Book Publishing Personnel: DPCG, PUED and PMAN, Oh My!

Today is a time of great anticipation as we are putting the final touches on everything for our two-day site visit from the publishing consultant that kicks off at nine tomorrow morning. There is, however, some other personnel-related news to report as Grace Arsiaga—originally hired at as a desktop publisher/computer graphics specialist (DPCG)—has been recategorized as a project manager (PMAN) to oversee both book development and production. (Given that, we’re probably not going to fill our vacant publishing editor (PUED) position any time soon, if ever.) This wasn’t just a title change for Grace, however, as it also entails revamping the overall workflow in the office.

Book Publishing Operations: Consultants & Operational Analysis

Now that the semester is over—with the exception of putting the final touches on Karen Mitchell Smith’s Taking Charge: Your Education, Your Career, Your Life—the summer book orders are filled, and we have no interns for the next couple of weeks, the pace and atmosphere has certainly quieted down.

But, not too much. Currently, now that the letter of agreement has been signed and terms of confidentiality have been squared away, we’ve been (and still are) getting ready for a two-day site visit next week from a publishing consultant we’ve hired. Finally, we’ll have an outside professional evaluate our operation from top to bottom—contracts, financials, workflow, software, personnel, marketing, distribution, and the rest of the whole nine yards—to calculate our progress against standard publishing industry benchmarks and make recommendations for the future.

Book Publishing Interns: Spring 2008 Intern Reception

And then, the spring 2008 semester came to end.

Yes, it’s that time of the semester when we officially wrap things up with the publishing interns reception tomorrow. (And, thanks in particular to the project management skills of Grace Arsiaga, we really are done with our book orders for the upcoming semester by the time of this intern reception.) As always, we’ve had a great bunch of interns over here from both TSTC Waco’s ADP technology and Baylor University’s journalism and professional writing programs.

Book Publishing Operations: Happier than a Pig in . . . Well . . . You Know!

Or, technically speaking, we were that happy Tuesday as we could finally say at our weekly department meeting that all the books for TSTC Waco bookstore had been printed, invoiced, and delivered. Currently, the Waco campus bookstore is by far our largest account so having their work done means a huge chunk of our work for this semester is done.

Since 2005 when we published our first two books we’ve always done three print runs a year—one each in the fall, spring, and summer—based on the book orders for an upcoming semester. That allowed us to update materials relatively easily while our inventory (and storage costs) stayed reasonably low. That, however, is all going to change this summer due to some workflow and production issues that have reared their ugly heads as our book list has grown.

Blogs About Writing: March Madness Blogging Deathmatches

I always thought one of the brighter developments in the late ’80s and early ’90s as far as writing goes was the rise of the poetry slam, competitive poetry readings. When I was in grad school we’d periodically head over to Deep Ellum in Dallas to watch—more or less figuratively speaking—knockdown drag outs between different poets. That’s what creative writing types—you know, those self-absorbed solitary souls sprawled out on their floors consumed by angst-ridden existential despair over the enormity of the universe in comparison to the feebleness of mere words to describe its uncaring grandeur—tend to really need: a good round of writing deathsport to put things in perspective.

And, as I used to tell my first-semester comp students, I didn’t just want them to be the best writers in their classes when they moved on to the next semester, I wanted them to so thoroughly shame their future classmates that they (and their entire families) would be forced by the sheer humiliation of it all into a butt-kicked relocation program. In the end, however, this probably says a lot more about me—and certainly nothing particularly flattering . . . much as the first essay we read each semester by Richard Ford called “In the Face” that discussed the internal and external ramifications he’d encountered by punching people he felt deserved it at the drop of a hat—as opposed to my students or my ability to teach them to write.

Anyway, metaphorical and literal punching aside, it is good to see that courtesy of the Writer’s Resource Center there is a similar competition going on this month with blogs about writing and/or the business of writing.

Strategic Publishing Initiatives: Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Ever since returning from the 2008 Publishing Business Conference & Expo I’ve been trying to find the time to blog about the 10 or so particular sessions I went to. Every time I look, however, at the pages and pages (and more pages) of notes I took and then think about distilling those down to anything succinct (and coherent) I somehow mange to move on to more immediately pressing activities: trying to close out the upcoming biodiesel TechBrief, working with Todd and Grace on the presentation we gave this afternoon to the new TSTC instructors, talking to vendors from the aforementioned conference, making phone calls and answering phone calls (likewise with email), writing contracts and signing contracts, answering and asking questions, and dealing with—as it always seems—the myriad (and unanticipated) obligations that crop up every day.

All that aside though, I have had one big realization since returning from the PBC&E, especially after sitting in session after session built around real publishing industry nuts and bolts issues/information and not things that are vague enough to be true like “You know, the Internet’s on computers these days” or “Work smart and hard.”

Meet the Publisher: Shameless Self-Promotion, Part II

Many thanks are due to Morris Rosenthal over at his Self-Publishing blog for posting this email interview I did with him recently. Morris is one of the real gurus of self-publishing through print-on-demand (POD) and his blog is full of useful nuts and bolts information about the business. Not surprisingly, then, he asked me primarily about POD in relationship to the kind of books we publish as opposed to our operation in general as I talked with Lori Cates Hand a while back in this post at her Publishing Careers blog.

Conferences & Conventions: 2008 Publishing Business Conference & Expo

Greetings from New York as the last two days of the 2008 Publishing Business Conference & Expo have just wrapped up!

Normally I would have tried to update daily about the particular sessions I went to but, given the amount of information I took in—or, rather, am still trying to process in conjunction with the copious notes I took throughout—I’ll try to blog about the specifics over the next week or so. (Then again, to make my way to La Guardia tomorrow I’ll end up there like three hours before my flight leaves so I may get to this sooner rather than later.) There are, however, some overarching conclusions I’ve already reached.

Book Publishing Operations: A Day in the Life of a Book Publisher

5:00 am Automated wake up call at Best Western in Abilene, Texas

5:05 am Make coffee extra strong by using two coffee pods crammed into coffee maker in room

5:15 am Consider going to fitness center while listening to sleet hit room’s window

Graphics Interns: Bird’s Eye View Maps

A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough—a little bit of luck combined with a skosh of foresight—to see an exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, of 19th century bird’s eye view maps of Texas cities like this one of Waco in 1892.

Then, as I am wont to do upon occasion, I had what I considered a really great idea . . . one made even more great by the having heavy lifting—so to speak—left to one or more of our graphics interns.