Professional Development Programs

Best Practices: Editing, Design, and Production with David Zielonka

EDP is at the heart of the publishing process...

Publishing pros know that editorial, design, and production are the heart of the publishing process. Each segment of the process is vital for turning an idea into a book. Whether it’s dealing with the language, layout, or look of a project, each step has its own internal logic, and rules for how it meshes with what comes before and after. This presentation is aimed at both long-time EDP professionals and those who wonder what all the fuss is about.

An overview of the basics of editorial, production, and design processes
How each step depends on and supports the other two
Best practices for the development of a successful workflow
Developing and maintaining productive relations: within your group, across departments, and with vendors

David Zielonka is the Director of Editorial, Design, and Production at Stanford University Press, where he oversees a staff of eight individuals in the delivery of 140+ academic, trade, and crossover titles per year. He started in the book business while still in college, packing books at the then-fledgling Publishers Group West. While searching for a direction early after college, he was handed a copy of the classic book production text, Bookmaking: Editing, Design, Production. With that, a 40+ year career was born. David has worked on K-12 and college textbooks (Addison-Wesley, Pearson, Cengage), trade professional titles (Sybex, McGraw-Hill), and, of course, in the university press world (Smithsonian Institution Press, Stanford).

Best Practices: Acquisitions with Neal Maillet

The "M" Word: How Acquisitions Editors Talk About Money ...

Ten Awful Editorial Truths from an Acquisitions Editor

Acquisitions Editors Are Almost Entirely Measured by Sales, Not Quality
Editors Measure Themselves Almost Entirely by Quality, Not Sales (herein lies the drama)
Even the Best Acquisitions Editors Will Fail (at Sales) 66% of the Time
Nobody Wants to Kill the Magic and Reveal How Decisions are Made and Measured—Especially to Authors
Publishers Are Terrible at Predicting Sales (The 60/40 rule)
How to Plan Financially—Do P&L’s Tell Us Anything?
Why Publishers Publish Books Everyone Hates
Why Peter Workman Never Gave Up on a Book—the 1,000-Copy Rule
Is $3,000 the new $20,000?
Success Is Never Expected, but Always Earned

Neal Maillet is editorial director at Berrett-Koehler Publishers, where he has edited nearly 200 nonfiction books since 2010. He began his publishing career 40 years ago as an editorial assistant in New York at Bantam-Doubleday-Dell, where he once rode the elevator with Jacqueline Onassis. He has worked in many nonfiction genres, including trade reference, gardening, natural sciences, business, history, and current affairs. Publishers where he has worked include John Wiley & Sons, Jossey-Bass, Timber Press, and Timber/Workman Publishing, where he served as publisher for 3 years.

Founded as Bookbuilders West in 1969, the organization was rechartered as PPN in 2012 to reflect the changing nature of long-form content publishing and to embrace all the partnerships that exist within our industry.