Publishing Your Second Book: Faculty and Editors Demystify the Process

Location
Zoom
Start Date
End Date

Cosponsored by the University of Massachusetts Press and the Office of Faculty Development

After you publish the first book, it should be easy, right? Not always. When it comes to your second book, what are your goals?  Do you plan to return to the publisher of your first book?  Do you want to write a scholarly monograph? Or will you consider something for a broad audience published by a trade house?  This workshop covers such topics as the book proposal, shaping your research to reach your target audience, choosing a press, and other questions related to the publishing process.  If you are considering a monograph, trade or scholarly book, come join the discussion!  We invite you to learn about the experience of publishing your second book with perspectives from both authors and editors.  

Presentations and Q&A:  12 noon-1 pm.  Optional follow-up discussion: 1-1:30

Panelists Include: Matt Becker, Editor in Chief, UMass Press; Mary Dougherty, Director, UMass Press; Gretchen Gerzina, Professor, English; Thomas LeBain, Editor, Moon and Company; Banu Subramaniam, Professor, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Jonathan Wynn, Professor and Chair, Sociology. (bios below)


Panelists:  Faculty 

Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Paul Murray Kendall Chair in Biography, and Professor of English. 
A specialist on the novel and biography, she works in the fields of Black British studies; Victorian studies (including Victorian children’s literature); African American women’s writing (especially Toni Morrison), and mixed-race studies. She has published nine books in these fields, with two more in the works, and has published numerous articles and reviews. Gerzina has published books in both the US and UK, with both academic and trade presses: Norton, Amistad (Harper Collins), Rutgers University Press, Library of America, Liverpool University Press, John Murray and Chatto & Windus. She is currently under contract for a new book with Columbia University Press.

Banu Subramaniam, Professor and Chair, Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies
Originally trained as an evolutionary biologist and plant scientist, Subramaniam’s pioneering research in Feminist Science Studies has made her a leader in the field. Her work explores the philosophy, history, and culture of the natural sciences and medicine as they relate to gender, race, ethnicity, and caste. Her latest research rethinks the field and practice of botany in relation to histories of colonialism and xenophobia and explores the wide travels of scientific theories, ideas, and concepts as they relate to migration and invasive species.  An accomplished author, Subramaniam’s newest book, Holy Science: The Biopolitics of Hindu Nationalism (University of Washington Press, 2019), focuses on how science and religion have become interwoven in emergent nationalist politics and novel conceptions of modernity in India. 

Jonathan Wynn, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Sociology
Jonathan Wynn studies urban culture. His two major publications are The Tour Guide: Walking and Talking New York (2011, University of Chicago Press, Fieldwork Encounters and Discoveries Series) and Music/City: American Festivals and Placemaking in Austin, Nashville, and Newport (2015, University of Chicago Press),  a comparative, multi-method analysis of three music festivals (the Country Music Association Festival in Nashville, the Newport Folk Festival, and the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas). 

Panelists: Editors

Matt Becker, Editor in Chief at the University of Massachusetts Press
Matt Becker was previously senior acquisitions editor at the University of Nevada Press and also worked at Wayne State University Press and the Minnesota Historical Society Press. He holds a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Minnesota.  Matt is interested in acquiring scholarly manuscripts in all areas of American history and society.

Mary V. Dougherty, Director of the University of Massachusetts Press
Before coming to UMass Amherst in 2014, Mary Doughtery was Sponsoring Editor at Houghton Mifflin and served as the Publisher for History at Bedford/St. Martin’s.  She earned a Ph.D. in American Literature from Rutgers University. 

Thomas Le Bien, Editor, Moon and Company
Le Bien is a twenty-eight year veteran of publishing with experience at top-tier university presses and commercial presses.  He was an Executive Editor at Harvard University Press, a Vice President, Senior Editor at Simon and Schuster, Publisher of the Hill and Wang and Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux imprints at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Editor at Princeton University Press, and Editor at Oxford University Press.  He has returned imprints to profitability, invented and launched a line of bestselling genre-defining graphic novels, published Hill & Wang’s first Oprah-Pick Book, and has been the editor or publisher of multiple New York Times Bestselling books and award-winning authors.