YPG Bay Area Hosts Educational & Academic Publishing Panel in SF
Thank you to all the Bay Area YPGers who joined us for our Educational and Academic Publishing panel at the beautiful Cengage Learning office in San Francisco on September 24, 2015! We had a fantastic discussion surrounding the textbook and academic publishing world, lead by our incredibly knowledgeable and animated panelists: Serina Beauparlant, Editor-in-Chief, Anatomy & Physiology, Microbiology at Pearson; Alison Knowles, Associate Editor at Wiley: Jossey-Bass; Brenda Ginty, Director, Higher Education Production at Cengage Learning; and expertly moderated by Greta Lindquist, Contracts Administrator at UC Press.
A few highlights from the dynamic discussion included talking about the shift from the term “books” to “content” or “product.” Instead of working for a book publisher, one panelist considered her company “an educational content provider,” a nod to how important the digital space is in addition to traditional printed content. That content is carefully tailored by the educational publishers, with many factors being considered during creation—who will be teaching and utilizing this content, the overall cost to the student, and durability and production value of the printed book, and making sure to cater to the different learning styles of students (reading, listening, watching, and doing). Using evolving technologies like QR codes linking to videos or moving animations, interactive quizzes, and bonus audio features, textbooks show some of the more innovative ways that print and digital work together to create an increasingly immersive learning experience. Our panelists also agreed on the best advice for young people in publishing: move around and try out lots of different departments and areas of publishing while you are young, and you may be surprised at what you enjoy the most!
Thank you again to our attendees for joining us, and to our panelists and moderator for such a stimulating conversation about Educational and Academic Publishing. We are lucky to have such a wonderful publishing community here in the Bay Area!
