUP/WiSP professional development grant for staff for 2011, I am happy to report on my experiences at the meeting in Baltimore, to say thank you for this opportunity to learn more about the AAUP and the industry, and to encourage other newcomers both to apply for future grants and to attend and participate in as many annual meetings as possible.

I had high expectations for my first meeting. I hoped to network with and learn from my colleagues in subrights; to gain perspective on the industry as a whole from the presentations of experts at higher levels of experience and responsibility; to learn about collaborative publishing and entrepreneurship projects underway at member presses; and to see better how subrights fits into press and industry operations to further inform my educational and career path. On reflection, I would have to say that my experiences considerably outstripped these expectations.

The two most directly fruitful experiences for me as rights manager were attending the pre-meeting workshop on “clearing third-party permissions” and chairing the panel on “subrights and the small press.”

The pre-meeting workshop on permissions was well organized and run by Stephanie Vyce, Director of Intellectual Property and Subsidiary Rights, Harvard University Press. The workshop brought together experts from various disciplines (Law/IP, acquisitions editorial, technology, and permissions) to discuss key issues in light of our evolving business models. An opportunity not available on Any Given Day! What might have taken months of research and even longer in sustained discussions on the listserv, was covered by the group in a few hours. When the workshop concluded, we had answered many questions—framed a few important new ones—and come up with several new tools and plans for streamlining our communication with our authors toward the more efficient and robust access of IP equity for our presses.

Chairing the panel on "Subrights and the Small Press” was an additional delight and a definite value-added experience—one that I heartily recommend! From networking with experts and researching topics before the meeting, I learned about key resources, chatted up rights heroes like Laura Yong Bost, was enlightened about the services offered by Livres Canada Books, and had the pleasure of speaking with the Yoda of subrights, William Hamilton at University of Hawai‘i Press. By the time I stepped on the plane to go to the meeting, I felt like I’d received a master’s certificate in subrights strategies from some of the most gifted minds in the AAUP. On the panel and in preparing the session, I had the honor of working with and learning from: Philip Cercone, Director, McGill-Queen's University Press; Stephanie Vyce, Director of Intellectual Property and Subsidiary Rights, Harvard University Press; Sheila Leary, Director, Wisconsin University Press; and Kelly Rogers, Rights Manager, The Johns Hopkins University Press. Together they comprised nearly a century of subrights experience and kept folks glued to their seats and asking questions well in to the six o’clock hour on the last night of the conference. We discussed new ways of partnering to build tools and share information. We found inspiration in Livres Canada Books’ resources and fielded several suggestions in the session. We saw a real groundswell of interest that has carried on since then. Sixty-three member presses responded to our follow-up survey on some of the suggestions made by the panel, with roughly 80-90% favorability. I expect we will continue to work together to explore these issues, and I am very much looking forward to it.

From these two experiences alone, I found new tools, new resources, and a wealth of new contacts that will directly benefit my press and me professionally. I expect to be able to grow Indiana’s subagent base, and I will be continuing to network with 63 member presses and other contacts toward building new tools and sharing resources to streamline our permissions process and expand our subrights program.

In other sessions, I gained perspective on my role as subrights manager and learned more about issues facing the industry. In “Press, Parent, Library” and in “Debating the Humanities,” I learned that libraries and universities across the country are experiencing many of the same financial and cultural stressors we are and are likewise casting about for answers. The fiscally isolated nature of the library as a “cost center” for the university was further enlightening; I understand now that expectations of them as customers must take this into account. In her inaugural address, new AAUP President MaryKatherine Callaway pointed out that university presses will need to “walk back” some of their independence and quietude in order to integrate more soundly with universities’ messaging and thereby better safeguard access to continuing financial support. “Presses under Pressure: Best Governance Practices for University Presses” carried on the discussion from there and kicked off our new taskforce on university relations. That universities are under increased strain to defend spending helped contextualize Callaway’s remarks and deepened what I learned in other sessions.

This “cross pollination effect” or embedded context led me to realize that one of the greatest benefits of attending an annual meeting comes from what happens between sessions—both across sessions on related topics and in the intervening breaks. (Brief nod to Wittgenstein on the space in between.) First, getting to know staff at other member presses was eye opening; the AAUP is peopled by exceptionally congenial and sharp-minded folks! Discussing their experiences in light of presentations improved takeaways from the presentations. (This content, unfortunately, isn’t included on the recordings but an approximation can be observed in the tweets from the meeting.) Next, hearing topics discussed in different sessions, in various contexts and with alternate foci, all in real time as you moved through the meeting, was independently beneficial. The aggregate effect of so many touchstone topics and studies (e.g., the Taskforce report on Sustaining Scholarly Publishing) coming up in several sessions and discussions gave rise to a gestalt for 2011 that helped me see “at a glance” what’s happening in our industry; what’s changed from last year; what folks are working on, and where needs lie for next solutions. As an early-career publishing professional, this aggregate effect was of great benefit.

Last, the business-centric sessions and talks at this year’s meeting were an added boon for me as a student of business administration. David Simon gave us a brace of what were basically b-school case studies (sans data) in his talk after the opening banquet, discussing how newspapers and television each shifted models in response to a change in underlying technology. MIT Research Affiliate, Grant McCracken held forth on innovation and organizational change in Plenary 1, citing factors influencing each and giving us strategies to stretch our organizations to compete better. In her inaugural address, MaryKatherine Callaway encouraged university presses similarly to think more entrepreneurially and behave more commercially moving forward. We examined new business models, that were up and running, in the session on “Exploring New Models for Scholarly Publishing,” and Joe Esposito not only spoke on how to judge the fitness of business models, but he also shared his analysis of the university press segment of the scholarly publishing market. As if that weren’t more than enough, in “Selling to Libraries: The New E-Book Aggregation Options” and “Mellon Publishing Initiatives: Fostering a Culture of Collaboration” we received summary reports of collaborative entrepreneurship and collaborative publishing initiatives, respectively, currently underway in the AAUP community. I learned a great deal about recent history, current initiatives, and next-generation needs, and had a spate of lectures on business from experts in scholarly publishing—as well as a few on scholarly publishing from experts in business—all in one meeting and on top of the foregoing. Very exciting!

In sum, attending the 2011 annual meeting brought tectonic shifts in our industry to better light for me. I understand where I want to go in my studies and in my career as a result, and I have more and better tools to get there. The specialized knowledge, training, and contacts I gained during the meeting will be of direct benefit to my press and me in my work as rights manager: I know a dozen new “go to” people for various issues and information; I found answers to many direct questions; I will be able to grow our base of subagents; and I look forward to continuing discussions with other member presses about out building shared resources for growing AAUP subrights programs in concert with one another. All in all, it was like gaining a year’s worth of industry experience in a few weeks! Further, hearing what other presses were up to and have gone through helped put my work at Indiana in context, and the exposure to new ideas will help inform and focus my studies and continuing professional development. On balance, the experience has brought me nearer to several goals and will allow me to bring more to and to gain more from future meetings. I am deeply grateful for the opportunities receiving the grant afforded me professionally, and based on my experiences I encourage others to apply for future grants and to attend as many annual meetings as possible.

AAUP report: Summary

We are pleased to have Dan Pyle blogging for us about his experience at the AAUP conference. Dan is the first recipient of a professional development grant from the Pat Hoefling Memorial Fund. This is the last of a four-part series of Dan's blogs about the meeting:

The way scholarly publishing is done is changing rapidly, both due to economic pressures from the parent universities and because the way people read and consume information is fracturing. More and more electronic reading devices are being sold, and their market share of our content continues to grow at an exponential rate. In order to adapt to what our readers need, IU Press will have to support and grow our electronic publishing initiative, both in education and resources.

The meeting focused on collaboration with our parent university as a way to share resources and to make sure presses have a high visibility within the university. Based on feedback from our director, faculty appreciates and respects the work we do at IU Press. As far as collaboration, I feel we could be doing more with other units of the university. My suggestion earlier about working with the libraries on IU’s campuses could end up giving us more visibility to the public and also help us offset costs for digitizing our backlist.

The annual AAUP meeting was a great location to meet other colleagues in the industry and also a great place to learn what’s going on in the university press market. It seemed to me like a lot of these ideas, at least in some form, were old hat for some of the larger presses that can afford to send people every year to this meeting. It is so important for the employees at IU Press to understand how our industry is changing and what we can do to change with it. The Pat Hoefling Memorial Fund is a great way to support the continuing education of staff here at the press.