A private, early morning visit to the Barnes & Noble flagship store in Union Square. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with top editors busy flinging around ideas for new books at a “development meeting” at Alloy Entertainment. For NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute students, getting out on the town recently was great. They were invited to see how the book industry works in various venues all over the city. Here are reports on two student visits:
Getting Real: the Making of a Nonfiction Imprint
One thing we are learning quickly here at the NYU Summer Publishing Institute (SPI) is the importance of diving in. In our magazine and book projects—and in our careers!—we’ve had to continually just go for it.
A little advice from Chris Guilfoyle, SVP and Group Publisher, Meredith Corporation, sticks in my mind. She spoke at the end of the magazine session of SPI and shared secrets of how to be great in our future publishing jobs. She stressed how important it’ll be for us to take initiative and figure out how we can help. Among other tips, she said, “Do more than your job description,” and “Proficiency is more than just learning.” When in doubt, figure it out.
We have now successfully completed the magazine session of SPI and are assigned to specific groups of ten students to create hypothetical book imprints in the book session. When we first met together in our groups,we knew it was up to us, just as Guilfoyle said. We received some instructions about what we had to create—a book imprint and three potential titles, including a lead title. Okay, but the how of doing that, at least initially, and the what of the content, were up to us.
Our group was assigned to create a hypothetical nonfiction imprint. (Other groups were assigned to categories such as illustrated books/graphic novels, children’s, entertainment, mystery/true crime and more). In our group, we started out with a lot of ideas scattered across a wide range of politics, news, history, and memoir. As we began talking, a few specific ideas stood out.
One of our strongest ideas was a memoir by a popular comedienne. Judging from recent bestsellers by her famous contemporaries, we knew the memoir would sell really well; we also liked the things the comedienne had to say about self-love and self-acceptance. We liked her strong voice, and her interest in speaking to people who may not always be considered a primary audience… in other words, those at times under represented. We also identified a compilation of personal essays and an exploratory look at the phenomenon behind Trump’s ascension as top ideas to present for review.
Next, we knew we needed a point of view—a coherent message and feel for all of our books. One of the book session speakers, Charles Ardai, Founder and Publisher of Hard Case Crime, emphasized the importance of having a unique and consistent vision.“All our books have a very specific DNA. When you pick up one of our books, you know it’s a Hard Case Crimes book” he said. So what was our imprint about and how would our books telegraph that specific message to readers?
We started to see a common thread: voices. All of the concepts we were most passionate about involved strong, unique voices with something to say. We decided our imprint should feature diverse voices that may not always have safe and broad forums.
Our executive editor, Hannah Neuman, said it best in our initial pitch to the program directors on day one: “We want to feature really distinct voices. Our authors say: ‘This is my story and this is how I see the world.’”
That first pitch meeting went better than we expected. Two of our book concepts were approved, and we just had to do a little more work on our imprint title. The program directors suggested that our proposed imprint name didn’t really communicate the human element we were so passionate about. Our early Trump idea also didn’t make it through the pitch meeting. The program directors helped us see that it wouldn’t sell really well long-term.
With that advice, we did some digging and found cool options of unknown powerhouse women in history. Alas, as much as we loved “A Tank Named Fighting Girlfriend,” the program directors pointed out that a biography about a Russian woman in WWII—regardless of what she named her tank—might not garner the sales and exposure we need as a new imprint.
Back to the drawing board we went, this time with the advice to go broad. We needed to find something people were talking about, something currently relevant. We brainstormed and researched some more and pitched an investigative look into a US crime trade not often talked about. Heavy stuff, but certainly broad, relevant, and giving a voice to the voiceless. The program directors agreed that this had potential, and with that we started digging deeper into our subjects and creating our imprint—now aptly named to invoke voices.
Now we are 9 days away from presenting our hypothetical nonfiction imprint to a panel of industry experts. We are learning about the constant refining and zeroing-in required in the creation of a book imprint. With more and more insights each day, we are excited to see where we go—both in our imprint and in our future careers.
by Jill Hacking
Brand Awareness: Two Magazines, Two Views
“Printegration” equals the integration of print and digital. That was just one thing we learned on our visits to leading magazine media and technology companies as part of the NYU Summer Publishing Institute last week. And guess what else we learned? You can give away a magazine and make more than selling it!
On visits to GQ (land of printegration), Time Out New York (free is the way of the future), Refinery29, Bloomberg Media, AOL/Huffington Post, and Rachael Ray Every Day, we were exposed to top brands with unique viewpoints and selling points. Here’s an inside look at two of our visits.
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NYU Media Talk of the Town: Long Live Long Form
NYU’s Kimmel Center was buzzing with excitement. The 2016 Summer Publishing Institute class mingled with M.S. in Publishing: Digital and Print Media students, faculty, and publishing industry insiders while watching the sun set over Washington Square Park and anticipating a talk on the new ways print media is being reborn. The latest installment in the NYU Media Talk series, NextGen Editors: What’s New, Different, and Daring, began with an introduction from moderator Michael Calderone, Senior Media Reporter for The Huffington Post. “When I first graduated from NYU, I had one job at a newspaper, where I wrote one column,” Calderone explained, emphasizing how simple things seemed when he was a student himself. “No one can get by doing that now.”
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NYU Summer Publishing Institute Week One: Be Your Brand
As I stood on the terrace of the new Time Inc. headquarters overlooking the Hudson, surrounded by potential future employers (Time Inc. staffers) and coworkers (my 99 fellow students), all of whom I needed to impress, I had to ask myself: “Who am I?” That question was not only on my mind at this Time Inc. reception for NYU Summer Publishing Institute (SPI) students, but really, since the start of the program last week.
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Visual Storytelling: A Class Act
An endearing interview with an author. A posh beauty product review. A quirky exercise tutorial. These are the visual stories that students created during the spring semester in the “Role of Video in Publishing” course offered by the NYU MS in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program.
The professor, Marisa Benedetto, Executive Producer at HarperCollins Video Studio, divided the students into three teams. Students fully immersed themselves in the world of video by writing, filming, directing, and even starring in their own videos. “Video was a skill I wanted to have, and knew I should have,” said graduate student Ashley Sepanski.”But I thought it would be difficult to learn about all that intimidating camera equipment and intense editing software. After working with my team, I felt much more confident and capable.”
Each student project was designed to serve as promotional content for existing brands and gave students the opportunity to experience firsthand what it takes to create and execute a video strategy. As we all know, this is a critical skill in the ever-changing media landscape of publishing.
“Digital video technology is quickly evolving; therefore companies are constantly experimenting with different video styles while staying true to their brand,” said Ashley Mercado, whose team created a promotional video for Refinery29 about the benefits of essential oils.
Screenshots from the promotional video for Refinery29 (left) and the author interview video (right) created for the Role of Video in Publishing course.
Megan Zimlich, whose group conducted an author interview, added that while branding is important, messaging is also key. “Video in publishing can be a powerful promotional tool,” she said.
For many students, this course also made the complexity of film seem simple and accessible. The third team learned this by tackling a how-to exercise video for ClassPass, entitled “3 Exercises You’re Doing Wrong.” In the video, Ashley Sepanski, who plays the trainer, shows teammates and fellow actors, Hannah Freedman and Marie Waine, how to properly do exercises such as “inchworms” and “burpees.” Sepanski and crew took inspiration from BuzzFeed. They mimicked the video leader’s quirky and upbeat style through their acting, filming, and editing. Although this was new territory for the team, they succeeded with flying colors.
“It was an awesome learning experience seeing my classmates discover new talents within themselves,” said Mercado.
Through this course, students had the opportunity to learn the latest techniques in Adobe Premiere to add sound and special effects, music, and more to their video stories. In the end, students watched their ideas come to life and enjoyed each other’s unique methods of visual storytelling.
Freedman, who recently interviewed for an internship that required video editing skills, is also taking these new-found skills into the workplace. “Thanks to this class I was able to say that I had that experience and basic video editing knowledge,” said Freedman.
Whether a minute-long book trailer or a 15 second recipe clip, there are hours of work that go on behind-the-scenes to create short videos. In creating videos, students learned the importance of brand standards and strategy behind content marketing, and were able to leave the class with a tangible product to add to their portfolios.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1mMGCyAbRQ&w=560&h=315]
The how-to exercise video, “3 Exercises You’re Doing Wrong,” created for the Role of Video in Publishing course.
by Christina Licud
London Book Fair 2016: NYU in Wonderland
“It’s still stories—and the authors who create them—that make publishing important, not the format.” This comment from Baroness Gail Rebuck, Chairman of Penguin Random House UK, echoed the theme prevalent throughout the Quantum: Publishing & So Much More conference that preceded the London Book Fair, not to mention the fair itself. [Read more…] about London Book Fair 2016: NYU in Wonderland
Condé Nast Traveler: The Road to Tasteful Touring
Whether you call it “writing for the reader” or “improving the user experience,” current publishing is completely focused on the audience. In the words of Condé Nast Traveler’s Digital Director, Brad Rickman, “You can’t just preach to the choir; you have to go out and bring people to the church.” During the NYUSPS M.S. in Publishing: Digital & Print Media’s visit last week, Condé Nast Traveler impressively displayed how a traditional magazine media brand is using skillful reporting and highly organized writing to bring their content to a new, interdisciplinary audience.
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Alumni Spotlight: Pathway to a Cosmopolitan Life
For the second installment in our new “Alumni Spotlight” series, we are excited to share with you an interview by Ryan Adelson, a current student in the NYU MS in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program, with Jillian Q. Gatcheco, a 2012 alumna. Read on and get inspired!
The NYU M.S. in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program is honored to have so many outstanding alumni. Among other things, they show us that our career goals are obtainable. In this blog post, Jillian Q. Gatcheco shares with us her experience at NYU and where life has taken her since she completed her studies. Jillian, an international student from the Philippines, graduated in 2012 and was the Recipient of the William Randolph Hearst Endowment for Magazine Media scholarship for excellence in magazine publishing. During her time at NYU, she completed internships at NBC Universal’s iVillage and at Bonnier Corporation’s workingmother.com. Jillian is now living in the Philippines where she is the Editor-in-Chief of cosmo.ph. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jillian and I am eager to share it with you!
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Alumni Spotlight: Engineer to Entrepreneur
Welcome to our new series, “Alumni Spotlight.” To tell you more about all the great things our alumni are doing in the media marketplace, from time to time we will ask a current MS in Publishing: Digital and Print Media student to interview a fairly recent grad who is a leader in a specific area. To launch this series, we asked Melanie Iglesias Perez to interview Miral Sattar. Here is her report:
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