The greatly anticipated Princeton Shorts Series is now available for purchase via all major eBook retailers. Check out PUP’s swanky new webpage for the series. Congratulations to everyone involved with producing this trailblazing new venture in digital publishing!
Our friends at the Jacket Copy blog of the Los Angeles Times posted this piece about our forthcoming Princeton Shorts series (pub date: November 17.) Pre-order yours on Amazon today!
Princeton Shorts series launches with five eBook-only selections from five top-selling PUP books (publication date: November 9, 2011)
Who? The Princeton Shorts series is the brainchild of Princeton University Press Associate Marketing Director, Leslie Nangle, and the first five entries feature works from recent Princeton authors like economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, honeybee biologist Thomas Seeley, fossil fuel expert Kenneth Deffeyes, as well as perennial favorites, Henry David Thoreau and Carl von Clausewitz.
What? Princeton Shorts are brief selections excerpted from influential Princeton University Press publications produced exclusively in eBook format. They are selected with the firm belief that while the original work remains an important and enduring product, sometimes we can all benefit from a quick take on a topic worthy of a longer book.
Where? Available on all leading eReaders.
When? Official launch is November 9, 2011.
Why? Short Takes, Big Ideas. Or, as Press Director Peter Dougherty puts it, “Joining content from some of Princeton’s most celebrated published titles with the genius of rapid, online delivery, the first wave of Princeton Shorts will provide readers everywhere with new access to the ideas contained in one of scholarly publishing’s most distinguished lists. Everything old—from our recent and remote past—is new again with Princeton Shorts.”
So these are eBook exclusive chapters selected from previously published full-length PUP books? Precisely. In a world where every second counts, how better to stay up-to-speed on current events and digest the kernels of wisdom great works of the past? Princeton Shorts enables you to be an instant expert in a world where information is everywhere but quality is at a premium.
THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT hardly needs an introduction. It is the definitive history of financial crises, including the recent subprime meltdown.
ON WAR first appeared in 1832 and remains the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war.
From the leading book on the limits of our oil supply, this selection forecasts what the alternatives to fossil fuels are likely to be.
A slightly cheeky selection from that American classic which decried the evils of technology and championed the simple gift of reading.
These brief chapters are the perfect companion pieces to the full-length works but the beauty is, they also stand on their own. There are more Princeton Shorts already in the works so stay tuned as we continue to wade into the waters of eBook exclusives! The first five entries in the Princeton Shorts series will be available on Wednesday, November 9.
Continued »A piece in the Chronicle Review highlights AcademicPub — a new business that allows professors to assemble their own textbooks from a range of materials from book chapters and articles, to white papers and web site posts. Several university presses, including PUP have signed on to the service and you can read more about it here:http://chronicle.com/article/New-Digital-Tools-Let/129309/
What an ingenious way to precisely tailor course materials while lowering textbook costs. I wonder if it will catch on.
Continued »This great little blog post, Smart Books vs Less Smart People, riffs on The Poetry Lesson and will make you feel better.
As the writer notes:
It’s undeniable that becoming brighter from reading is a glorious thing; a gift, a wonderful democratic alchemy that liberals go on and on about like it’s an elixir. However, in defense of the less-well-read everywhere, I can’t ignore the stage fright one gets when dealing with material that knows so much more than you do, stuff that’s so complex it’s hard to figure out where it begins let alone how to enter it.
But there is good news in the end and a cautionary note to be patient:
You’re already pretty smart if you’re brave enough to tackle interesting subject matter that stretches you further and asks you to navigate new terrain. Success at this can take time.
I couldn’t agree more. As a publicist at an academic press, I am called upon to represent books that are lightning years outside of my comfort level (Hypoelliptic Laplacian and Orbital Integrals, anyone?) and yet I frequently find myself reading and reading and reading on into books that are supposedly too difficult. Give it a try — start here or here or here.
Continued »According to Library Journal’s most recent Best Sellers list, Diane Coyle’s new book The Economics of Enough was the third best-selling book in environmental science. Not too shabby for an economist!
Continued »Yes, we are a publisher of textbooks, trade books, field guides, and everything in between (even a few novels!). But what really distinguishes what we–and all our University Press colleagues– do is that we publish important books. Our membership organization, The Association of American University Presses, has just published an impressive Books for Understanding list of about 1100 titles from university presses that contribute to our understanding of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and their influence throughout the last decade.
This tremendous resource includes smart, revelatory books aimed at the general reader as well as targeted academic works from a variety of disciplines. It is a wonderful place to browse for reading recommendations or to use as a bibliography if you are a researcher or journalist. You can browse the complete list here: http://www.booksforunderstanding.org/september11/list.html
Books for Understanding is an initiative of the AAUP that was actually born in the early days following 9/11. As journalists and the general public rushed to learn more about what was happening and the key players in the terrorist attack, University Presses were suddenly inundated for requests for obscure books on the World Trade Center, the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden, and other relevant topics. Following the recommendation of Sanford Thatcher, then director of Penn State University Press, the AAUP created this bibliography to serve as a regularly updated resource for the scholarly and journalism communities. And in the subsequent decade, Books for Understanding has responded to “in the news” subjects like Hurricane Katrina, the earthquake in Haiti, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by providing an unparalleled bibliographic resource.
So, like I said, Books for Understanding is one more reason to appreciate University Press publishing and to be proud of what we do.
Continued »The questions come in many forms:
“Why is my book available on amazon.com before pub date?”
“Can we write about this book in June even though the pub date is July?”
“Why does amazon.com have October 21 listed as the pub date when the catalog says November?”
But at the heart of the matter is the strange and archaic practice of setting publication dates for books. Answering it requires a history lesson — a trip in the way back machine to a time before Amazon.com (was there ever such a time?), before you could ship anything anywhere in a day or two, and before press releases could be distributed with the click of a button. Yes, join me as we travel back in time to consider the origins of the publication date/bound book date controversy. This is the story that has been passed down to me via generations of publishers and publicists and I am pleased to share it with you all.
So what is the bound book date?
Bound book date is the day books are expected to materialize in our warehouse. This is literally the day the truck pulls up and unloads boxes of books. The warehouse crew then log this inventory and store it away in the proper place. Books are usually shipped out to bookstores and distributors who placed advance orders within a week.
And how is that different than a publication date?
The publication date is an artificial date set weeks later by (in PUP’s case, at least) the publicist overseeing media outreach for the book. The pub date usually trails the bound book date by 4-5 weeks.
But why would you need such a large gap between bound book date and publication date?
Well, there are two reasons. In ages long gone past, this cushion was necessary to accommodate the packing, shipping, unpacking, shelving process of getting a book onto a physical bookstore shelf. All of these processes simply took longer when things had to done manually and shipping times weren’t as quick. By setting the pub date 4-5 weeks after the bound book date, publishers could be reasonably assured that media reviews timed to pub date would appear when the books were actually available for purchase in stores all over the States. This gap also gives the media enough time to receive their review copies, and then read, write and publish their reviews. In a perfect world, everything — sales and media — would coincide on publication date.
Does this still make sense in 20XX?
Things have changed dramatically over the last few decades — shipping times are faster, the advent of internet bookstores means books are often available for purchase within a week or two of bound book date, and “media” has expanded to include bloggers and online versions of newspapers and magazines that work on shorter deadlines. Occasionally, books will be embargoed so that sales, bound book date, and publication date all occur on the same day (think a Harry Potter-like extravaganza at your local bookstore or your book arriving from Amazon.com on publication day), but for the most part we continue to use this out-dated bound book date/publication date system. While it may seem archaic, it also allows for delays in production, shipping from printers, or any of the other dozens of ways a book can be delayed in arriving at the warehouse. For the most part, this is a system the more traditional media are comfortable with, though we have begun accommodating earlier review and interview requests that occur in the window between bound book date and publication date.
So what do you think? Do artificial publication dates belong in the 21st-Century publishing world? What system would work better? Leave a comment below.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like this one.
We were thrilled to see late last week a fantastic interview with our Director, Peter J. Dougherty, in The Huffington Post, by writer Anis Shivani. It is a terrific look at how we publish–and will publish–on, as Mr. Dougherty says, “the new global stage.”
Continued »Library Journal just posted the best-selling art and music titles for the last year or so and happily two PUP books are on the list: A General Theory of Visual Culture by Whitney Davis took the #2 spot and Michelangelo: A Life on Paper by Leonard Barkan was #4.
Glad to see that libraries are stocking up on our titles! Go check out these and other great art books.
Continued »While I might not actually be your publicist, these are some hints, tips, and things I’ve gleaned during my 5 years in PUP publicity. In part, this series of posts will be a response to a fantastic new blog I’ve been reading: Marketing for Scientists by Marc Kuchner (which will soon be a book from Island Press and should be required reading for any scientist with aspirations of putting pen to paper). I thought it might be fun to riff on some of the ideas there and how they are useful not just to scientists, but specifically to scientists who are authors. So here goes:
QR Codes are those square black and white blobs you are seeing everywhere (including to the right of this post). People with smart phones can download a free app that allows them to scan QR Codes from postcards, posters, billboards, and even this guy’s chest. Once scanned, the QR Code directs them to an assigned web site. They are, in short, a terrific tool for promotions and publicity when used right. MFS suggests using QR Codes on posters at conferences or on your business cards, but this is just the tip of the iceberg and publishers, like everyone else, are trying to figure out how to best use QR Codes.
Read on for more info, tips, and hints.
Continued »At the risk of giving too much away, one of the covers in The Book Bench’s Shake, Shake contest looks mighty familiar: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/08/covers-contest-shake-shake.html.
Go make your best guesses at which covers they are featuring and you might win a copy of the brand-new anthology “The Only Game in Town: Sportswriting from The New Yorker.”
Official rules and how to enter are here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books#ixzz1W8z2Icjd
Continued »Featuring commentary and interviews from Princeton University Press authors, the PUP Blog is a highly respected, timely and indispensable source for learning, understanding and reflection.
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Substance Over Spin
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March Mathness
Fill out your brackets and play along. |