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:

“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. 

Faculty Spotlight: Who’s New for Summer and Fall?

Alexis Mersel

At the Center for Publishing, we continue to add new courses and grow our faculty of industry experts, so we thought we’d blog about some new faces at the front of the classroom this semester and next fall.  For those of you new to our blog, we created NYUPubPosts earlier this summer. While our initial focus was on our Summer Publishing Institute (scroll down to read all about our great speakers and field trips), SPI has ended. Now, we are shifting our focus to our Master of Science in Publishing program. Throughout the year, we’ll be posting about our many events, new courses, faculty and much more—and inviting students and faculty to contribute as well. 

The Real Editorial Opinions!

 By Andrea Chambers and Phil Scillaci Kropoth

Chris Jackson and panel of editors share a good story

“Hope” and “love” were two words tossed around freely during  a panel discussion of book editors at NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute. Sure, there was mention of “P & L’s” and other earthbound concepts like earning out inflated advances.  Yet as moderator Christopher Jackson, Executive Editor of Spiegel & Grau, deftly guided the conversation, the prevailing theme was the importance of passion. The panelists spoke repeatedly of falling in love with a manuscript or a proposal and persuading a tough-minded acquisitions board to publish it.  “You just have to believe and be willing to go out on a limb,” said William Morrow’s Executive Editor Laurie Chittenden, who calls book auctions a “legal form of gambling.” (She admitted that she is also a poker player.)