Bookbuilders aim to rebuild Boston's publishing community

10/27/09The Bookbuilders of Boston along with the Emerson undergraduate publishing club Monday brought to Emerson the first of four publishing lectures, as well as an opportunity for people to network and potentially rebuild Boston's publishing community. The event was open to the public and drew in an audience of both students and professionals.

Fourteen years ago, according to P.J. Tierney, the production director at Beacon Press, there was a prominent publishing community in Boston. Now, due to major publishing houses closing, as well as the state of the economy, the publishing community has significantly dwindled.

The first event in the series was called "Production and Manufacturing in the Digital Age." It featured a panel of different speakers from prominent publishing houses. Scott Meyers, the senior project manager for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and self-proclaimed geek about book production, introduced all the speakers, posed questions and offered his own insight.

Bob Kosturko, the creative director of Beacon Press, spoke about designing book jackets and covers. Chris Granniss, from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, spoke about the production of dictionaries and reference books. Robert Saunders, the director of sales from R.R. Donnelley Digital Services, spoke about the development of printing in the last few years, and the rising popularity of self-publishing.

The events are designed to inform and educate, but they also leave time for audience members to mingle and network.

Tierney said the existing book publishing community was looking to form relationships between professionals in the field and the students who were aiming to enter the publishing industry.

Another goal was to reach out to all groups involved with the publishing process. Along with people directly associated with production design and manufacturing, Tierney said she wanted to reach out to future writers and to people in book marketing.

Tierney said that she was planning on more events in the spring that would be geared towards more specific aspects of the publishing industry. For now, however, she said she wanted to draw publishing people together through a wide variety of topics.

The upcoming series events are called, "Ask the Experts: Digital Dos and Don'ts When Designing Files for Book Jackets and Covers," "Beyond the Pitch Letter: A Roundtable with Authors, Agents, and Editors," and "The New Marketing: Blogs, Blasts, and Tweets."

Tierney emphasized that there was still a book-loving community in Boston. She gave as example the success of the Boston Book Festival, which had taken place the previous weekend.

Tierney said that she thought that Boston still had a "solid publishing community," and with information spreading, networking, and a little bit of help through events like these, it might be possible to "rebuild that publishing community.