The Publishing Student Association (PSA) at the NYUSPS MS in Publishing: Digital and Print Media is a vibrant community of students who get together to host social, community, and professional service events throughout the academic year. One of the major activities the group sponsors is a book club. And what could be more appropriate for students who love books? So, we asked the PSA President, Natalia Becerra, who is a rotational associate at Macmillan, to tell us more about the club: [Read more…] about Behold the Book Club: Publishing Students Do What They Love Best
Getting Personal: Meet the New Fall Faculty
Students might never guess that their professors in the M.S. in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program this fall have secret lives (or pasts!) doing some very cool things. We are here to reveal not only their wonderful professional experience, but also their secrets, which include everything from expertise perfecting frying oil for crisper French fries to co-creating and writing off Broadway shows. Read on to learn more about the new faculty members joining our revered roster of industry professionals teaching in the program. We bet you’ll be impressed by their professional profiles and private passions. [Read more…] about Getting Personal: Meet the New Fall Faculty
Two Publishing Companies, Two Worlds
For Summer Publishing Institute students, reading is a given, like breathing. They are obsessed with books, so we oblige by sending them around the city each summer for visits to publishing houses to meet key executives and hear all about books, audio books, and podcasts. Read on, as they say, for an inside look at SPI student visits to Penguin Young Readers and Blackstone Audio.
SPIers go on a Shelfie Tour of New York
Where I’m from in Virginia, Wal-Mart is the closest bookseller by seventy miles. So spending two months in a city full of bookstores, both big and small, indie and chain, is nothing short of wonderful. The role of the bookstore is nothing to belittle, either. As Barnes & Noble buyer Edward Ash-Milby said, “We’re selling ideas.”
How those ideas are sold varies from bookseller to bookseller and region to region. During an organized visit to the Barnes & Noble Union Square store, NYU Summer Publishing Institute students heard from Ash-Milby and Sallye Leventhal, two of the retailer’s top buyers. Each offered up plenty of insight into their strategy for picking and purchasing titles. Of course, with a bookselling giant like Barnes & Noble, shelf-space and selection are in no short supply. “If there is an audience for the book, we carry it,” said Leventhal.
Barnes & Noble does more than just offer an incredible amount of books; we learned how they help customers make selections through the strategic placement of titles on tables, end caps, and other eye-catching real estate in the store. Buying for Barnes & Noble isn’t just about picking compelling titles that will sell, but knowing how to position and sell them. “Customers want to know what to buy sometimes,” said Ash-Milby.
While the layout and selection at Barnes & Noble stores across the country are pretty predictable, the indie bookstore scene is vast and varied. During another foray into the world of Manhattan bookstores, a group of us went to visit the indie giant The Strand, which boasts 18 miles of books, stocked on towering shelves filling four floors; The Strand offers everything from rare collectible editions of books to bestsellers.
“When I first saw [The Strand] on a visit to NYC at 11 years old, I was struck by how much it wasn’t like anything we had back home in Alabama—a bookstore with multiple floors? Crazy! But I found myself coming back to it over and over again because I felt I could always find something new there, either in the ever rotating tables up front or just by stumbling into a corner of the basement floor that I didn’t know existed. Plus they use their status to promote important [social and cultural] messages through author visits and public outreach. They’re really making sure that they contribute to the community in ways outside of being just a bookstore,” said student Nick Patton.
On the opposite end of the indie spectrum is the quaint Three Lives & Company bookstore serving the West Village with an equally community-oriented approach. Another group of SPI students chatted with owner Toby Cox, who shared stories of everything from a regular customer with his own designated chair parked at the end of a bookshelf to the never-ending struggle to display books so they sell. The 625 square-foot space is less the Disney World of books and more the curated library of a well-read grandfather.
The shelves of Three Lives are packed mostly with literary fiction and popular nonfiction, but there is quite the expanse even within that narrower scope. I loved Three Lives so much that I left with four books: Nell Zink’s Nicotine, The Best American Poetry 2016, The Moth Presents: All These Wonders, and Benjamin Alire Sáenz’s The Inexplicable Logic of My Life.
While Three Lives has served its community since the 1960s, the new Amazon Books is the most recent addition to New York City’s bookstore scene. Its presence has made the book publishing industry and some SPI students alike unsettled.
“Their business model for the store consists of only top selling items, meaning every item is something most people have rated four stars or higher. It also has customer reviews on the book. And every book faces forward like you would see it on the Amazon website,” said student Jesika Fisher.
Students observed that the store seemed to use the physical location as another facet to drive consumers to its website and encourage signing up for a Prime membership, offering discounts to those with Prime.
“Half the fun of exploring a bookstore is finding a new book you wouldn’t have otherwise or getting lost checking out the shelves. At Amazon, it’s more of an echo chamber,” said student Mike Gorman.
Despite the emerging fears of a depersonalized, digitized book-buying future, indie stores like Books of Wonder provide a welcome respite and resource for fans of children’s literature. “Hearing the owner speak, I felt his passion, which creates that sense of wonder. The store was very inviting and had a really personable feeling,” said Jennifer Slagus. “It was really awesome to go into a place that has so much character.”
Whether you’re seeking the variety and reliability that Barnes & Noble offers, the community spirit of indie bookstores like The Strand, Three Lives, and Books of Wonder, or whether you feel like taking your online shopping into the real world at Amazon, New York City boasts book-buying experiences for every kind of reader. So, no excuses for not picking up a great summer read!
By Maggie Stough
SPI Insider: “What Books Mean to Me”
“What is different about books?” asked Dominique Raccah, CEO and co-founder of Sourcebooks, as she launched into the keynote address for the book session of the NYU Summer Publishing Institute. She then went on to discuss the many ways that books can be formatted, produced, and delivered to readers. Raccah was not only full of energy and ideas on how to help the book industry continue to thrive, but inspirational in asking us to focus on the fundamentals of making a book a success. After all, she pointed out, we are already hooked on books. Now we need to know how to deliver them into the hands of readers. “Statistics show that millennials read more than older generations,” noted Raccah, urging us to turn our passion into a commitment to the future of publishing. She also explained that while ebook sales have steadied and even plateaued, the popularity of hardcovers continues to increase from 2016 to 2017. It was a great and encouraging start to the three-week book session. Books still mean something. And print still reigns. We all listened up, pleased to be hearing from those we admire and aspire to emulate professionally.
And the upbeat mood continued. While hearing from a panel of leading experts including Madeline McIntosh from the Penguin Publishing Group, Jonathan Karp, from Simon & Schuster, Margot Schupf from Time Inc. Books, Bob Miller from Flatiron Books, and Reagan Arthur from Little, Brown, we were excited to engage in conversation about the future of the business. Surprisingly, instead of focusing on the numbers, the publishers talked about content and noted that the way to really generate the best books for readers is through exclusive and unique content. They spoke of finding a book that sets trends for other authors and publishers to follow such as Gone Girl.
What is also exciting for me is the prospect of collaboration and dynamism within the industry. Libby Jordan, Book Director of SPI, said, “Book publishing is very much a collaboration, so the roles aren’t so clear cut.” A professional world in which you have freedom to try different things and work as a team definitely draws in young professionals and millennials who are seeking less structured career paths.
Another aspect of book publishing that excites many of us is all those formats mentioned by Dominique Raccah. Publishing houses are working tirelessly to make sure that each format, whether it’s an e-book, streaming audio, podcast or hardcover, is strongly promoted to make as many readers as possible aware of it. We learned the importance of starting off with a strong book, inventive publicity and marketing plans, and savvy sales strategies. We also heard about the need to position the title correctly, hyper-focusing on the content and cover design, and analyzing the market to gauge when a book is ready and marketable.
SPI student Anne Mulrooney represents many of us when she talks about the kind of content that she hopes to work with someday: “Book publishing is all about making sure good ideas are created and shared with passion and intention.”
Hearing the words of our panelists and guest speakers at SPI, we are coming to the conclusion that the publishing world seems to be heading in the right direction. Publishers and editors alike (not to mention the sales, marketing, and publicity teams) are working relentlessly to deliver the very best quality and content to readers. With this in mind, it is no surprise that the New York publishing world is one that many of us millennials are trying to break into. Justin Chanda, Vice President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, said it perfectly as he moderated a panel of top children’s book publishers: “Books touch and change lives.”
By Abbi McKall Mills
SPI Steps Out: (Literary) Beauty and The Beast
As NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute entered its third week, students were invited to visit magazine and digital media companies to get an inside glimpse of their offices, missions, and methods for engaging audiences. In groups of 15 or so, SPIers headed off to visit Travel + Leisure, The Daily Beast, Rachael Ray Every Day, The Hive at Vanity Fair, and The Paris Review. We asked student Francesca Cocchi to report on her group’s visit to The Paris Review and student Nina Rodríguez-Marty to tell us about The Daily Beast. Read on for two unique viewpoints on two very different worlds:
[Read more…] about SPI Steps Out: (Literary) Beauty and The Beast
NYU Media Talk: Riding the Rollercoaster
“The lock screen will become our new home base,” said Clifford J. Levy, Deputy Managing Editor of The New York Times, in reference to his locked iPhone. It is his first source of news every morning.
I think back to my own 6:45 AM push notifications of CNN’s latest stories, media updates from POLITICO’s morning newsletter, job postings from an automatic job site e-mail, headlines from The Skimm’s daily news recap, and text messages from my family and friends. I am in total agreement. Listening to Levy and the other media thought leaders assembled for the 21st NYU Media Talk, hosted by the NYU Center for Publishing, I was struck by how drastically the distribution of content has changed.
SPI Week One: Don’t Stay in Your Lane
Like many of my fellow students, I have always loved reading and storytelling. So, the idea of waking up on the first day of the NYU Summer Publishing Institute in New York City (a world away from my North Carolina home) after months of waiting, meant it was finally time to kick-off a summer that will be unlike any other.
In just the first week, I’ve already learned so much about the industry. The one thing that constantly resonates is the level of passion and dedication around me. My fellow students exhibit a “dive-in” attitude that allows us to immerse ourselves in the inspiring reality of meeting industry leaders and change-makers.
Here’s just a taste of what we’ve learned so far and in just one week.
Inside the Editing Process: Classroom Close-up
What’s it really like to be a student in the NYU MS in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program? To give you an inside look, we are beginning an occasional series in which we invite students to write about their classroom experience from their perspective. This post was written by graduate student Diana Sánchez Yaber about Editing Creative Content, a 14-week course focusing on assigning and editing effective content across multiple platforms, including print, web, mobile and video. The course just concluded for the spring semester. Here is Diana’s report:
This course is perfectly structured to give students a firsthand picture of what it’s like to be a content editor in the current media landscape. We were so lucky to have Jessica Pels, Digital Director at Marie Claire, as a professor. She has held editorial positions at Teen Vogue, “I Like What You’re Wearing,” and Glamour. Her background in print and her current passion for digital gave us an honest inside look at the industry.
Our professor made sure that every class was unexpected (Yes, we have a syllabus, but she always brought some fresh, new element!) and challenging, since the assignments demanded skills and knowledge on many levels. We got to pitch ideas, edit a magazine feature, create visuals, and develop a complete roll-out plan for content across multiple platforms, all of this in a learning environment that encouraged creativity and participation. “It seemed like we were able to touch on every aspect of editing and practice using the skills we’ve learned in real-life scenarios”, said student Bridgette Langdon, who worked on a class team project involving creating a digital package for Wired about the risks of being hacked.
As intimidating as some projects looked on paper, in-class activities were a perfect addition to the course because we could test our abilities as writers and editors before we tackled the more complex assignments. Meeting tight deadlines, making executive decisions, and participating in mock meetings with advertisers, among other classroom elements, showed us the fast pace at which this job has to be done in a continually evolving industry. By the end of the semester, we were successfully able to implement the skills required to be a multidimensional editor of today.
We were also privileged to learn from guest speakers. Randy Minor, Art Director at New York magazine, gave an amazing presentation on the art director’s role in producing the annual Spring Fashion issue of the magazine. Shruti Ganguly, a filmmaker and co-founder of Fictionless, talked about the production of Vogue’s “73 Questions” video series, which she worked on while at Condé Nast. Eric Sullivan, Senior Editor at Esquire, talked about creating remarkable features. “Each speaker was excited and very candid about their experiences, and provided advice about entering a digital publishing world,” said student Morgan Garces.
But more than the mix of lectures and the influential speakers, what we appreciated most were the experiences that our instructor shared with us about this challenging business. “The speakers who came in reflected the optimism that Jessica brought to class every day,” added Morgan Garces. “If anyone has an opportunity to take a class with Jessica, I would tell them to jump on it.”
Of course, we wanted to hear from our professor, so we asked her comments as well. Here is what she said about US!
“In an industry that evolves quickly and sometimes unpredictably, I’m always on my toes,” said Jessica Pels. “But there’s nothing like being thrown curveball questions by smart, perceptive students to cast everything in a new light. Seeing media through their eyes—especially since they’re the target consumers—was an invaluable gut check on how we operate and what our priorities are.”
So, it sounds like it was a rewarding experience for both the professor and the students, which is what we expect from the classroom.
by Diana Sánchez Yaber
Mentorship and More: Meet the Publishing Students Association
Every now and then, we like to boast and gloat, and this is one of those times. Imagine our pride recently to see members of the Publishing Students Association on stage at NYU’s Kimmel Center to receive a 2017 President’s Service Awards from NYU President Andrew Hamilton. This was a first for this graduate-level student club hosted by the NYU MS in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program, and so well deserved. Under the leadership of the group’s president, Lainey Mays, the PSA has fulfilled its mission to help students connect with one another. This student-led group strives to be a resource for both new and returning students through an interactive mentorship program, academic and professional development, and promoting a meaningful graduate school experience. To tell you more about the PSA, we asked their officers to write a brief report on their accomplishments this spring—and what led to their amazing award.
[Read more…] about Mentorship and More: Meet the Publishing Students Association