October 2022
Ethics and mentorship!
In this month’s newsletter:
Who We Are
Announcements → NextUP, PAGES, GW Ethics, Pay Database
Meet the Mentors → Angelica Lopez-Torres
Resource of the Month → Second Edition, Peer Review Handbook + Scholarly Kitchen Article
Monthly Musings → How to Quantify Materials in a Resume
Job Board → Publicity Manager, University of Arizona Press
Pawfessional Advice
Who We Are
PIP is a free mentorship program that helps prepare early career applicants (those moving into or out of entry-level jobs) for the work of applying to, interviewing for, and navigating negotiations of new positions in scholarly publishing.
Check out our open inbox program, newsletter archive, blog, pay database, and book club. We’re always looking to collaborate and expand, if you have ideas get in contact with the admins by emailing pathsinpub@gmail.com
Announcements:
Next Up
Deadline: October 19
Nicole Utter (MSU Press Marketing Manager and a member of the UP Week Task Force) and MSU Press Interim Director Catherine Cocks are writing an article for Feeding the Elephant to appear during University Press Week in November. The theme for this year’s UP Week is Next UP.
They’re looking for early-career professionals who would like to share a quote about what they see as “next” in publishing, anything from technology improvements or new topics and subject areas to changes in how we work and publish. The quotes may be used in an article exploring what may be on the horizon for UP publishing and the shifts that may already be taking place.
If you’re interested, email Nicole at loughann@msu.edu.
PAGES
Our next PAGES meeting will be Thursday, December 1 at 12 p.m. ET and we will be discussing How to Suppress Women’s Writing, by Joanna Russ—don't forget to register here!
The University of Texas Press is generously extending a 30% discount and free shipping if you use the code UTXPIP so, if buying this book is in your plans, do so directly! Or hit up your library, which is also a fantastic plan.
GW Ethics in Publishing Conference
The 12th annual GW Ethics in Publishing Conference is coming up on Friday, October 14 from 9 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. Register here for a solid day of fantastic programming that will include a panel featuring PIPsters Brian Halley, Allegra Martschenko, and Rachael Levay talking about Ethical Mentorship.
The conference is hybrid, so if you’re near DC you can attend in-person and, if not, you can join via Zoom. Plus, the conference is free for all to attend!
Pay Database
If you haven’t checked out our Pay Database yet, why not?! We currently have over 200 submissions, which gives a pretty strong overview of pay across university presses.
We received some feedback about further anonymizing the pay database, so we removed timestamps from the entries to maximize anonymity. However, we will be archiving and resetting data annually so it will remain an up-to-date snapshot of the field. Old data will be archived and available on a separate tab.
Click here to access the official database.
A few reminders:
This Google Sheet is searchable, but to do so you’ll need to download a copy and click around as much as you’d like (the original is view-only so avoid any accidental editing!).
The data refreshes automatically each time a new entry is submitted, so you’ll need to redownload the spreadsheet each time you visit to capture the most up-to-date data.
You can always give us feedback through this form. We plan to keep the pay survey open indefinitely and will capture data annually so that the database remains current.
Sometime this fall, we’ll create a write up and post it on our blog!
Meet the Mentors
Angelica Lopez-Torres is the International Rights Manager at the University of Texas Press. She also acquires for the Latin American Literature in Translation series. She has participated in several mentoring programs, as a mentee and mentor, and appreciates the deep value of mutual mentorship. She began her publishing career as a fellow at the University of Texas Press. She was then hired as an editorial assistant, helping editors who acquire in Latin American Studies, Latinx Studies, Music, Food, Anthropology, and regional Texas titles. Prior to her current position, she was an Assistant Editor acquiring in Latinx Studies. She received her BA in English at the University of Texas at Austin and MA degree in English with a certificate in scholarly publishing at Arizona State University.
Ask Angelica a question through our Open Inbox program!
Double trouble!
Big news at AUPresses: the second edition of Best Practices for Peer Review is now available online—we can’t recommend this resource enough, even if you’re not working (or don’t plan to work) in acquisitions. Peer review is the foundation of scholarly publishing and this handbook offers excellent insights into the value of that work, how it’s done, and what authors should expect.
The PIP Cofounders also have a new article out with Scholarly Kitchen: The Many Paths of Mentorship: Redefining Ethical Relationships appears as part of GW’s “Ethics Week” and presents some of our thoughts on redefining what mentorship can be! We’re indebted to PIP Mentor Amy Sherman’s classification system, which has greatly influenced our own thinking.
Monthly Musings
Every month we highlight a question submitted to PIP and one of our mentor’s answers. This month’s question was pulled from our webinar with AUPresses on cover letters and resumes!
Question: I love the idea of adding quantitative information to a resume or cover letter. Could you provide some examples of what kind of information we could quantify?
Answer: There are plenty of ways to quantify your work. You can add figures to any resume item. Some questions to ask yourself when looking to draw numbers out of your work experience: How often do I do this task (daily, monthly, annually)? How many projects do I balance at a time? How many customers did you serve?
Did your work contribute to an increase in revenue, and what’s a rough estimate of that impact? How big is the team you worked on? How many people did you oversee? How many events did you host? How many clients did you serve? What was your GPA? How many classes in a particular area did you take (you might want to list them)?
Quantifying your resume work experience like this allows prospective employers to more quickly understand the breadth of your skillset.
PIP Job Board
Job of the month: Publicity Manager, University of Arizona Press (salary range: $47,735 - $62,533, flexible schedules for those within the state of Arizona)
Attention marketing enthusiasts! This publicity position would be great for someone transitioning into the next stage of their career. A good mix of scholarly and trade titles, with a posted pay range and flexibility in schedules (provided you work in the state of Arizona).
Pawfessional Advice of the Meownth
It’s not a cat-astrophe to not know where your career is headed! Sometimes we take positions and see how they feel, whether they offer us what we need. You can always reevaluate and pivot as your skills grow.
—PIP Meownager Phineas