Economics FAQ's

How long will my book stay in print?

PUP believes in keeping books in print and available for as long as is possible. As an example of our commitment to this principle, we are actively placing many of our slower moving backlist titles into our print–on-demand program. Books in this program will be printed as orders are received and will remain available as in-print editions forever.

How much will my book cost?

Our prices are amongst the most affordable in economics publishing and will remain so. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, so please take a look through our catalog to see the prices we charge for books similar to your own (in terms of subject matter and book length); this will give a good indication of the likely price of your own book. We achieve excellent sales levels, due to the consistent low prices and high quality of our books, often exceeding those of many other economics publishers.

Authors write because they have something to say and want as many people as possible to read their work. Our pricing helps ensure that PUP books remain affordable to individuals and not solely library purchases.

How will my book be marketed and promoted?

You will be asked to complete an Author Promotion Form, which we will use to establish a marketing plan for your book. This is an important document--and one which we encourage our authors to revisit even after the book is published, so that we can refine and update our activities. The following is meant as a general outline of the ways in which we promote our economics books.

• Catalogs: We announce our forthcoming publications to the book trade two times each year. The spring and fall catalogs are sent to over 20,000 bookstores, wholesalers, libraries, and specialist dealers around the world.

• Direct Mail: Your book will be targeted to its core market through direct mailing to the membership of professional organizations. An economics catalog is mailed to our economics book buyers, to the membership of the main societies, and to the subscribers of the major journals. Approximately 35,000 catalogs are distributed in January of each year.
  If you have written a textbook, we will conduct an extensive direct mail and email campaign to professors in the U.S. and around the world, offering free examination copies.

• Space Ads: Rather than follow a generic plan, using your suggestions, we tailor individualized ad plans for every new book and as appropriate, we place ads in both North American and European journals.

• Sales Representation: In North America we maintain accounts with 5,000 bookstores, wholesalers and library suppliers, and we have a special agency plan with over 1,000 stores who carry a wide range of our titles. With over 3,000 books in print and more than 1,000 paperback editions, we are a trusted supplier to the leading bookstores throughout the world. In the United States and Canada, we sponsor 8 representatives who call on general and college bookstores throughout the territories. In addition we have 3 house reps dedicated to the major chains, trade and library wholesalers, and the major internet booksellers.

  We have set up a separate sales company in the UK consisting of 4 representatives who call on accounts in the UK and continental Europe. These representatives work closely with our marketing and editorial staff in Woodstock to perfect sales strategies specifically for the European market. All PUP books are warehoused by John Wiley and Sons in the UK who distribute for us to booksellers throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India.

  We have two representatives calling on accounts in the Middle East and Africa, and one dedicated representative to the book trade in India.

  In Asia, we sponsor representatives in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Southeast Asia. Our reps in these markets cover the retail and wholesale book trade and have dramatically increased our business with textbook dealers. Where appropriate we produce local editions of important textbooks in Asia and the Subcontinent. In addition we have an active International Student Edition program for a wide variety of our textbooks allowing them to be sold at special prices for local markets. In Australia and New Zealand we have two representatives and also work closely with our local distributor to cover the book trade and textbook markets.

• Publicity: We send complimentary review copies to all appropriate journals and other media. Where appropriate this will include radio, tv and the popular press. We will ask you to provide input to the selection of this list. We place particular emphasis on publicity for our books and we work with our authors to get the maximum possible press coverage for their work – often through 'op-ed' pieces, "off the book page" coverage, lectures and interviews – in addition to the regular reviews.

• Conferences: We attend a large number of conferences each year, ranging from brief visits by the editors to manned book exhibition stands. We attend the conferences of the main international and national societies, specialist conferences and smaller workshops. If we have no plans to attend a conference or workshop where your book would be of interest, we endeavour to make information available to the attendees through special flyers, unmanned book displays and the insertion of promotional material in delegates' packs. A list of the conferences we will be attending is kept on our News page.

• e-Marketing & Web site: Using author suggestions and our in-house database, we actively promote all new books to subject specific listservs and Web sites. We also offer an extensive new book email service (among the first in publishing) composed of over 11,000 subscribers. Subscribers sign up to receive notices of new books in various subjects as they are published. See http://press.princeton.edu/listservs/ for more information or to sign up to the free service.

  We were also among the first publishers to show sample chapters of our books on our Web site. We would select a sample chapter from your book and add it to the dedicated Web page for your book along with the Table of Contents. Princeton also has most of its books added to the Google Book Search and Amazon.Com's 'Search Inside the Book' programs. These programs make your books far more "discoverable" by Web users conducing internet searches.