Katie Hannah, Director at University of Tennessee Press, Reports on Visiting University of Pennsylvania Press

The City of Brotherly Love sure lived up to its name during my visit to Penn Press! Thanks to the support of the Association of University Presses (AUPresses), I spent four days with a crack team of publishing professionals who shared their time and wisdom with incredible generosity. This visit was invaluable not only because I learned so many new things, but also because I confirmed that many of the changes I’ve made since becoming director of the University of Tennessee Press (UT Press) in April 2024 are putting us on the right, upward trajectory.

Penn Press is double the size of UT Press in terms of people as well as titles published, but like us has recently become part of the library. The press is housed in a beautiful older building in the University City section of the city, with an elevator that makes you not quite certain whether you’re going to make it to the third-floor offices. The building is near a beautiful campus and, more importantly, near a wealth of amazing restaurants, which I took great advantage of!

Director Mary Francis served as my primary host, and she went above and beyond to make my stay both comfortable and useful. She helped me set up one-on-one meetings with key staff members and invited me to sit in on regular meetings, during which I had the opportunity to ask lots of questions.

My overall goals for the visit were to gain insights into long-term planning, financial stability, development and subventions, list development, and sales and marketing strategy. Here are some of the great ideas I learned and have shared with my staff:

Long-Term Planning

1. Evaluate our publishing program to ensure we have the right ratio of series to individual titles and that we’re keeping a tight focus on subject areas given the number of titles we’re publishing.
2. Institute an intentional forecasting process.
3. Continue plan to form an advisory council.

Financial Stability

1. Find new revenue streams. This might mean adding to our total output, which, since we’re in the process of hiring a new acquisitions editor, should be doablein the near future. Penn has partnered with the American Philosophical Society to produce that society’s books, which inspires me to investigate possible relationships with internal and external partners.
2. Ensure philanthropy is part of our strategic plan.
3. Formulate a strategy for pursuing subsidiary rights, particularly translation and audio rights.

Development & Subventions

1. Codify subvention process to be sure we’re pursuing available grants and tracking them efficiently. Request that subventions be submitted by transmittal date.
2. Institute a mandatory subvention for open access titles.
3. Donors could be asked for a subvention that would allow copies of some books to be donated, among more traditional subvention uses.

List Development

1. Consider instituting a signing goal for manuscripts and proposals once we have our second full-time acquisitions editor on board.
2. Involve marketing more intentionally and earlier to make sure that we are preparing well for promoting what’s in the pipeline.
3. Revise proposal and manuscript submission guidelines to streamline intake process.

Sales & Marketing Strategy

1. Continue to analyze the value of advertising.
2. Maximize library aggregator revenue by understanding their different business models and selectively entering into agreements with them.
3. Institute metadata check-ins at key points in the EDP process, both pre- and post-publication.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the advice and guidance I received during my visit. If I were to choose three main takeaways from this productive trip, I would offer these:

1. UT Press has many ways to incorporate new ideas to improve our sales, processes, and stability.
2. We’re doing a lot right; it was great to get confirmation that the changes we’ve made recently are not only starting to bear fruit, but also that they seem to be best practices for others, too.
3. Philadelphia and Penn Press are my new favorite spots!

A big thanks to Penn Press for hosting me and to AUPresses for making this program possible!