New Haven

The curriculum for this year’s Yale Publishing Course (YPC) sessions, Leadership Strategies in Magazine & Digital Publishing (July 14–19) and Leadership Strategies in Book Publishing (July 21–26), concentrates intensively on building leadership skills and understanding recent disruptions in the industry.

Amazon came under fire from Love146 , a group that campaigns against child trafficking and exploitation, for selling what appeared to be a self-published e-book encouraging pedophilia overseas, "Age of Consent: A Sex Tourists Guide!" by Peter F. Friedmann. Though the book has now been removed, questions remain about Amazon's lack of monitoring of content published on its e-book platform. The description of "Age of Consent" stated that "In some countries it is even illegal to have sex outside of marriage, with severe consequences if you are caught doing so! On the flipside,

In the last 24 hours, I’ve met a whole lotta new colleagues in the book publishing industry. I’ve talked with people from New Haven and New York, from Kansas City and from St. Paul. I’ve spoken with publishing people from Frankfurt and Amsterdam, from Denmark, Beirut and Qatar. 
 
Such is the international mind-melding going on at the Yale Publishing Course. Take 100 or so folks from all over the world, bring them and their questions about the future of the industry and their part in it into one lovely conference center on the campus of one prestigious university.

"What can I do to continue to learn?" This question was recently posed by an editor to her boss, the publisher of a mid-sized publishing house. The reply? He sent her to New Haven.

In New Haven, this editor joined a group of 100 or so like-minded seekers of book publishing knowledge, all gathering to attend the Yale Publishing Course. In this, the second week of this long-standing annual program which originated at Stanford (week 1 focused on magazine publishing), class members came from near (New York, of course, as well as Boston and DC) and very far: Qatar, Brazil and Denmark, to name a few.

The one thing that remains constant in the book publishing industry is change. That seems to be the underlying response from book publishing industry leaders interviewed by Book Business magazine in various market segments—trade, educational, professional, scientific, technical and medical, university presses among others. These top executives describe the challenges they foresee in the industry, and their strategies for making the years ahead profitable: • William J. Pesce, president and CEO, John Wiley & Sons Inc. • Lisa Holton, president, Scholastic Trade Books and Book Fairs • Philip Shaw, managing director, Elsevier Science and Technology Books • Eric Beck, vice president of sales and marketing, Continental

Competition in the book market is often fierce, and many book designers opt for foil, metallic, UV coating, or new or unusual substrates to set their titles apart and attract consumers. The challenges in committing to such innovative techniques are often difficulty, cost and production deadlines—using alternative materials can be more expensive, more complex to produce and more time-consuming. What it often comes down to is: Will the potential added time and expense translate into additional sales for this specific title? Some considerations publishers have to weigh before adding extras are the prestige of the author or project, the quality of the project