I was disappointed to see the North Carolina Historical Review’s otherwise positive assessment of Andrew and Alex Lichtenstein’s Marked, Unmarked, Remembered conclude with the suggestion that “the main flaw of the book” is that “academic publishers generally have great difficulty reaching a widespread public audience.” As director at West Virginia University Press, which published the… Continue reading A response to the North Carolina Historical Review

I’m pleased to host the blog’s first guest post, by John Hussey, senior key accounts sales manager at Ingram Content Group, a leading book distributor. Here’s John: In 2014, I penned an article for Against the Grain titled “Academic Publishing Is Not in Crisis—It’s Just Changing” in which I described the transformation of university press publishing… Continue reading Guest post: Academic publishing is not in crisis—it’s still just changing

Here are some of my favorite statistics about university press publishing: One university press has closed since 2010. 83% of scholarly monographs find a publisher. 70–80% of faculty prefer print for book-length reading. 20–25% of university press sales are to libraries (down from approximately 70% in the 1970s). At the University of California, 7% of… Continue reading Emplotting the recent history of university press publishing

The Chronicle Review asked members of the university press community to respond to a set of questions about the state of the field; it’s a good piece and I encourage you to read it. I was flattered to have some of my responses quoted in the article and have, with permission, posted my full answers below. 1.            What… Continue reading The state of university press publishing (questions from the Chronicle Review)