Gene Therapy: From Book Proposal to Profit
The major modules are shown in the chart on page 26, provided by John Zotz, chief operating officer of the press and a veteran systems specialist. Stanford’s system has now been sold to Temple University Press and the University of Chicago Press.
Because the system is used to generate reports, proposals and project status, acquisitions editors enter author names in the “Rolodex” module and working titles in the project file at the proposal stage. Proposed specifications, sales projections by channel, pricing and contract features also are entered, the system calculates the numbers that will accompany the project’s descriptive material, and a print proposal is generated. More than 90 percent of proposals are rejected, Zotz notes.
Eugene G. Schwartz is editor at large for ForeWord Reviews, an industry observer and an occasional columnist for Book Business magazine. In an earlier career, he was in the printing business and held production management positions at Random House, Prentice-Hall/Goodyear and CRM Books/Psychology Today. A former PMA (IBPA) board member, he has headed his own publishing consultancy, Consortium House. He is also Co-Founder of Worthy Shorts Inc., a development stage online private press and publication service for professionals as well as an online back office publication service for publishers and associations. He is on the Publishing Business Conference and Expo Advisory Board.