The courses at the content development and editing and Marketing Sales and the Digital Finance and some very specific courses and evil production, evil Business Models, web analytics, selfpublishing, content marketing, social marketing, the publishing courses and subjects like the graphic novel, scifi mystery and horror and so forth. So they have knowledge and they have experience into the digital savvy and they have opinions. And they are going to kind of hear more about that today. So, for any of you that want more information about the programs, we do have particularly the master science publishing to have brochures here on the stage or at the booth. Catch me afterwards. Also i felt some of you might like to know about a new program that we were launching in 2015. This is an online executive Education Program in digital works. We are starting off with three specific tracks or courses in the discoverability in the transformative Business Models and of course in the social media marketing. And again, if you want more information about that for catch me afterwards and we have light years on the stage. So, now we are going to get started and im going to ask the panelists to introduce themselves. I would like each of you to say your name, your company, what you do and then tell us one do the surprising thing that you have learned in the classroom and im going to start with justin. Hello everyone. I am justin chanda, the publisher of the four prints of signing and schuster, one of them as children, one is adult scifi, Young Readers and margaremargaret mac lary books. I publish about 250 bucks 250 a year. Everything from the youngest picture book all the way up to the edgy teen novel. What else one of the surprising things i learned in the classroom. I think it is constantly surprising to me in the era of everything that you read in the media about publishing is that my god this sky is falling. The most surprising thing year after year is just how remarkably passionate, excited and enthusiastic about this particular industry this generation and generations go and how excited they really are and it gives me not a very helpful guide that gives a genuine hope, so thats why i keep doing it. Brenda plex you were just introducing me as my boss walked in, so no pressure. I am an executive editor at Saint Martins and i publish the voice driven fiction and the narrative nonfiction and some of the titles ive come up with recently that have been successful have been the good house, the memoirs of an imaginary friend, and im thrilled to be publishing a just couple of weeks the New York Times bestseller patty henry and her new novel in the stories that we tell that are coming out shortly. So, in terms of the sort of very quick what did i learn, we talk a lot about the discoverability into the social media, and how everything is changing. But the thing that i continually learn from my students is still the best way to find out about the book is word of mouth. Anything that they have read and that they have loved nine times out of ten i ask them how did you find out about this book lacks somebody told me. And that is very reassuring. I run the marketing of the scholastic trade group as a month ago. For 16 years i was at the Saint Martins press and i worked at simon and schuster childrens books and the Simon Schuster adult prior to that. I respond to do the animal house, state your name [laughter] what always surprises me and i have been teaching since 2008, since thats time. The students are so well read to the deptabout the depth of the g has blown me away. And every class i teach and beyond that, the ability to take their own experience outside of the classroom outside of the Publishing Industry and outside of books and turned it into practical marketing ideas that could be applied to the things that we have to do to sell our books as always surprised me deeply and i will stop there because we are going to talk more about that. But basically that passion and the ability to translate experience into practical ideas. Susan plex iem Susan Weinberg at the perseus book groups, im with the nation looks and public affairs. We do pretty much it is a nonfiction list. If you go to the booth at 1406 you can get your picture taken with a Storm Trooper which is promoting the basic book coming out in the fall how star wars conquered the universe. And we have the two great authors assigned tomorrow for public affairs. We have a book coming up and hes a member of parliament usually, that he is coming here in his capacity as an altar of history and hes a fantastic guide and we have david just wrote the pacemakers why we are crazy for cupcakes that fed up with fondue. So we do the things that you expect of us and things that you dont. I think the most unexpected thing that ive learned from the students is that they are interested in exploring the niches as well as the obvious and the big ideas and massmarket ideas. I teach the class which is one of the final classes they take for graduation and they have to come up with a Business Plan for any publishing business. And ive been very impressed at how willing they are in what may look like a specialized direction or a new direction, but really go into the markets and really looked closely at opportunities that have truly been overlooked. I like fondue by the way. Just following up on that, susan, how do we think this risktaking comes from in this generation that might not always exist in the industry as a whole . We tend to be pretty baby steps sometimes. You collect risktaking. I dont think they would collect risktaking. If anything else, sometimes i find i like go bigger, go boulder. I think though that they realize that the new Business Models are a way of life. And that is rate of change is here to stay. So, i think that they understand that even i think during the time that there have been students, things have changed in the industry and that they have to be ready for that and open to that. Its not like risktaking for them its like what they have my head, let me go do what i want to do. Thats interesting. You said that they are always looking at the glass being half full so how do we act upon that and how do we take that back into our place as well . Spinnaker and correlates everything that we have been saying here which is i think the way that you activate it ive noticed this in the class you ask them and ask their opinion and get their take and get their think tank ability going. One of the things that has really sort of affected the way that i do my job in the Office Coming out of the class looking at how we do Group Discussions and getting an opinion from the material. It is getting more information and hoping everyone goes off and does their marching orders and now it is much more of a discussion and every voice in that meeting is equal from the executive editorial director dir dont do the assistant and the point is you need the time to do that and that is how you capitalize on that and do that. Succumbing you know, whats interesting is that some of the people that you work for you probably have been in no particular aspect of the industry. But the students are different and they have been exposed to everything. They have to take courses in all areas to graduate from the program. Do they have this Broad Knowledge and how does that help you in your problemsolving as the publisher and editor. One thing that has always been true as many young people are attracted to publishing you anyg that they want to be editors and they start in the company and they realize that there is a lot of other choices and opportunities and be come a day may not be that well suited to being an editor. So i think that in the program, that happens sooner. And so, it is really great that they give to realize that and some commit to the original goal but now some of them gets to study and look at different parts of the business and i think it gives them more appreciation sooner for different parts of the business and it makes them realize that when they are in companies all parts of the business belong to them and not just the area, not just the area that they are in and it reminds you that when you have someone starting up in one area to really introduce and find other ways to get an exposed to other areas of the company for anything that you can do to flatten the hierarchy and make people more aware of what the other people in the company are doing. You forget sometimes that they e is a very constricted world and you are used to dealing with all parts of the company do better their education and results that you will get from your employees. The best editors are people who understand marketing and understand what the department is doing and that is so so much earlier. So basically what did you learn from the students do they gravitate more towards the marketing approach versus another and what approach do you find that they tend to do the job into the classroom. Its quite amazing. Thank you. I think the question is what are the students bringing and how are they thinking about things that are different than the way that we thought about them or that we currently think about them and i think this is the thing that we keep coming back to. And if we focus specifically on the students that have come out of the program, and when i was at st. Martins beheading of the students that came out of the program and spent many years at st. Martin, they think more collaboratively. And certainly i did and it goes to what justin was saying about how when youre kind of rigidly locked into learning your entrylevel job and i dont delete the Publishing Companies are working that way. I think we are trying to be more noble. You are involved in every part of the Business Unit and our students arand orstudents are ce particularly suited to that role, to that idea. They are confident. They look at other pieces of the Business Unit. They are interested in the rights and how sales are selling accounts. They have ideas about reaching audiences that are beyond the simple advertising tools. But that i think blends into the conversation is good brainstorming with. Good brainstorming come a tremendous man once told me, just a second, sorry. Once told me good brainstorming is like any idea that you forgot there is a good idea. It doesnt matter because if i Say Something and its really done, that might lend itself to what justin is thinking about and then brings bring that to somethinbrenda tosomething thatd idea. Or we could make a joke at your expense. And im going on for too long but the point is that the students are suited to this kind of brainstorming and they played off each other and Senior Management and people that have a few years of experience and it really builds the conversation. One of the things i would like to add about that and i love this about my students and about the young people i work with is that they are hungry. And theyve really, really wanted this and i think that it is so important to sort of nurture that hunger and freedom and so forth. I remember a long time ago when i started in publishing and i was an assistant and i was a Senior Editor who was hiring a new assistant and he had so many people to see and so forth and he was kind of a little dismissive about them and saying we have all of these great ideas and they think that they are the best. They are going to just charge in here. Of course you have to temper that enthusiasm and match it with experience and so forth but he said to me i want to say to these kids i dont want you to find the next bestseller. I wanbest seller. I want you to photocopy the next bestseller and i if i assistant found thmy assistanthelp the ned be happy. I feel that students are so used to being marketed to every possible front that is pervasive that often its hard to know the difference between what is actual content or fewer editorial content and what isnt. And the lines are getting very, very blurred. And we all sort of grew up with this separation of church and state. This generation doesnt always have privy to. You think that this is affecting the sense of what is the content and what is marketing and the relative value of each and any sense . Does anybody want to take that quick quick they see the power of the using the content in different ways. Its my turn to talk about a book. Which was exciting and you have an author that has really figured out the internet in a way that others are really catching up to now. And my students understood that i think even before i did. They were talking about tumbler and the power of tumbler before i even knew what miller was the how strong it could be and kathy was on that leve level and if st i am getting at is that they are living this stuff. So, the students will be able to say to you right away like you know what, that level of marketing its feels too heavy handed it over here com here, ts something that feels natural and it feels like you are giving and getting at the same time. I think that is fascinating. And then on the basic level, we have the belief that facebook was not going to help us on the marketing and or not be as effective as it was that you havand you havethe solution anda roomful of people that are like i dont look at it for marketing anymore. How amazing and powerful is that for me that you can change a campaign midstream with that. We were talking about this earlier before the panel and you mentioned that they young person in your Organization Says nobody needs the space anymore. You have to bring that back with a grain of salt. It is another data point. And you have a roomful of people talking about the Team Marketing is different in different ages, thats specifically why the Team Marketing when you have your marketing folks coming to this conclusion, it is yet another data point saying the real world test. And i can confirm that. Is that what you are hearing that further Marketing Tools quick i do not think that they have a special monopoly on being the experts in the social media. We really do need to learn just like the Different Social Media approaches, but ive been interested to notice that this is not just from the classes i dont think that young people are particularly better at it and anyone think that anyone under 30 is an expert and its actually been interesting to me that thats not always that isnt always so true. What i would say though is that the expert of course to listening to the class conversations about where people are finding out that they had information and what they are looking at. That is remarkably helpful. I was looking for publishing information. The holding of social media and marketing it is absolutely very valuable but from my perspective which is the editorial perspective and its something if theres any editors in the room please hope us with this but this is something that amazes me how few editors take advantage of the social media and how powerful it is because of course it is about the foreign relationships and whether they are in front of the screen or the relationships. The offer came t to be as inclusive because of a relationship with a thirdparty. There is no question about it that it is a social media animal and it is always changing. To begin about the Marketing Content and the relationship i am not so much concerned that people dont understand the difference between the Marketing Content and the editorial content, but i am a little concerned that this openness to the Business Model i sometimes feel especially my students on the working end of business as i sometimes feel, you know, i dont think that they are giving the content creator enough respect that the ethos of the content should be free. Why should you pay someone to write something or yes and then here we will pay a writer to create these books and i know that its partly just to their experience. They dont have much experience with the other parts of the business that we could recreate in the classroom, but it is something that is another thing ive learned from my students to be a little careful to really make sure that we are transmitting this idea that the creating of the content has value and people deserve to be paid for creating their content and not all falling into the idea that people should just write things for free because it is cool or they want to get they want to be seen. And also that it doesnt magically happen. You cant just ask an author to write a story next month because this account wants to promote it and that is another thing that we have worked on pretty hard. To go back to something that you said you teach a course of the book acquisition and editing in a good portion of that revolves around how do we find this content that we always know shouldnt be free and about you and of course much comes from agents but also with our the other sources we use t used to e content quick it is in terms of where they are searching and reading and so forth. My end of semester project is called to the next best thing and its based on the premise that the editors are also entrepreneurs and if they try to find things on their own, whether it is through magazines or social media or just something that they heard. So, my students come up to me and they say i have this idea of this person here married this person with. Its incredible. Its that connection with a great mind and it shows very much what peoples interests a are. There is instead one place you can go to. There is in fact this is the formula if you turn around three times and sprinkle fairy dust over your Left Shoulder it will appear that the thing is i guess in this regard my students have been taught me something new but they have reinforced by the experience to be true which is as a good editor and a good publisher you are always looking for th that next big thing and u never know where you are going to find it. One of the nice things so that my students have brought up i have seen them actually become real books at other houses. So, they are onto something. We also talked about this come your students are real even if they are in their 20s and they are working in the industry they are still reading. We asked in the audience how many are reading . Okay. So, what are you learning . Is your classroom a constant focus group . Spinet rating in many way i thit is. I think thats what i learned often is that what we read in the paper in terms of trends that are care and hed come of this is what is happening, it is a lot more gray than the black and white it is presented. The interest range varies from the people in the class and i think that is fantastic. So, when you hear the class and it always happens inevitably in the class. The 95 of the class raises their hands. They are not always all reading the same thing and i think that first and foremost that is exciting. And then when you get to the focus groups, of course we do a number of classes about art and about art for jackets and stuff like that and i have certainly taken and shown things that we are working on and taken into that feedback as again another data point. But i also hear you also speculate about why certain books dont work in putting that up to the class and hearing from them i didnt like this cover. Just getting the actual feedback. So you are taking this back. Is anybody else doing that . Do you want to provide an example quick i caught you unaware. Whether it is from the cover or other kinds of marketing ideas its like a data point. Ive done everything justin and matt have done. You talked about how important it is to engage and make it i the younger professios in the business field special and valuable and so forth and i would love to talk more about that because i think students know that they have to pay their dues in any organization and ift has changed a lot and the days in the manuscripts and answering phones and so forth, that seems to me that things are accelerating a little for quickly and that students really want to do with more. They want to feel engaged more quickly. What each of you perhaps give an example of how you felt young people in your organization if not rise up the ladder to feel more involved and engaged because i think this might help everyone here today. One way to make people feel engaged is to actually engage them and i think that in many businesses and not just in our business, we are learning that brings people to the meeting iss suing her, expose them to whats going on and also talked to them not just about their job, but about the bigger challenge is that the company is facing into the bigger issues and get them, you know, to be able to pick their heads up and realize the larger ecosystem that they are growing in. See the other thing that ive learned from doing the capstone is sometimes a student will come up with an idea and i would be like why didnt we think about that, why didnt anyone in my organization think to look in this area and need t if anythinf there are not other ways we can create teams to bring some ideas up from the bottom up not just from the top down. Well again, i think the biggest opportunity is the way to help people who are new to the business were new to the company is to let them fly and let them activate the ideas that they want to follow through on. What is kind of cool is it used to be and we probably experienced this given the experience if someone comes to you with an idea and i would like to do this and it used to be well, we tried that. And in many cases we would say we tried that and because of this reason, you know, it doesnt work but its a good idea to keep thinking and you would encourage that way but now its kind of like i would like to try this and you think i tried that but it didnt work so things have changed since then. And its a constant evolution. Maybe it is more constant, i dont know. But the evolution of the opportunity for reaching the audience has changed dramatically. So i find that when people come to me and have an idea i am more inclined to let them run and to say we tried this and it didnt work for this reason. But, you know, now because they are analytics that are available that we can use the one example that will tell us that it is working or not and if we can pursue it. That is a very good point. The average Digital Media that didnt work two minutes ago would work now. At st. Marks and we are very collegial and that goes up and down through the ranks and we are a team and we build things as a team so we are always listening. I think that for me i make a point of not just a patronizing thing that i make a point to ask my assistant had to ask a lot of the other editors this question what do you think . And i listened to the answer as it often surprises me. With i spoke a little bit about my Staff Meetings and how they have changed and one of the other things i took away i think after my second year of teaching i asked a Senior Editor on my stuff to form a Property Group so the idea being the junior staff doesnt often get to acquire in getting the information from the agents but they want the experience and im learning from the class that these people actually have two handle it. Why not. So come up with your own ideas and there are some remarkable books that have come out of that and Everybody Wins in that situation and everyone feels engaged. So i think that has just been a wonderful thing for me and i think also for the folks on my staff. And guess to echo everything we dont want to idealize this so much its not that everybody gets the puppy. There has to be hierarchy. But asking the questions and really respecting the answer i often find im speaking more to my senior staff and asking them if theyve actually consult with their assistance about things. You know, have you got in their cake and just remember to do that. And that also comes right from the cost. This is all very refreshing to me. From my years in the publishing organizations it wasnt like this, so its good to hear all of this and hopefully everyone is trying to these tactics also. Also. So, looking down the road in the mindset into the conjugations of the generation of any crystal ball on how they will change the industry . Anyone want to take that one . Spinnaker they arent going to make it 100 digital. [laughter] and that is phenomenal. Like, again you hear these stories like this is a generation that only wants digital. I have a lot of people in my class and i think we talked about this that are passionate about print books. Isnt that wonderful . I think they are going to blow up the structure that we are familiar with. We talk about the hierarchy of little bit int and the path for advancement and i find that the groups that are working to most effectively are the groups and its not your publicity in your marketing and your editorial we still have those rules but those are being played off of each other and in many ways it is almost as if the old kind of imprint model was a publicity director and a publisher making decisions is transformed into groups working on projects and thats becoming very effective and its 2014. Maybe it will change next year. But i could see that looking into a crystal ball. That is the editorial perspective. I have to say that im happy to see that something that wont change is that these Young Students as a young editors that i work with all really safeguard the integrity of the story of the written word. Word. Of the read and if the reading experience which, because without a good but i dont care how good your marketing or publicity sales are committed to going to happen for you. So, one last question and i want to hear from the audience but thinking back on your own goals when you started in the industry. How do you think that this generation is different . Does anyone want to take that one . You know, it is interesting because when the panels like this and when we talk about our industry obviously we focus a lot on how there has been so much change, we are undergoing change, there are so many things we still cannot predict whether they will keep changing this way or where they will end up. But its interesting to me that there are some really basic things that dont change. And i think thats coming you know, i actually cant even hardly escape is so different i very much get the six you know, i see myself in the students and taken back to, you know, remembering what i did and didnt know, how i finally learned it. Sometimes one of the useful things i learned actually isnt just learning from your students but actually understanding what is hard for them to sort of, you know, grasp or really i really know you really understand and it reminds me of output sometimes people in your staff might still be able having trouble to really understanding were really putting into the business. But, i dont feel i feel that yes there are many obvious changes in the business and there is a lot more room for as we hav have eluded to, you know, before the different models and the different ways of working. But i still think that some of the basic things like passion, having a passion for your idea when people have to pick a capstone idea is i tell them to make sure that you care about this and make sure that you arer caption debate compassionate about it and you have got to make it happen. And i think that is still very much wide a lot of them are coming and learning about the business. The other thing i learned again this semester is that sometimes a simple idea, a strong and simple idea that is executed is the best thing it is the best way to go. Sometimes when they are coming up in these ideas you can get into this into that. And so some of the best ones have something that has a very clear focused passion that they are pursuing and devolves into a business and they they often really do have the best plans the best plans in the end it would have to get that completed the good that we have questions in the audience . Now is the chance to ask your professors what youve always wanted to ask. If you have a question, maybe we should do this little line. I know that its hard [inaudible] we are undergraduates at emerson college, so one of the things in our program that we find there is a certain stigma attached to anything that isnt highend nonfiction. So i was wondering what you all profess as another Publishing Program think that in the Publishing Industry please. Im speechless. [laughter] im surprised to hear that because i actually feel the other way that the stigma is to the letter or a fiction and the highend stuff. From my perspective and the students are coming into the territorediting class they may g the best and the brightest stuff and i wanted to tell them that none of them are going to make a living editing the literary fiction. At it in that literary fiction. No, but i mean that. So, i try to and i think that we all do not open up to what you have been reading in college is a very small percentage of whats out there and you have to broaden your own take and you also as an editor especially, you have to learn how to step outside of your own take. Passion is one thing that taste is another. So, you have to learn how to sort of read as a civilian for your own personal use and your own personal taste a passion. But also come as a publishing professional and that is not the same thing. There is a diagram and there is an overlap of cours of course bs not the same thing. There is no stigma. Please dont get caught up in the literary bias. Ibias. A few of the literary nonfiction and thats what you want to work on, thats great and people will tell you they are very passionate about it. If you love romance and crime fiction, go work in math and to work in the Literary Works we need to sell all of those categories. We need all of those categories. And dont listen to other peoples opinions. Other questions, lets see. I am wondering in reaction to the part of the Digital Reality now the fact that the industry is hoping in so many ways and open in so many ways have a conversation about one another and what i want to cover and how i want to look at the content and the change has that conversation somehow shifted because now things are sort of sometimes primarily digitally enforced similar to what it was. Do you feel like you got that . The question being the digital revolution if you will that has taken hold and theres a lot more talk about digital ebook creation and content and has that changed the dialogue that we are having in class. I will answer it. [laughter] i feel like when it was going 90 of what we were doing was going to be digital according to everyone yes it was a lot of our discussion. And at the end of the day for me into my class, it comes back to the content. And i think that we are all in it because everybody wants to be publishing professionals and we want to create books. In whatever format it takes, thats fine. There is almost like a the wall has broken down. And the acknowledgment of this might be in ebook and this and that. But its not. It hasnt changed what we are after which is good content. Anybody else . Yes. Sorry. Some of them later relate into their capstone annexing a cup of projects, like susan said, kind of think why didnt we come up with . And i will say that ive approach to difference duties about that and they chose for one reason not to pursue it because they had a different career growing and for another reason they didnt want to be an entrepreneur they thought. I thought they had a very entrepreneurial mind, but they chose to go into pretty straightforward career. But the hope is we will see this happen and they will be great creativity and ideas and find their place in the marketplace and not as everyone goal. I tend to hire a lot of my students. My god, yes. So many of our professors are wonderful a higher interest events. They are working all over the industry. They have an excellent track record. Yes. You talked about how it is important to find ways to be exposed to different areas of your come to me, if your editorial coming not to just be a matter. But if you are in a company where things arent so open and there are a lot of levels of hierarchy, you know, do you have any suggestions for ways im an editorial and id love to be exposed to more marketing. What would you suggest . I look at your suggestion because i dont understand why people sometimes dont take it more into their own hands because everyone is your colleague. You are all working on it together. If you need a reason, you other reason to ask people questions or talk to them, but sometimes it is as simple as introducing yourself to the person who sits in the cubicle of the other department. In the capstone of her students develop their own idea and the challenges it is not a team project. If an individual project. They have to develop the editorial, marketing, financials pa i will find someone in the street for regard to the professors and find someone to talk to you so you can learn more about your particular idea. That is one of the best parts of their capstone. This is not a secret. This is your eta. To everyone you know about it. Develop it. So people love to talk about what they are doing and they love to talk. I found the students who do best on their projects take that to heart. I had a student this semester you had a really interesting idea about fan fiction, which is a big challenge. One of the things they say to her as we should talk to the Authors Guild about this and she did and it made a huge difference to the project and even i was impressed how open they were in talking with her. I think you have to realize that someone in this business, you share your passion with everyone else in this business. People who work in bookstores want to talk to you when you work in publishing or the person finances interested in what they editors are doing. Ill never forget when i worked in a bigger company, but it wants for any company with her multiple floors and i would have editors come into my office. They would come in and they would complain about the publicist and let the publicist wasnt doing. I would be like deeming the person whose office is right about this on this for, whose office you didnt walk into . The first thing i would say is go to them and speak to them and dont always do it by email. Donald attacked to your colleagues on email. I tell my students this for people entering the profession, too. I am a Student Company to this business, they want to talk to you. They want to hear from you and they want to know what you think. There is no excuse in my other secret advice especially because none of them are in the program. They are not there to work in finance. But i have to tell you one of the secret is get to know the people in finance because they are interested in what theyre doing. They dont have much of an insight into it they can be helpful to you. So almost everyone you talk to come you will find it is a twoway street. I want to share to an its with you. I understand where youre coming from to walk into the Publishers Office and say im an entrylevel person but a dust to talk to you, which you should do anyway. First of all company to be the right place at the right time. I got a book because i was walking down the hall and a corporatization and i was walking down the hall to a friend i had made in the childrens Marketing Group because thats where he wanted to work in ursa place at Simon Schuster and it literally walked into the marketing director. Read a quick little conversation and he said im about to hire someone for a job on that you apply for it. Literally from walking into him three days later i had that shot. The second anecdote i will tell you is dont be afraid to step up and dont be afraid outside the editorial. You may not succeed, but another supervisor who may or may not be in this room today once pointed out to me that we had an opening in our rates department. There was a rates assistant who wasnt quite qualified for that job. We thought that she stepped up, went to the Publishers Office and said i can do that job. I want to do the job. So the publisher decided to give her the job and she flourished. And shes not very successfully issued. Dont be afraid to go for it. If you get slapped down, dont worry about it. Says the same the opportunity, who spoke, via the right place at the right time. All these things help. Finds those blind corners. Lots of great advice today. Thank you to a panel for sharing wisdom, which, all