Velocity of Content

In a publishing environment buffeted by digital disruption and calls for open access, university presses in 2024 must manage to remain relevant and sustainable even as their audiences grow.

At the biennial Public Library Association (PLA) conference in Columbus, Ohio., last week, PLA officials were expecting about 6500 attendees. In the end, close to 7600 individuals joined the program, reports Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly executive editor. “We are talking about yet another conference that has greatly exceeded expectations after the pandemic—remember the London Book Fair this year was also very strong event,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “Bear in mind, this show in Columbus wasn’t without its challenges,” Albanese notes. “The opening reception at the Columbus public library was canceled at the last minute for a tornado warning. Author Ta-Nehisi Coates canceled the night before his talk, and Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, who was also set to speak at a program, did not make it either.”

A top seller for Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, the Miami-based Spanish-language division of the US Big Five publisher, is a book for the entire family filled with gripping tales of good battling evil. La Biblia, the Bible in Spanish, is perennially popular and available in dozens of editions from PRHGE. Publishers Weekly international editor Ed Nawotka tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally that sales of Spanish-language religion titles have especially climbed towards the heavens in recent years. “You have an audience that is primarily Catholic or Christian. In Latin America, evangelicals are the fastest-growing sect,” he explains. “You’re also seeing a lot of economic stress in immigrant communities. And that lends itself towards people seeking more depth in their spiritual practice.” Across all trade publishing categories, including children’s books, there is growing demand in the US market for Spanish-language books, says Nawotka, who follows the state of Spanish-language publishing in the US.

Founded in 1969, Small Press Distribution was the nation’s only exclusively literary nonprofit book distributor serving small independent literary publishers. Last week, 400 publishers were shocked to learn that SPD had abruptly closed. “SPD was the only book distributor that focused on literary publishers, and they had just started wrapping up the first phase of a program they thought would keep themselves viable going into the 21st century,” reports Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly editor-at-large. According to Milliot, the abrupt closure of Small Press Distribution has left many SPD clients feeling stranded. “They are in the process of trying to find answers,” Milliot tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “They’re also trying to find out how they can collect the outstanding payments they’re owed. It’s uncertain how that’s going to play out. The only thing they do know is that the Superior Court in California is going to handle a liquidation process. “It’s going to hurt the publishers themselves. It’s also going to hurt the authors quite a bit.”

In surveys conducted in 2014 and 2020, hundreds of early-career staff working in scholarly publishing disclosed surprising details about their career ambitions and the barriers they face to realize them. European Science Editing, a peer-reviewed open-access academic journal of the European Association of Science Editors, published a report on those surveys in May 2022. In early 2024, that article received “Best Original Research and Review” honors from the journal’s editorial board. A third survey, just concluded, may reveal whether efforts to provide career support, especially mentoring programs, are making a difference. “In the surveys, we were looking at people who were based in science, technical, and medical fields, as well as humanities and social sciences. The respondents work mostly within editorial departments, on books and journals. They were working in editorial, production, marketing,” said Rachel Moriarty, Publisher, Oxford University Press. Along with Erin Foley, Director, Rightsholder Relations, CCC, Moriarty was a co-author of the ESE article. “They told us, ‘I know lots about mathematics. I know lots about social sciences. But I don’t know about open access. I don’t know about different publishing models.’ That was a lot of the information we got back in terms of what skills were they looking for that we could support,” Moriarty told CCC’s Christopher Kenneally. The surveys of early-career professionals necessarily capture a moment in the past. Nevertheless, according to CCC’s Foley, it is possible to look into the future and discern new business roles beginning to emerge, based on the general direction of responses. “I think we will see a need to be more familiar with AI and with AI tooling, depending on your job function especially,” she said. “Candidates will need to be more aware of what’s happening in the AI space. Whether it seems like it touches publishing or not, AI will eventually touch publishing.”