There are readers and writers who are interested in this region. And
there are university publishers that print books for both. But are they
connected?
For over 50 years, the
University of
Michigan Press (U-M) and
Wayne State University Press (WSU) have been
publishing scholarly books, and more recently, books of regional
interest. While each has its academic niche, they have also realized the
value of discovering local writers and topics. In doing so, they are
quietly infusing the region's creative class with a source of local
literature.
"There is a community of not only people who are
artists, writers, and musicians, but a community of people who value all
of that," says Jane Hoehner, director of the WSU Press. "Michigan
authors exist, obviously, and they've published in New York and other
places…"
The WSU Press has created three lines of books that
feature Michigan and local writers and topics: the Great Lakes Series,
well-researched books that target a wide audience; the
Painted
Turtle Series, covering the music, art, and architecture of
Detroit, but not exclusively; and the Made in
Michigan Writers Series, which features poetry,
books of fiction, creative non-fiction and essays.
Hoehner says that the WSU Press, which publishes 35 books annually,
maintains its scholarly mission, but it also publishes books of general
interest that commercial publishers won't touch because the authors are
new or the voices are regional. The Made in Michigan series has exceeded
her expectations in response from writers and readers.
"We
created this series where every aspect of every book is made in
Michigan. It's designed, text-set, printed and bound in Michigan. We use
Michigan artists and art on the covers. We call it our ‘slow food
movement' for books for this state."
The U-M Press, which
publishes about 130-140 books each year, has also found a social mission
as well as business opportunity in publishing regional writers and
topics. "Many university presses publish regionally partly because it
seems to be profitable," says Philip Pochoda, director of the U-M
Press. They tend to be located in areas that are under-published, he
adds. "In Michigan, like other states, there aren't that many commercial
regional presses that provide competition." Universities can supplement
their revenue through regional publishing "where you can do well by
doing good."
The U-M Press is primarily an academic, scholarly
publisher, Pochoda says, but "partly because we're a public university
whose constituency is Michigan, we publish… largely non-academic [books]
designed to be about and for the region… the Great Lakes in general."
The Great Lakes Series ranges topically from natural history, involving
the lakes and environment, to social and political history: "Bill
Milliken, Soapy (former Michigan Governor) Williams, true crime,
monuments…anything that reveals or illuminates aspects of this region.
It's quite a good business for us."
While the scholarly
titles have a traditional academic market, the university presses are
placing their books wherever readers look for reading material, and even
where they aren't looking for them, such as a gift stores.
In
recent years, the WSU Press has focused on community involvement,
Hoehner says, inside and outside the university. With the help of its
Board of Visitors, a group of volunteers that organizes fundraising and
friend-raising activities, the WSU Press promotes author readings from
its Made in Michigan series. It also collaborates with other cultural
institutions. For example, it co-hosts a book series with the Virgil
Carr Center called "Book Club at the Carr: Motown Writers; Inside Out,"
to provide exposure related to literature and writing, in this case
primarily for African American readers. The WSU Press also co-hosts
"Literature Night" at the
Scarab Club in Detroit.
"We keep trying to make ourselves a really vital component [of] the
entire cultural community: literature and performing arts," Hoehner
says.
In small ways, reaching people/readers through events helps
build a community of interest that creates more friends, possible
donors, but most importantly, readers. "The challenge is that our stuff
varies in terms of subject matter," Hoehner says. "You can't always get
the same people. They might be interested in automotive, but not care
about Bob Seger. That's the challenge: to find a core audience that will
keep caring about what you do.
"We try to have events in different places for different audiences.
There's a huge audience of writers themselves or people who appreciate
those books or going to events and hearing people reading from their
books or poetry."
Real world marketing and social engagement is
enhancing the awareness and relevance of the academic press in the
region, but the virtual world may hold the greatest promise in growing
the business and creating communities of interest, locally and globally.
The
U-M Press is creating virtual academic communities of interest by
scholarly area. "We have one in the digital culture area, we have one in
political science, and two or three other areas," says Pochoda. "We're
thinking about opening a regional website but haven't done so yet." A
forerunner in digital academic publications, the U-M Press has book
blogs and posts sections of books for reader comments online.
Readers
can buy digital books from the U-M Press website. "We had no digital
products available a year and a half ago," says Pochoda. "Now every new
book will be available digitally. All of our books are visible,
viewable, for free online. I think we're unique in that respect. We feel
that people ought to be able to read our books…. Sometimes, reading
books online is an inducement to buying them. We think it's a matter of
principle that university-based research ought to be publicly available
as a public good."
The WSU Press published its first digital book last year,
American Salvage,
by Bonnie Jo Campbell, which was named a finalist in the fiction
category for the 2009
National
Book Critics Circle Award. "University presses tend to be
slow-moving," Hoehner says. "There's so much detail and attention paid
to the quality and content. We're sort of old fashioned… the digital
arena is daunting." It has caused Hoehner, an editor, to look at books
more as "content."
"It's not just a book. It can be chunks. It
can be a resource library that contains bits and pieces of 300 Jewish
titles that a library is interested in purchasing. Limits? There aren't
any, in terms of where you can go, who's going to want it, and in what
format and what they're going to pay for it, if anything."
The
digital era has created a dilemma for academic presses that need to
realize revenue from book sales, but are finding that e-books change
"the level of value placed on these books," notes Hoehner, in the WSU
Press Spring 2010 newsletter. "There is a misconception that e-books
don't cost anything to produce, so they shouldn't cost much, if
anything, to purchase." In fact, there are behind-the-scenes editorial
costs, she argues. And writers deserve to get paid.
The new era of digitized literature will render the academic press
paperless within five years, predicts Pochoda. Coupled with a struggling
regional economy and declining support from their universities, the Ann
Arbor and Detroit academic presses, like publishers in the commercial
sector, will remain fiscally challenged. Growth will be relatively flat,
he notes.
Growth, however, is not merely a bottom line issue for
the academic press, nor is it necessarily digital. It's about the scope
of its offerings, the quality of its scholarship, the depth of its
niche titles, and the reach of its regional exposure. The WSU Press, for
example, has noted its growth in the community through increased
membership in its "Circle of Friends" (contributors) and the people
attending its promotional events.
"We're growing our base of
people who would be interested in what we're doing," says Hoehner. Those
people are here, as well as there.
Dennis Archambault is both a reader and
a writer. He is also a freelance
journalist and regular
contributor to Metromode and freelance
writer. His previous article was
Metro Detroit Needs More Disruptive Thinking.