Category Archives: AAUP 2012

By Michele Callaghan, Manuscript Editor

The theme for the AAUP annual meeting was Ignite! The organizers’ goal, I am sure, was to reenergize the members of the association during what is undoubtedly a challenging time for academic publishing. But the question that was repeated throughout the sessions was “who is the customer?”

At the first session I attended, “Best Practices in Editing,” Anita Samen, managing editor of the University of Chicago Press, posed this question. She presented us with a possible list of customers for editorial departments:  the reader, the author, the marketing department, the acquisitions editor, your boss, and yourself.

A session on the connection between academic scholars’ publishing a book and getting promoted came at the topic from a different viewpoint. Are university presses—such as JHU Press—obligated to spend money to put out books simply because they “further the conversation of research”? Is it even fair to require people wanting job security in academia, known as tenure, to produce a book, or is creating another type of media or being an excellent teacher enough? Is the customer in this case the faculty member who wants tenure, the community of scholars who want to advance knowledge in their fields, or the person who reads the books?

The main session was called Ignite! A succession of entrepreneurs, comedians, magazine editors, and booksellers gave convincing slide shows designed to activate our “right brains.” A motivational speaker reminded us why we got into this line of work: to be storytellers not “content” providers. At the end of his presentation, he flashed on the screen: “Who Is Your Customer?”

I confess that initially I was thrown by the question. I came to publishing from a bookselling background, so to me the answer was obvious. The customer is the person who buys the book. Now, as an editor, I think in terms of the audience of the book—scholars, professionals, students, or the general reader—when I sit down to edit a manuscript. After this conference, I realize that we need a team of staff to please a team of customers if we are to continue making our living at this field that we love.

My last act before going to the hotel to pack late last night was to walk along Lake Michigan after having dinner at an outdoor café. Over the Ferris wheel at the Navy Pier came one burst of fireworks then another and another. City of Chicago, I am one satisfied customer!

By Michele Callaghan, Manuscript Editor

As I waited at the gate for one, then two hours for my flight to the American Association of University Presses conference in Chicago, I reflected on changes in the book industry since I first joined it more than thirty years ago. I ordered paperback books for a local chain in Buffalo, New York, among other tasks. You would go to the back of a truck of a “jobber” and grab best-selling titles from long cardboard trays. One of my other jobs was to handle special orders from publishers, which at that time took six to eight weeks. You had to tell the customer that prices were approximate. Everyone knows how that model fared in the intervening years. Bookstores are closing, chains are folding, and Amazon is no longer just a river in South America.

Then in the early 1990s, I switched to publishing. Layer upon layer of editorial staff handled their little tasks in the hierarchy and defended their turf with a polite but inflexible air. At that time, I was a proofreader. Every change was read by two separate staffers. Corrections meticulously entered by in-house compositors. Those of us in the publishing field know how that model faired. Proofreading is a luxury for the most “important” titles and in-house editors are largely replaced by freelancers with varying degrees of skill and dedication. Compositors are certainly not in house and are sometimes not in the country.

I confess some trepidation about where my chosen line of work is headed. A glance at the titles of the convention program—among them, “Policy Wars,” “List-building with Constraints,” and “The Changing Bookstore Landscape”—shows that I am not alone. When I got to the convention, I saw some of my concerns realized. In sessions and in breakfasts, people outlined how they were doing more with less—and in some cases less with less.

But it didn’t stop there. The hundreds of people remaining in our field and young people joining it may be in a state of flux, not knowing what the future of academic publishing and even reading as an art will hold. But the willingness to confront these changes head on, the dedication to the diffusion of knowledge, the humor and enthusiasm evident in all the sessions were witnesses to the vibrancy of university presses.

Yes, the book industry has changed in thirty years, as have the airlines. Air travel used to be a special occasion. You picked a nice outfit. When meals came around, they were served on real china and were accompanied by a glass of wine. You know what, when you get off that plane at your destination, the excitement of the new place cannot be beat. Getting from A to B is all worthwhile and all the delays and problems en route melt away. And when the manuscript goes from A to B, from the author to the bookstore, all the struggles along the way are worth it. Being in the book industry is still a great place to be.