Graphics Interns: Datebook Cover Design Poll

Blogging has been light lately; then again, blogging has been intentionally light for a while as we rethink exactly what audience we both want to reach and serve with this site. However, one thing we have been wanting to do for a while now is get feedback on different cover designs that the graphics interns work up in the office for different projects. To that end, our first experiment with trying this out are some cover roughs our second semester graphics intern Adam Chumley has come up with for a datebook/planner we have in the works.

Web-Based Applications: Issuu vs. Scribd Deathmatch

Just as soon as I did my last post about Issuu, a documenting sharing Web site that we’ve started doing some book previews on, I almost immediately came across Scribd, another site that provides the same basic kinds of online publishing services. I haven’t been able to find exact user/member/subscriber figures for Issuu, but supposedly Scribd is the largest of these sites with +50 million users and 50K documents being uploaded every day. So, I thought I would upload some of the same materials we’d put on Issuu and then track the results to see which one was generating the most views/traffic.

Publishing Conferences: The Changing Landscape of Scholarly Communication in the Digital Age

Blogging has been light lately—then again, blogging is almost always light—but the last month has been particularly busy with the PR blitz about to kick off for the new RV DVDs and forthcoming RV books. (Certainly, however, it does seem like a million years ago, not just a month, since I had the time/inclination to spend a big chunk of publishing-related energy doing things like editing videos of trips to Abilene.) This next week, though, will be a change of pace as I’ll be attending The Changing Landscape of Scholarly Communication in the Digital Age conference at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.

Pro Bono Work: Waco Cultural Arts Fest 2008

I have to admit that before I moved to Waco eight years ago I had never really spent any significant amount of time here. Sure, I had passed through plenty of times on I-35 heading north to the Dallas-Fort Worth area or south down to Austin. However, with the exception of spending a couple of nights for a pop culture conference in the mid ’90s, I’d never done much more than stop to get some gas.

Consequently, I had this idea Waco was a small city with all that implies: a full-fledged local music scene, more than enough used bookstores and independent record stores to choose from, some sort of Alamo Drafthouse or reasonable knockoff, and other related things/places/activities. You know, that stuff you get used after going to college in Austin—the best eight years of my life! <g>—and Denton, Texas.

Well, I was just a skosh off base in my thinking. In many ways, Waco is more of a big small town than a small city. This can certainly be a plus as the cost of living is relatively low and it’s pretty easy to get around town in terms of both size and amount of traffic. But, in terms of a lot of the ancillary activities I was hoping for, that hasn’t really panned out like I expected.

Happily, though, the Waco Cultural Arts Fest is a pleasant exception to all this.

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.