And weve been so happy to carry one of the widest selections in the City Columbia University press has been one of the greatest partners and supporters they will be moderated by a jennifer crew. Before we begin we have a quick procedural note. Cspan bucket tv is recording this talk. During the q a portion please wait for a microphone to come to you. Otherwise they wont be able to record your question. Thank you very much. We love you too. But culture is probably one of the most you see a lot of us represented here. I will go in order. I know you have a special title. The author of two books and the physiology of the novel. He also writes on contemporary literature in the novel reading et cetera many publications including the atlantic and the plus one. Her first book apartment stories city and home in 19th century published. Between was published by Princeton University president. I think in 2012 sharon and caitlin that features really great assessable writing by scholars but also other people in the community and activists as well as writers on arts in ideas and is a great publication. And then i get all the way over there to my left is the editor first sociology and he has also worked at Princeton University president. Some people dont know what makes it different from another sort of a publisher. How it differs from scholar publisher. We try not to incur too much of a loss. Were notforprofit and were not out to just sign up books that will earn money. We are situated within a university so our goal and mission of the university and the mission they will Foster Research in the University Press really wants to disseminate that scholarship. The commercial publisher would not take on because they would were not make any money for the company. There are commercial scholar precious publishing an increasing number of graphs they have priced them out of reach need to try to reach an audience of educated general readers with their books in the pricing. Our method of acquiring that. Our editors often do have a degree in the field. They are given areas of specialization to acquire and. We have a history editor who also does economics and we have philosophy in religion editors. They go to the conferences they read journals and they get to meet people. The main relationship would be with an agent. We do deal with agent sometimes. The main person that they are cultivating as agent that they are dealing with. The University Press has published several types of books. Only a specialist would read. But we also publish trade books. Not a kind of course adoption book. It is to small market. We are happy to have it because the book sells year after year. We do rigorous peer review for every book that we consider and then in the atmosphere of fake news and concerns about an accuracy and information that gets out there. We publish work that is vetted and verified. And finally we have a Publication Committee and neck have insisted on that the committee now. They read a portion of the manuscript. If they agree then we can offer a contract for a book. I thought i would ask questions around several topics that are important for University Presses and then in the end will give a sense of how we work and how we go about accepting them. With the various topics. This is just briefly essentials to our mission of advancing the scholarships and it means that we consider a manuscript or proposal to scholars that the author does not know we are sending to. I guess as an author as as a graduate graduate student advisors. In a maybe former administrator. What do you think of the value of peer reviews. I think it is having your ideas evaluated by experts and its very important to do that and when you get a book from a University Press you know that it has been evaluated. Without worrying about any of the politics. We could do some interest interesting results. For how original they are and how accurate they are. And it helps them modulate their scope. It is really interesting. And you may expand the argument to include or they might say you are overreaching a bit. Maybe ratchet it down a bit. Its great to have other people which are self and without all of the dynamics and the things that you give to. Their honest opinion. And also protection against the internal politics they are ratifying their book. Mostly if they are working properly on its own terms. I think it keeps us honest. It was very valuable to know that the person it was double blind. They were just reading my argument in telling me what works and what they wanted a little bit more evidence on. And also add something about your role on the Publication Committee. The thing i would add i would only add one thing to that. I think it ensures a newness to books. Its very good at weeding out those reputations. My own field is a victorian fiction. Its a great parallel parable about that. The mean character. Working on an impossibly lengthy autograph dont you know that germans actually they have done all of that already. And there is a way in which that it does mitigate against reputation in the field. There is a struck claim. For a new contribution to knowledge. When i see. Reviews of the main thing i tend to look for i want to see the reviewer provide a summary of the books argument. That shows that there was an attempt to read that manuscript with sympathy. If they only concentrate on details that to me as the sign that it was not read while it was red with some sub training. It should be able to suggest the limits of that argument the first thing i look for. I want to to mirror back to me. There are times when we have to read between the lines. They would sing the praise. You dont want to see that groundbreaking original scholarship. But you can kind of get at it that way. You do learned to read a lexicon of terms. You can tell. And eric from your point of view as an editor. What was just been set also. When there is conflict in the reviews so reader a has a particular reading has a slightly different reading and the author has to engage with one of those readings to determine what is argument that the action want to make. The author is really committed to the project. On peer review from an editorial perspective keeps us honest. There is always a move to to try to do the book that is going to be more sensational. Or the one that will sell more copies. And knowing that our projects are good to be going to be judged by scholars in the field and be judged by that members of the Publication Committee. We meet with our Publications Committee the final theres a thursday of every month. At times you are going in there and you had work that you have invested time and juergen have to defend those projects. Infrequently you dont succeed. It is really important to keeping us honest. We often think about books that we are to consider for publication in what with the perception of the Publications Committee be before we even get started down the road of a review process. As im listening to this conversation i realized i should mention for anyone that the aaa up recently put out a best practices booklet on peer units. Or what to expect if its going to be put out for peer review. A something that occurs to me about our committee. There are people on from nine different fields. The way scholars in different fields react is always quite interesting. The types of reviews you get the person really actually read every word and is making helpful suggestions in typos and things like that. You may get something in the finance area or science. They understand that time is money. One person from Business School actually told me that. It is something that really stands out. When it works will and makes the book a better book it helps the editor help guide at the author and helps us understand as publishers some of it is very specialized. These reviews help us situate it in the markets. We also use it as a review opportunity. I will often look for if there is a book that we have interest to people across the fields i will select the reviewer. And try to get a senior person in a junior person and they will oftentimes have very different readings. It can be very useful for the author. Thinking about readers who would be important to them. For those people to know theyre worth. It is a really great opportunity to just kind of build networks within fields and user placements to do that. Another thing i dont think we mentioned. Pure view is picking up something in that book that seems amiss. We often say this could a preview of what will happen when you have the book published. In my book catch it now before its published. I thought we have maybe move maybe move on to acquiring these books what are the different days and ways on how do the message differ. We have a variety of different ways in which we acquire books there are that projects it just come in by email my email and such. Different fields theyre different that way. They can go several years before that. The philosophy editor probably gets five projects a day there are different fields in that regard. I would say the number of things that you acquire is very slim. They make visits to campuses. And we use is as networking opportunities. Each one of our lists has something of a personality to it. Broadly speaking i think columbia books are global, urban and contemporary. We want our books to have a certain kind of flavor and feel across the entirety of the list. There could be perfectly Great Projects that come into us that simply dont fit in it might not be right for us. We do get projects from agents on occasion we go to the Frankfurt Book Fair and that is a enormous yearly there are 300,000 attendees at this years. They open it to the public on saturday and sunday. At a good fortune of being in the train station when they were swarming and as i was leaving to go we also commissioned projects so by being in the field you often know what are the structural holds and there is a real need an economics book on a certain aspect of climate change. And when it would be great if x person wrote that book. I need to people that way and seen someone right the oped. Writing to those authors insane hey wouldnt be a great idea if you worked on this kind of project. A whole variety of ways thinking about public books where youre really trying to reach beyond the academy a little bit. Both of you are probably working on your third books. When you think i want to reach beyond a smaller audience into a bigger audience and how does it play in your mind about what can a publisher you would go to. I suppose you mean every writer looks at lists. In the list that fits them best. I think its often a process of discovery. Out of ignorance you imagine youre writing a book. You imagine as a dialogue. There may be at their party out there that you are talking to. You dont know if they are qualified to. He very much want that person to hear what you have to say. So in a way skinning a list is a way of seeing what are the possible audiences and is it something i think i want to take on. And one of the things you have to think about is choosing between the trade press. I am finishing a book right now on the history of celebrity. They say that would make a great trade book. But im actually publishing it with with the University Press very happily. If you have a book that could swing either way. Why would you go with the University Press in many ways the trade press seems to have all of the glamour. First of all, they will let you keep your footnotes and if you are a scholar you are attached to your footnotes. We can actually say anything properly. I think you are free to write a book that is argument driven. And these days if you publish with the trade press they are going to ask you to write a book that is a narrative driven. Meyers only people summit people so obsessed with celebrity. It would probably had to start with Something Like on november 21882 Sarah Bernhardt woke up to find out that i didnt want to write this book that way. If youre gonna write a book thats narrative driven and has to be conceived as a story from the start there only a few and im not one of them. Not one of them can make an argument through a narrative. That is a very tricky thing to do. I think its easier to make an argument as an argument. Even have their own assessments and i chose to put my energy into that. I think that is all i will say. There are a lot of other reasons. You are in the company of other scholars with whom youre in dialogue. They help it seem more compelling and your book can reflect on their book as well. That is a very good thing to do. It might not fit in very well. Or you might end up being the nerd at the fancy party. Over a long span of time. The nice thing about University Press works is that we really want the book to have lasting staying power. We want our books to contribute to a debate or spark a debate that may lack for decades. The ideal Successful University University Press book is one that held a thousand copies. That means in your 10,000 copies has a book that is meaningful. Theyre using it they are using it for teaching and learning. It has have a meaningful impact on its field. They exist to make money. And if the book it doesnt sell while in the beginning they move on to the next product and so on and so forth. And we make a little bit more of a commitment. Its interesting ear, about the argument book. We have that conversation around our table does this book really have an argument as a going from beginning to end or they will submit books that are just chapter on this. They hope that it will bring altogether. It really doesnt work. If we can articulate that argument. That is what we are looking for. In response to you. Our sales in any given year 65 of our revenue comes from back list books. They are ones that are used in courses. They were developed as course books a lot of them were monograph. And some of them were books that were field changing. Enough people noticed it and noticed it was worthwhile and to further the field. Some of these books may only sell 5200 copies per year but they keep selling and they were really published as that monograph. They are there. Its very hard to predict which ones they will be. Actually, about these the textbooks in the trade books when youre sitting on the Publication Committee you realize and you know this book we think will be a trade book we will sell a lot of copies and this one is a monograph. What goes through your head when you think about those different types that we are doing. You are obviously aware of those different types. The answer is always the same. If it is a textbook is it still being adopted in courses. Is it something that banished eight years ago without a trace. Or does it something that will be ford looking enough. Its funny. The genre can be so different and so many ways. But i think that sense of the longer futurity that you might have and other present situations is intact okay. Publishing your book with the University Press so often a first book is a revised dissertation usually. Not always. But im happy when someone decides that was that. Im moving on to my next thing. For both of you im wondering what were the differences in your experience a publishing between the first and second book. I had occasion to go back and read the introduction to my first book and i was really struck by how much i felt like i have to engage with other scholars i would Say Something and then i would say soandso said this. Im building on this. As someone who did not yet had that. That it would be evaluated by ten to 20 people outside of my field. They would have been selected because of the relevance. I dont know who those ten or 20 people are good to be in advance. I thought like i have a spend a lot of energy on situating my ideas and the scholarship and foreground that. And then my second book while i was still as concerned as i was. What am i saying that builds on what people have said before. I flipped things and i presented my ideas first and i put much later in the introduction how does that build on an overturned previous thinking. In one of the reasons i did that was i gave the introduction to a friend of mine who is a journalist and a woman who does not mince her words. I want to know what you have to say. Thats what im reading your book. And i have the freedom to do that now. Give a lot more freedom with your second book in terms of topic, methods of presentation and freedom to foreground your voice and your ideas more. I realized we have similar experiences but reflects in opposite ways. When i think about my first book i have a tremendous time writing it because i was so ignorant of the audience that i was writing it for. In installments. I knew that they would like what they said. It was easy writing and happy writing. But i can detect in my first book on archaeological layer that came at the very end which is exactly as sharon described it a sudden anxious defensiveness about all of the various things i hadnt said and that is just topsoil on top of it. The second book is much more thoroughly integrated. I was already aware of who the audience was. And felt reasonably comfortable among them. It is more integrated. That was not always the happiest writing experience. You trade happiness for Something Like a sense of security i guess. Thats all sounding very downbeat. I think that sense of security meant it was much harder to tug at that layer of discussion of other scholars than simply remove it. I can see that glaring now. My graduate students often say what should i do to turn the dissertation into a book and i feel like if the dissertation advising process as gone while the actual answer is very little. But i know that that is not what editors ever want to hear and actually once youre hired at a job you have to demonstrate that the book you published was really different from your dissertation. I think what happens is a lot of people spend three to four years laboring to transform their dissertation only to find that there really wasnt that much to change. They probably couldve sent out in the first year. Maybe they shouldve just cut the wiki the weakest chapter. And then add a chapter based on what the reviewers are saying so im going to make what i think is probably a contrarian point and say that i think that the junior scholars should send their dissertations out sooner rather than later but i think that as advisors we need to be thinking about how dissertations can seem more like books. So im sure you have reasons that for your dissertation is a different i think i hear that a lot. My advisor told me to write this book. And the problem is most people they are advising circumstances are not as good as they could be. They may have for Committee Members who each believe that there is student has written their dissertation of the book but theyre only looking at arguments through their own lens and that what often happens is that the dissertation is written to demonstrate knowledge for a small grouping of people it isnt that argument driven kind of work that you are describing before. And what we often need to do is to get firsttime authors to be able to make that work argument driven. Rather than evidence proving. The dissertation your job is to demonstrate that you have knowledge and understand the field. And you are working to Gain Authority as an Author Authority is yours to lose. In and the best way to Lose Authority to demonstrate immediately to the reader that you do not deserve it. Not being able to articulate that argument very clearly and have it be one thing is a great way to lose that authority. Maybe i feel like sharing on this one. It might just be our field although i asked suspect its not. Some of the most influential books ive read in the last decade had been first books there something unique about the first book. They are utterly unique in the way that substitute books are not. It can be our age. They seem to come out of nowhere and transformed things. Is that something you would agree with. Are you aware of that. I get very excited by it first books. Because i think that a usually first books are a good indicator of where the field is now as you get tenure there are fewer and fewer people who can tell you what to do you are also not you need to take in information in the same way that it junior person does. They need to know what everyone in their department is doing and has some sort of knowledge and engagement with that. I junior person is it for their dissertation taking in information from other people. They also no other junior people. There is a greater ball it a body of knowledge. That theyre accessing. There is a hunger to be able to prove yourself and to Say Something new. I think you often see that in first books. Something you said where you are having a happy experience rapping for your four advisors its clear that the person has not been able to expand that to 400 people. There are exceptions to every rule. And i have certainly published a several that were pretty much ready to go as you say it is the level of the advising. Maybe i will take one more set of questions and then we will take questions from the audience. I wonder. Maybe i will ask eric this. What is the best way you weight you think for an author to approach you an author that wants to publish a manuscript and then for nick and sharon how do you advise people about choosing a publisher. The question often as what is the timing. Is it okay if i have a proposal or a chapter i usually tell people when you feel like you can something articulate to say i also like to hear even when they just head something of an idea and want to talk with me about the idea and can we talk through this idea. That is often when the most Creative Things happen. Its around academic conferences. My schedule is booked from the moment the exhibit hall opens to close it is usually every hour almost every half hour talking about people and new projects. That is when its often easiest to see people who are at places that are harder to get to and we often see it. I think using an editor as a resource is something i think that can be a real benefit to the scholarship and just talk through ideas. And what about advising graduate students who are ready how do you go about saying you might try this press or that press. I think the best advice or the most helpful i can be is to say let me know when you are ready to send something out and where you would like to send it and if i know an editor at one of those places i would be happy to write for them and tell them to look out for your proposal or your email it wont get you published but it may give you a quicker answer in a quicker read usually. In i tell people where should i send it. Look at the books in your bibliography. They are a lot of the recently published books that you are citing those are probably doesnt probably be good presses for you unless it is a blistering attack on every single one of those authors. It is a sign that you are engaged with a set of ideas that each of those presses are interested in. Is anybody whos fortunate enough to have a trace among presses i guess that still happen sometimes take a look at how will the books are designed. How good is the press getting there books reviewed. Do they advertise their books. When you go to a conference are a lot of books in your field on the display table. They were have the resources and the rare with all and the focus to give your book the biggest audience that it can which in the nature of things is pretty small. But very targeted and easy to identify for academic books. I would just echo what she said. As hard as it is for them to feel this way do remember that as much as you want them to take your book you want to explore whether this is in fact the right place for you. There is a desperation you want that thing out in the world as fast as possible but there are situations that are not right. I sent my first book because of a tip i got to an editor at a press who wrote back and said this is great im really interested in it. Im going to work with you on that. I just said no. Im glad i did that. But i think it was a hard thing to do that it was something that was extended to me and a vulnerable moment. I wanted to very much say yes. I think there are things that are worth not letting go of. You wont be able to pause momentarily and say is this really right is there something that is troubling me about this. A issue that morning however hard it is to hear. In the spirit of University Press week. Its really important for firsttime authors to contact several publishers you want to see what editor understands the work that you are doing and has the same vision for your book. Successful publication is when the publisher slightly exceeds the authors expectations and we want our authors to be happy we want to work with our authors again and again and head that author editor relationship and the understanding of the work and how as an editor can you help that author do their best work but still do their work. And not rewrite every sentence because i believe you should do that. It really makes no sense. I would just add that people especially in the first book stage are getting afraid of being rejected but by far the biggest percentage of rejections just doesnt fit the list. Well have an editor who would want to sponsor this i would not take that kind of thing so personally be prepared that somebody will think it fits on the list and some of the else well. We have finite resources. We can only publish a certain number of books properly we are not a volume driven operation and we want to make sure we give every book the same level of attention and we simply cant do that for everything. Im sure there are things that we missed. And we love to have questions from the audience. Im i am currently writing my dissertation so im trying to get this out. Fast. What i want to know is lets say the person takes a very rescission us approach. My first field im a lawyer. You dont have to be diplomatic and put the foot notes. Lets say you follow all of the political conventions and your advisors agree. They think its great. Then you have your peer reviewers, and you are diplomatic and they know you but you are overturning their research and youre good at it. What happens then. Could they reject it just because you are disproving them. I dont think that would fly. I think of a peer reviewer did that if they revealed that they were saying dont publish this because it overturns my work i think the press i dont think it would be that explicit. People can tell when thats going on. And i think most academics arent lawyers. But theres a very thick skin about being refuted in attacked. People are much more upset about being ignored and overlooked than being about disagreed with. I dont think anyone in academia has really have the experience of having our work engaged. It is a rare day. I really agree with what you said. They are taking issue. They have some questions and people are looking for engagement and if you are saying something controversial and then they are disconnect test whether youve said enough to persuade them. I went worry too much about it. I went worry too much maybe even a little defensive will sink a book. The editors are very conscious with who they are sending it out to. They are seeking critical but some of that act readers into the extent that they can determine that in advance they will make those decisions. Ive seen the make that exact determination. Once theyve taken and the project on is not to get shut down. Its to get it read fairly. You see at times where it plays itself out in the review process. Then we have to go and get a third one. This first review is not really helpful. And we will go get a third. We do ask authors for suggestions for readers is not necessarily who i go to. Who i think the author thinks is important. With that situation. We kind of remember who are the people that he everything who are the people they give those those really disengaged reviews. It took me a decade to realize if an editor is sending your book out to readers they wanted to work out. Everything still hinges on what the peer review says. You are really past the major triage stage. And so keep that in mind in terms of how you receive the feedback and they spoke of the earlier with how they responded to the readers of course. That is also really important. I think the press is looking for you to stand by your ideas and show your willingness to engage in criticism. Are there any other questions . Im curious a lot of the paper poetry books have come from those presses. Or anything with the art books. Obviously its not coming out of a dissertation process its more just creating art. I dont but i do know people who do publish poetry and fiction. I believe they still have ideas for peer reviews. They will ask the author my work is in following your line of style. These are the ones who probably what it. They send it out for review. Its much more of a subjective thing. Were not looking for a contribution for the stolid. It was edited by paul at one point. If it goes to the Publications Committee. They would just sort of look around at one another. We actually published fiction in translation and in that similar. We do get people in the field of russian literature or Chinese Literature or whatever it is who give their opinion and also about whether the book would be taught or assigned at the end of the day the conversation is kind of like what it will it sounds good to me. Its not really gonna stand in the way of Something Like that. So when the dissertation process did you start seriously looking at the publisher. I think this is fairly common. I have no sense this would ever be published. I do think it was oddly freeing. I treated as we were writing it. Only after it was done that i start to look around nobody said anything to me until it was done about where to go is this is going to result in anything or not. Its uncomfortable. You are allowed to explore on your own you have a great deal of freedom of how you imagine the project to go. I do think its a bad idea particularly for dissertation writers to prematurely aim at the get about a presses. You will never had again a moment where you can really about something that personal i often think it pays off. It is a more unique project if you dont try to pitch it from the beginning i think. It works out the same its just that there is an overlap between the press of applying for job and thinking about putting that dissertation book out. I have to there used to be be a lot more jobs to a pipe for the now. I will never know for sure but one or two of them mentioned what i was doing to an editor somewhere and so there was continuity it was all about being finished enough with a project the project that i could apply for job. I will just had also that i wouldnt do it until you feel confident enough and comfortable enough with it that you wouldnt mind it being sent out for peer review. Then you might say wait. Its not ready yet. I would try to feel if you are confident in beginning in that process. Its just more cross commercial direction which is that certain fields like American History where editors are throwing themselves at every American History graduate student seemingly working on Something Interesting because there is some of the publishers published in that area. And there isnt necessarily a consult very well. The worry often with people who are still working on their dissertation is that they may be dont finish it and they dont finish the dissertation. Theyre not able to get a job. They leave the Academic Community and then you have work that is on your list that is orphaned in a way because you know network out in the world with which to promote it too. You oftentimes it is a job in and of itself. In to have two conflicting projects that are the same content going on at the same time your advisors want you to do this at the peer reviews want you to do that. And what do you do. From my standpoint that is a conflict that i just dont need to deal with. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody on the panel too. Buy some books while you are here. Support the industry. [indiscernible] for nearly 20 years in depth on book tv has featured in the the nations best known nonfiction writers for right live in conversations about their works. As a special project we are featuring bestselling fiction writers. Join us for
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.