Every week we recommend 5 links to publishing news that the young professional should read to feel more connected to what’s going on in the industry. There are only 5, so even if you weren’t able to read a thing all week, these should help keep you in the know.

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Amazon workers in Germany set to strike for pay and benefits after trade union Verdi refused to impliment a collective agreement on employee conditions.

E-Book sales, (especially in the romance genre, given that it was The Year of Fifty Shades), significantly boosted the book business in 2012, according to a BookStats survey.

The Nation launches ‘E-Book Nation,’ a new digital book initiative designed to make The Nation’s most notable contributors, past and present, available to readers on tablets,

Seattle Mystery Bookshop’s granola bomb scare turns out to be just the “world’s saddest garage sale.”

After being the first company to digitize magazines, Zinio moves its catalogue to the Netflix model.

The post 5 Top Publishing News Stories of the Week, 5/13 – 5/17 appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

Dana Trocker

From working in a Book Publishing program through her college in Oregon, Dana Trocker is now a Speakers Bureau Relations Coordinator for Macmillan. At a time when digital networking is so prevalent, Trocker says nothing compares to personal interaction with clients.

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What was your first exposure to book business (internship or first job) and what were the most important things you gained from it?

My first “book job” was working at Ooligan Press, the independent publisher affiliated with the Masters in Book Publishing program at Portland State University in Oregon. I got a great, well-rounded education because the curriculum includes classes in editing, marketing, digital, design, etc. But I got great hands-on experience as an event planner when I co-organized the Write to Publish conference—the largest annual fundraiser for Ooligan Press. Planning the conference taught me so many things that I was able to translate directly into my current job in the speakers bureau of a Big Six publisher.

How do you explain your current job to people?

Usually, to save time and confusion, I just say that I work in book publishing at a major house. That generally launches people into talking about their favorite books, asking for recommendations, hinting that I should help them publish their book, or mentioning the 50 Shades of Grey phenomenon (honestly, this happens a lot, and strangers tell me all kinds of weird things I don’t necessarily want to know).

But, if someone is really interested in what I do, I will explain that I am, essentially, a speaking agent who represents the authors published by my company. I often have to explain the difference between the publicity department (responsible for book tours) and the speakers bureau (responsible for booking events—usually one-offs—where the author/speaker gets paid for their time). I rarely go into too much detail about all that I do, because I wear a lot of hats. It would take all day to explain!

I work with event venues and authors, negotiate fees, write contracts, and plan travel. I make sure the author knows where to be and when, what they are expected to do and say and wear (and eat!), who they will be addressing and why. I also make sure that the venue pays in full and the author gets paid on time. There is a lot of juggling and a lot of details.

Macmillan Publishers

What is the biggest challenge in your current job? In what ways did your previous jobs or internships prepare you for what you do here?

As with most jobs, the key to mine is organization and attention to detail. Since I am responsible for all aspects of an event from the time a client calls about booking a speaker to the well after the author returns home from the event, it’s very important that I keep track of all the steps along the way.

Since I’m often dealing with clients and authors, it’s also important to be helpful, personable, responsive, and prompt.

My time as an event planner for Ooligan Press was very helpful. Though I am now representing talent, I work closely with people planning fundraisers, meetings, and community events. I think it’s helpful to know what my clients are going through so I can anticipate their needs and try to alleviate some of the stress they are under.

What value has this job brought to the way you think about book business as a whole and your own relationship to books?

I have been an avid reader all my life and was always interested in the real lives of the people who wrote my favorite books. But growing up literary-minded before the rise of the current young-adult market meant that I was often encouraged to read the classics. So, when I was reading about Dickens and Fitzgerald and Austen, their lives seemed so foreign and fantastical compared to mine that they almost had the quality of fiction. Now that I work so closely with contemporary authors—speak to them regularly on the phone, retell their triumphs and accomplishments to clients, plan out their international travel and their road trips to the library two towns over—I have a new-found sense of authors. Where they once were untouchable and mythic in my mind, living wild fictitious lives, they are now just people. Working so closely with authors, I now find myself wondering about the real person behind the words I read, from novels to news articles to memes on the internet. 

How are speakers bureaus integral to the book business as it is now and as it will continue to develop?

In-house Speakers Bureaus are relatively new to the industry. All of the Big Six houses now have some sort of Speakers Bureau. However, authors have been doing paid speaking engagements since well before in-house bureaus rose in popularity. In the past, speaking engagements were booked by outside bureaus. Now that publishing houses handle our own bookings, we are able to bring in revenue and offer a service to the authors we publish. In the changing world of modern book publishing, it is increasingly important for an author to connect with their audience in as many ways as they can. We provide one more outlet for a book or an author to reach the audience. While Facebook and Twitter communication are a key part of building a relationship with readers, there is nothing that compares to connecting in person. The events industry also helps extend the lifecycle of a book by extending sales—sometimes long after the book’s initial publication.

The post Book Jobs Not by the Book: Dana Trocker, Speakers Bureau Relations Coordinator appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

Every week we recommend 5 links to publishing news that the young professional should read to feel more connected to what’s going on in the industry. There are only 5, so even if you weren’t able to read a thing all week, these should help keep you in the know.

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Rumors fly that Microsoft might acquire the rest of the Nook business; Barnes & Noble stock subsequently becomes a bestseller.

Amazon blazes trails eastward (or, given that they’re in Seattle, westward?) to China

The US Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act, officially making sales tax a requirement for all online sales.

Southeast Europe sweeps the 2013 Best Translated Book Awards!

In other awards news, the Karen and Philip Cushman Award has been established to recognize great work by “late blooming” YA novelists like Cushman herself.

The post 5 Top Publishing News Stories of the Week, 5/6 – 5/10 appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

Every week we recommend 5 links to publishing news that the young professional should read to feel more connected to what’s going on in the industry. There are only 5, so even if you weren’t able to read a thing all week, these should help keep you in the know.

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A little bit of closure (or at least settlement) for Macmillan, that underdog of the Big 6′s battle with the DOJ.

Simon & Schuster turns out to be a comeback kid: despite ongoing strife with B&N, they pulled up their profits last quarter.

Hachette Digital tells libraries it wants to go steady, just in time for prom season. Ebooks for libraries nationwide!

With echoes of World Book Night, Free Comic Book Day happens tomorrow, May 3rd, and gives readers a chance to connect with indie comic shops across the US.

Bowker has a rather clever plan to connect indie authors already using their MyIdentifiers service with book publicity and marketing tools.

BONUS LINK! It’s gone viral the past few days, but if you haven’t already read it, please do. Paul Miller’s essay for The Verge on his year without Internet, and what it did and did not accomplish for him, is a must-read for all digitally engaged humans, but especially those of us making a career out of the digital vs. paper conversation on a daily basis.

The post 5 Top Publishing News Stories of the Week: 4/29 – 5/3 appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

Every week we recommend 5 links to publishing news that the young professional should read to feel more connected to what’s going on in the industry. There are only 5, so even if you weren’t able to read a thing all week, these should help keep you in the know.

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The Senate moved forward with the Marketplace Fairness Act, a.k.a. the Tax Laws Apply to Online Retailers, Too Act.

Canada has (very politely) approved the Random Penguin merger.

Avon Romance joins the gang of romance publishers making it easier for aspiring authors to share their work with an online community. 

World Book Night was back in the US for the second year in a row, making a bigger, better splash than before.

The incomparable E.L. Konigsburg passed away last Friday. If you don’t immediately know the name, she is the novelist who, (among many other things), created a fantasy world out of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as magical as any imagined by C.S. Lewis or Madeleine L’Engle.

BONUS LINK! Amazon has announced its tally of this year’s Top 20 “Most Well-Read Cities in the US”, and Florida dominates a full 25% of the list. Lots of beach reading?

The post 5 Top Publishing News Stories of the Week: 4/22 – 4/26 appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

Specifically, Nashville is known for hosting a number of religious publishing houses. Best-known, perhaps, are Thomas Nelson and Zondervan, both of which are now owned by HarperCollins and which, together, comprise HarperCollins Christian. Thomas Nelson is the world’s largest Christian publisher and is known in the larger market for New York Times bestseller Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo. Zondervan is one of the world’s leading publishers of Bibles, and HC Christian is also responsible for BibleGateway.com, a web site (and app) that allows users to search within over 100 versions of the Bible. Simon & Schuster’s Christian imprint, Howard Books, is also in Nashville.

On the independent side, there’s Worthy Publishing in nearby Brentwood. Worthy’s titles span several genres, including  inspiration, current events, fiction, Bible study, leadership, biography, and personal growth. B&H Publishing Group, too, publishes trade fiction and nonfiction, academic titles, church group books, and bestseller The Vow, a book about the true events that inspired the 2012 film with Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams.

But, if religious publishing is not your cup of tea, never fear. There are other options. Vanderbilt University Press publishes high-quality scholarly works as well as general-interest books relating to the Nashville region. Vanderbilt UP also boasts a co-publishing program with the Country Music Foundation Press, publishing arm of the Country Music Hall of Fame. There is also Turner Publishing, a top independent publisher based in both New York and Nashville. Turner has a number of fiction and nonficiton imprints, including Ancestry: Genealogy, the book division of Ancestry.com. In addition to their fiction and nonfiction lists, Turner recently acquired roughly 1,500 print and digital titles from the John Wiley & Sons pets, crafts, and general interest lists (including the annual  Baseball Prospectus, for you sports fans).

Thanks to a number of colleges and universities, Nashville is a youth-friendly city with lots of restaurants, a huge monthly flee market, and the fabulous independent bookstore Parnassas Books, owned by best-selling author and Nashville resident Ann Patchett. And, of course, there’s music. In the nicer months, you can always find a free outdoor concert, or perhaps catch a movie or dancing in a park. The city is a relatively affordable one. Preferred neighborhoods for young people are East Nashville and Green Hill. It is, however, advisable to have a car, as the public bus system is not necessarily reliable.

Publishing life in Nashville is rich, but more laid back than in New York. However, since it’s such an industry hub, entry-level candidates should anticipate expectations of internship experience and demonstrated bibliophilia. (Also, if you’re looking to get into religious publishing, specific knowledge of and experience with religious books are a definite plus.)

And are the people friendly? When asked, Laura Laffoon, Editorial Assistant at a Big Six Nashville office, responded, “This is the South. So, yes. Very friendly.”

Do you work in Nashville or another Southern city? How do you find the industry there? What other parts of  the Southern book business should people know about?  If you’ve worked in publishing elsewhere, particularly in New York, how does Nashville compare?

The post Not New York: Book Business & Publishers in Nashville appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

I’m really excited to be able to contribute to Design Candy, and I’m starting it off by sharing one of my favorite design categories: Polish book covers. I recently got into Polish poster and book design after seeing an exhibition on The Brothers Quay at MoMA last summer that featured some Polish Surrealism, which I’d never seen before. It opened my eyes to the kind of graphic design that’s been produced in Europe and got me excited to see what other Polish artists have designed. I collected a few Polish cover designs for this roundup that I think exemplify what is so great about 20th century Polish design. From a North American perspective, they are so different from what we typically see on bookshelves and have a playful humor and crudeness that are rare these days.

*to learn more about what’s happening in contemporary Polish book business, be sure to check out the Polish Cultural Institute.

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Siobhan Gallagher

Siobhan Gallagher is a Canadian freelance graphic designer and illustrator. She is a former Penguin design intern and current cheese enthusiast with an eye for colour, an obsession with book design, and a fondness for the Oxford comma. She studied design at NSCAD University in Halifax and University of the Arts in Philadelphia and has had the privilege to do design work for Penguin Group, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, McDonald’s, and Word on the Street.

The post Design Candy: 20th Century Polish Books appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

Every week we recommend 5 links to publishing news that the young professional should read to feel more connected to what’s going on in the industry. There are only 5, so even if you weren’t able to read a thing all week, these should help keep you in the know.

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 Simon & Schuster has decided to give chicken libraries a chance, and announced the launch of a one-year ebook pilot program with three New York library systems.

Higher learning for the shorter reader: The University of South Carolina Press has launched a children’s publishing imprint, called Young Palmetto Books

Bowker Market Research studies say book publishers’ online communities likely to double by 2015.

The sun never sets on the Amazon empire: In the same week, Amazon announces plans to take its Appstore overseas and also to expand its international presence in Russia.

Skyhorse Publishing and Start Publishing announced the purchase of Underland Press, an award-winning independent publishing house dedicated to science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

The post 5 Top Publishing News Stories of the Week: 4/15 – 4/19 appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

This past week, our parent site, Publishing Trends, has run a series of articles on “How to Get Your Second Job in Publishing,” and earlier this week, we posted some of the best pearls of wisdom gathered from our research here on Trendsetter. We’ve seen a lot of important career themes emerge: what it means to be proactive, how to leverage your strengths to move up the corporate ladder, and what roles fate and timing play in finding new opportunities. We also discovered how common it seems to be for people to not only move amongst houses throughout their careers, but also to different departments.

When we initially embarked on this article, we assumed a majority of people stayed in their respective departments for the majority of their careers. Surprisingly, however, our survey showed to the contrary: 67% of our respondents said they moved departments when they transitioned into their second job. For those who want to stay in the coveted role of Editorial, turnover is lower; 68% of our respondents who started in Editorial say they are still in the same department now. Of those respondents who started in Sales, though, only 37% are still working in that department.

In interviews, we saw a lot of fluidity between departments, as many of the people we interviewed have moved amongst all of them. “I left [Beacon Press] for Houghton and was in publicity but in a more corporate way,” recalls Todd Berman, VP, Client Development at Random House. “I felt siloed in many ways and eventually burned out on publicity. That’s when I transitioned into marketing for two years.” Bruce Nichols, who is now SVP, Publisher at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, transferred out of Editorial into Sales so that he could increase his future opportunities, Within only 6 months of joining a textbook publisher as an Editorial Assistant, he was “…in fact told by many people in the Editorial department that the best way to move anywhere in College publishing was to get into Sales.”

Part of the reason for so much movement could be at least in part because of the way technology is changing the roles of these departments, particularly Marketing and Publicity. Where media contacts were once difficult to come by and mediate, there are now infinite outlets for spreading the word about new books. Especially for young talent today, one’s skillset as a digital native can offer important leverage. “Younger professionals have far more computer skills than the older generation did at their age,” admits Charles Kim, Associate Publisher at the Museum of Modern Art. New media opportunities also bring book business options outside of traditional houses. “To someone starting out now, I think the pretty obvious advice is not only to take advantage of [cut “the”] digital opportunities,” says Bruce Nichols “but also the areas of the business outside the traditional publishing model—start-ups, new forms of business that are proliferating now.”

If your ambitions are strictly editorial, however, moving departments may not be an option. You’ll need to use your initiative to move up rather than over. “The trick is to do a conscientious-enough job at those basic entry-level duties but at the same time to be ‘selfish,’ focused, and ambitious enough to land projects that make you seem like a full-fledged editor before you’ve been fully recognized as one,” Rebecca Saletan, Editorial Director at Riverhead Books, says. “You have to be proactive to make this happen – go after writers and projects, come up with your own ideas, not just wait for agents to hand things to you.”

Treading the editorial straight-and-narrow doesn’t exempt you from having eclectic interests and a global view of publishing, though. Bruce Tracy, Senior Editor at Workman, says, “Everyone gets into [publishing] wanting to be an editor, and for that very reason, when I was hiring, I was always interested in people who were interested in other things. So that if someone had worked in publicity, for instance, I almost automatically liked them more.”

If you’re happy in your department but there’s little room for growth within your current company, the answer might be to move publishing houses. “When I’d first started, I wish I’d known how often people move houses,” said one Production Associate we interviewed. “Without a doubt, I would have started looking for a new job much sooner than I did.” Several interviewees pointed out that moving houses every few years no matter what can be a good way to stay ahead of the salary curve, but Bruce Tracy argues “it’s also important because you learn more. At the same time, given the change of scenery, you’ll be shocked how much you already know.”

Even if an actual move doesn’t occur, having offers can serve as leverage: “At some point when I was Managing Editor at Vintage, I got an offer, and I made it known I had an offer and was able to parlay that into more money – because Vintage was growing then and I was a very inexpensive managing editor they didn’t really want to lose me at that point,” explains Rebecca Saletan. Even then, however, it’s good to be aware of your options and your peers, as Rebecca does add, “I wish I’d been more proactive about figuring out which houses and situations might have been right for me rather than waiting to be approached.”

So how does one go about proactively looking into other houses and departments (particularly if opportunity isn’t coming knocking on its own)? The main thing is to build your network and learn about different roles within the industry. Todd Berman says this can even be as simple as taking colleagues to lunch and talking to them genuinely. “There’s value in networking,” he insists. “I’ve never heard of anyone getting a job on Monster.com.”  This knowledge of publishing people and culture will not only connect you to possible new jobs, but help you to evaluate whether a new company environment will be a good one. “Consider the overall tone of top management,” encourages Amy Rhodes, who worked in several houses before joining Market Partners International as a publishing consultant. “Even for those at fairly junior levels, sane top executives create a positive and productive environment.”

Growth within a publishing career is an individual—and very personal—experience. Still, knowing that there is fluidity amongst houses and departments offers options—options that are commonly taken advantage of throughout the industry. While a major change may not necessary for your second or third job, it helps to know that it might be an option when transitioning to your fourth, fifth, even fiftieth job later down the line.

The post Moving Right Along: What Changing House or Department Means for a Publishing Career appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.

Survey results ran last week, and today’s feature article on Publishing Trends is taken from hours of interviews with professionals of all ages. Trendsetter’s exclusive “Next Job” feature will run later this week, but for today, though, here are our favorite pearls of wisdom, the best of the best career advice we’ve gathered over the past month. What does it take to stay the course? Here’s how 10 publishing professionals, with a combined 215 years of experience, answered that question.

KELLY FARBER • Scout, Barbara Tolley & Associates • 4 years in publishing

“Learn whether you flourish more as a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond. The business needs both kinds, but learning that about yourself–and being able to identify a potential new workplace as a small pond or a big pond–makes a big difference in how happy and successful you’ll be.”

CLAIRE TAYLOR  •  National Accounts Manager, Macmillan  • 6.5 Years in publishing

“When you step into a new environment, trust what you already know:  the process; what you’re looking at; the background details; the terminology. There’s all that knowledge to fall back on, which is a real comfort. You can apply what you do know and ask questions about what you don’t.”

ORIANA LECKERT  •  Director of Operations, Gotham Ghostwriters  •  8 years in publishing

“You may not realize the ways a job will help your career until later. Think about ways to craft your narrative: how to tell the story of the work you’ve done and why. That way, even if it feels like you’re taking a detour at the time, you can convince people later that you did it all on purpose.”

CHARLES KIM  •  Associate Publisher, Museum of Modern Art  •  19 years in publishing

“Be nice to everybody and willing to learn. Be curious about things not necessarily within your purview.”

TODD BERMAN  •  VP of Client Development,  Random House  •  22 Years in publishing

“Wherever you are, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in sales, marketing, etc.—get to know different audiences and become a sponge for information.”

BRUCE TRACY  •  Senior Editor, Workman  •  25 Years in Publishing

“At the end of the day, there are only two essential parties in this process: the writer and the reader. I think whatever part of publishing you work in—editorial or publicity or whatever—the closer you can align yourself with one of those two parties, the better able you’re going to be to thrive in the brave new world.”

BRUCE NICHOLS  •  SVP, Publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt  •  27 years in publishing

“If you’re at the start of your career and have the option, don’t take advantage of the digital opportunities only, but of also of new ways of experiencing book business outside the traditional publishing model—start-ups, new forms of business that are proliferating now.”

REBECCA SALETAN  •  Editorial Director of Riverhead/Penguin  •  29 years in publishing

“The trick is to do a conscientious-enough job at those basic entry-level duties but at the same time to be “selfish”— focused, and ambitious enough to land projects that make you seem like a full-fledged editor before you’ve been fully recognized as one. ..You have to get creative and be sort of relentless, and at the same time not blow off your day job, which can be very time/energy-consuming.”

CAROLYN REIDY  •  CEO, Simon & Schuster  •  37 Years in publishing

“I’m actually very serious when I say that the most important thing for getting your start in publishing is to find the right boss. Someone who is dedicated to communicating to you why they are doing what they’re doing—that’s how you learn what needs to be done to further the publishing enterprise.”

AMY RHODES  •  Publishing Consultant, Market Partners International  •  38 years in publishing

“Develop a good sense of what your boss needs to know—and, just as important, what they don’t need to know. Knowing that you’re keeping them informed on the right things helps develop a productive relationship and allows you to be the sort of employee they don’t need to worry about in the short term, and it’s also a skill that will serve you well throughout your career.”

The post Your Next Job in Publishing: Sage Advice from Across the Industry appeared first on Publishing Trendsetter.