Patrick Samuel, Operations Coordinator at Vanderbilt University Press, reports on visiting the Rutgers University Press

Rationale for visit

As Vanderbilt University Press (VUP) prepares to switch our distribution to Chicago Distribution Center (CDC), the AUPresses Week-in-Residence program offered the perfect opportunity for me to gain a better sense of CDC processes from a peer press, Rutgers University Press, who had recently undergone the same transition. I aimed to preview CDC systems and get a better sense of the workflows afforded by its platforms and royalty reporting modules, I was also curious to learn how departments at another press collaborate with each other and how they approach and conceive of their budgets—managing stakeholder input, modeling for different financial environments, and forecasting based on actual results.

Summary of experience

Throughout my week at Rutgers I met with staff members from each department to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their overall publishing program. I was fortunate to meet with nearly half the staff, including Finance Manager Christopher Coulthard, Acquisitions Editor Elizabeth Graber, Business Assistant Andrew Silver, Publishing Assistant Emma-Li Downer, Associate Director and Editorial Director Nicole Solano, Senior Promotion Manager Brice Hammack, Marketing Assistant Kiely Schuck, Sales and Marketing Manager Jeremy Grainger, and Production and Art Director Jennifer Blanc-Tal. In addition to meeting with individuals, I attended a production schedule meeting, a decide-to-publish meeting, and a transmittal meeting; I was able to observe first-hand how staff interacted with each other, both within and across departments.

Specific takeaways/lessons learned

My Week in Residence was a great opportunity as it affirmed certain practices within my home office and also introduced me to new processes. I remain impressed with CDC’s business-minded solutions that will improve the visibility of our lists’ sales activity to any press staff member. Every employee has a CISPUB login, as well as a TM seat, so there are no barriers to accessing information. CISPUB seems like a very intuitive system and will send alerts in real time if anything seems askew (such as royalty exception reports). I will have much more access into our royalty system and royalty recipient records so that I can update and perform accurate data entry in a manageable timeframe. Rutgers staff also suggested particular areas for me to monitor, including sales representation and commissions, BISAC codes updates, and Eloquence feeds.

I was also very impressed with Rutgers’ intern program, and hope that VUP might consider implementing a more comprehensive intern program utilizing work-study students or departmental support/credit offer to relieve budgetary constraints. One pro of utilizing interns is that it frees staff to do more high-level work and address long-term projects that have been sitting on the back burner. But potential cons of using intern labor are that there may be issues with inconsistent data entry, lapses in communication, and additional effort needed to maintain hiring and training standards.

I believe that our transition to CDC will free me up to focus more intentionally on a royalties program, institute a comprehensive intern program, and work with sales and marketing to more aggressively pursue the exploitation of rights.

The Week-in-Residence program really did provide some perspective to someone like me who is now transitioning out of the “early-career” years. It was great to see how Rutgers University Press operated day-to-day.