Job-Hunting Handbook: What the HR Experts Say

M.S. in Publishing students get career tips from Stacy Berliner (back, left) and Sara Patterson (back, right).

Publishing is a tight-knit community, and for those seeking their first positions in the industry, it can be tough to break in. Luckily, last week, students in NYU’s M.S. in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program had the opportunity to attend a panel discussion moderated by the program’s director, Andrea Chambers, and featuring two senior human resources executives in the publishing industry. Sara Patterson, Head of Talent Management for Condé Nast, and Stacy Berliner, Director of Human Resources at Random House, shared their insights, key networking tips, and job-hunting techniques crucial for snagging that publishing dream job.

Meet the Spring Faculty: New Faces and Surprising Facts

We know you have been waiting for this, so here’s our annual introduction to the new faculty members teaching during the spring semester at NYU’s M.S. in Publishing: Digital and Print Media program. Their interests are far-reaching, from expertise in mystery, science fiction and horror publishing to tablet and app creation. Our talented teachers can help students understand worlds ranging from Apple to analytics, consumer marketing to social media marketing, fiction to finance, metadata to magazine editing, video to new views of the future of media. Read on for profiles of the latest publishing executives to join our roster of media leaders in the classroom. Plus, you will learn a few fun facts about what our faculty members do in their time away from teaching:

Meet the Faculty… Inside and Outside the Classroom

Marketers, lawyers, “transformation” experts, oh my! The new faculty members teaching in the NYU M.S. in Publishing: Digital & Print Media program this fall are an eclectic and highly experienced group joining our full roster of 70 top media executives. To tell you more about them, we decided to give you not only the official bios of our latest faculty members, but some insights into their passions outside the classroom:

Jeff Barish (Magazine Advertising: Print and Online) is Senior Executive Director of Digital Sales at Condé Nast, where he is responsible for web, mobile and tablet advertising sales across all Condé Nast brands. Previously, he was Associate Publisher and VP of Advertising at Newsweek/The Daily Beast and before that, Advertising Director of Condé Nast Portfolio. He has also held senior management positions at Tribune Media Net, Thomson Financial Media, Fresh Baked Studios, and Metal Bulletin. Jeff received his degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Green-blooded Jeff Barish lives and breathes for the New York Jets.

Random House CEO Markus Dohle: “Focusing on What We Do Best”

Random House Chairman and CEO Markus Dohle and NYU-SPI students

Star struck. That’s how the 116 Summer Publishing Institute (SPI) students felt. The man standing in front of us was the embodiment of all that we hoped to achieve in our careers. He strode into the room confidently, smiling, easing our nerves at meeting one of the most influential people in the publishing industry—and someone most of us desperately hoped to work for: Markus Dohle, Chairman and CEO of Random House, was ready to guide us through the changes facing book publishing currently and in the future.

Book Expo America: Rock Concert for Book Lovers

SPI students Vivian Roberson and Chloe Goodhart at BEA

After the first three days of classes, NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute (SPI) students experienced a change of pace from the classroom when they attended Book Expo America (BEA) at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. The conference center was transformed into a huge mall where every “store” featured the same thing: books. Even better for the students, the big books for fall were not only prominently displayed, but in some cases given away as advance reading copies.

McNally Jackson’s Espresso Book Machine: Write it. Print it. Now!

Espresso Book Machine at McNally Jackson’s Manhattan Bookstore

“I like the part where it pops out,” says Beth Steidle, who is one of two primary operators of McNally Jackson’s Espresso Book Machine. “It’s kind of like Willy Wonka.” But despite the analogy, this machine isn’t popping out candy (or coffee beans or a steamy brew!); it’s printing books. One at a time. Exactly how the customers want them. Last week, NYU’s M.S. in Publishing: Digital and Print Media Program students got a first-hand look at the machine and its wonders during a private visit to the Nolita bookstore.

The Espresso Book Machine (EBM) is a giant contraption that creates print-on-demand paperback books, fully bound, in minutes. The 87 EBMs in the world are sold or rented/leased by On Demand Books. The New York-based company was founded in 2003 by publishing legend Jason Epstein, who had long envisioned an efficient way to print books at an affordable cost in a neighborhood setting. Today, the company stores all of its books on a network database. They’re boldly tackling the old publishing model of gambling on print runs. And they are partnering with major publishers like HarperCollins to deliver out-of-print books at the customer’s convenience (and expense!). In addition, On Demand Books is providing an instant means for self-publishers to see their e-creations in printed form. With all this undeniable business potential, it’s no wonder McNally Jackson was the first in New York to invest in an Espresso Book Machine—and they’ve never regretted it.

Speed Networking: Fast Facts!

(back l-r) Neil De Young, Jaime de Pablos, Stephen Acunto, Jr, Karina Mikhli, Lavinel Savu, Laura De Silva, Angela Bole; (front l-r) Kastoory Kazi, blogger Rebecca Hytowitz, Mark Steffen, Liz Peterson

Ever wondered how to build a personal brand? (Hint: remove your home address from your résumé and add your LinkedIn URL instead.) How about best practices for social media? (Engage and interact with your audience instead of just pushing content!) These were just some of the topics and comments tossed around at the first-ever “Speed Networking” event hosted by the newly-constituted NYU Publishing Alumni Committee last week at NYU’s Torch Club. Committee co-chairs Laura De Silva and Jaime de Pablos and their devoted event committee members have been working on this for months—and their efforts showed. The committee invited seasoned and senior publishing alumni to serve as “speed facilitators” at each of five tables. Each facilitator was assigned a specific theme to discuss. Committee members were also assigned to each table to help with the discussion.

Step Right Up: Publishing Predictions for 2021

Perseus CEO David Steinberger talks to SPI students.

“The first book published was the Bible,” announced David Steinberger, CEO of the Perseus Books Group. “And the second book was  ‘The Demise of Publishing.’” Laughter ensued as the NYU-SCPS Summer Publishing Institute (SPI) students listened to the final address of the 2011 six-week program. In fact, Steinberger depicted publishing as far from its demise, vibrant and alive with a spirit of adaption and improvement.

Steinberger led students through his own predictions for what publishing will look like in 2021. Despite the ephemeral nature of publishing today, Steinberger—if anyone—is in a great position to forecast future trends for the ever-evolving industry.

Listen up: the future according to Steinberger could become our reality. Here are the Perseus CEO’s predictions:

“Ten Things You Might Do to Get a Job” (And More!)

AAP's Tom Allen addressing SPI students

“You may well have signed up for this summer institute because you want to edit fiction or nonfiction,” Tom Allen, President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), told the students in his keynote address at the beginning of the book session of the NYU-SCPS Summer Publishing Institute (SPI). “But in a few weeks, you’ll learn what that [editing] entails,” Allen counseled, and then added:

“You’ll also gain insight into the breath of jobs in this industry in finance, production, rights, marketing, to name a few, that directly affect the success of books. In publishing, it takes a village. It really takes a village. I urge you to be open to the many—what I think will be unexpected—opportunities that you come across that will offer you a fulfilling career within the community of literate, engaged, and interesting people.”

After this brief appeal, Allen then launched into a discussion of the effects of the digitization of books on the publishing industry. When more than half of the SPI attendees told Allen they read on digital devices, it would have been remiss for him not to focus a majority of his talk on this topic.  Still, I wondered, if digital was so important, why would he have urged us to stay open-minded to all the opportunities that the publishing industry affords? As I listened to the panel discussion that followed on the future of book publishing, I had a far better understanding of what Allen meant. 

Meet Random House’s Markus Dohle

Random House Chairman and CEO Markus Dohle speaks to NYU-SCPS Publishing students in the company's conference room.

As part of a group of NYU Master of Science in Publishing students eagerly gathering in the lobby of Random House last Friday, I marveled at the display cases that enclosed hundreds and hundreds of Random House books, old and new, of every category and representing a myriad of international editions. I was one of 30 students lucky enough to ride the elevator up to the twenty-fifth floor conference room to meet with the company’s Chairman and CEO, Markus Dohle, and hear his viewpoints on book publishing.

When the elevator doors opened and we piled out into the hallway, it came as no surprise that more bookshelves lined the walls outside the conference room, which was adorned with yet more bookshelves.

While most of these books featured the name of a single author on the cover, one of the major points I took away from Dohle’s talk is that publishing a book is a team effort. After Andrea Chambers, director of the program, introduced Random House’s chairman, he jumped right into revealing the way in which he leads Random House, which has over 120 publishing imprints worldwide —through “shared values, a collaborative spirit, and teamwork.”