THE RECAP
MARKETING | CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
2018
THE RECAP MARKETING | CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
2018
The CUP Marketers strive for innovation and creativity, as we pioneer new ground in university-press book marketing. 2018 saw us take on the challenge of marketing 150 new books for the first time, develop a new website, and craft the campaign for our 150th anniversary. We also boldly challenged the status quo of book marketing, constantly looking to refresh the stale and old-fashioned with the fresh and avant-garde. Using increasingly data-driven decision making, we created numerous individual book and branding campaigns that left long-term impressions on booksellers and book buyers across the globe. Here’s a recap of our most notable and successful marketing campaigns of 2018.
“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”—Oscar Wilde
WHY BOOKS MATTER (TO ME) Every marketer at CUP comes from a different background and brings in different talents and skills to the mix, but we all have one thing in common: we love books! Here is one of our stories.
January 28, 2018, sagehouse.blog
When I was little, maybe six years old,
I’m guessing, my mum read Roald Dahl’s Danny, the Champion of the World to me. It changed my life. It’s still my favorite book of all time, even now so many years later. I read it for myself a couple of years later and it’s just about the only book I return to every now and then to read again. This book led me down a path that eventually saw me become a book marketer. Between then and now, my love of books grew every year. Now, I’ve spent the past thirteen years publishing, marketing, and selling books, and in some small way, Danny, the Champion of the World is the reason.
first was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. The second was Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela. I still have the broken, worn paperback versions of each book more than twenty years later. Both books showed me how impactful nonfiction could be and set me on the course of academic study, and, probably, academic publishing. I shipped them all from England to the US when I moved here; far more weight and volume in books than all my other possessions combined.
In middle school (the English equivalent, anyway), my friends and I competed to see who could read our assigned books the quickest, who could move on to the next book in the series, and finish that series. The joy of being first added to the joy of reading the books in the first place, and made me a voracious reader of books of all different genres and subjects.
In college, I kept every book I bought. I never sold a single one back at the end of the year. I shipped them all from England to the US when I moved here; far more weight and volume in books than all my other possessions combined. Until I moved to Ithaca towards the end of 2016 (and ended up with far less space for books because we did not immediately buy a house) I still had each of those college text and nonfiction books. Even with the move to Central New York I still kept the most important of those books and I proudly display them in our living room.
In high school, I read two books that completely changed my world view. The
After finishing my PhD, I fell into publishing at the South Dakota Historical
Society Press. I discovered a completely different side of books, and it changed the way I think about books. I found a new appreciation for what a book is and what it takes to produce one. I bought books I never would have before. I kept every book we published at the SDHS Press. Again, I still have many of them, including the first one I designed, and the first one of which I sold more than 5,000 copies. When I moved to the University of Nebraska Press eight years later, I could no longer keep every single book we published, but I took home significant volumes, such as Josephine Waggoner’s Witness (it made the shortlist of books to bring to Ithaca and is in my office here at CUP, or Black Elk Speaks. I gave UNP gifts to family and friends. Everything from backlist science fiction to twentieth-century history to essays on soccer. This penchant for gifting and keeping books I’ve published has not changed since I arrived at Cornell University Press. I’ve already read and placed carefully on my shelves many CUP books including those covering such disparate topics as WWII publishing, the history of camping, and modern military doctors in field hospitals. This year, I’m particularly looking forward to adding our new John Cleese book and
Mr. X and the Pacific to that list, as well as stumbling through the back list some more to see what other gems lay hidden. Yes, books have been, are, and will be, a crucial part of my life. It’s my job (and my passion) to find ways to make books appeal to someone enough that they will part with their hard-earned cash. From fan of Roald Dahl to marketing director at a major university press, I enjoy books for the worlds they open. Hopefully, in my current relationship with books, I can somehow be involved in creating the next little seed of excitement about books in a sixyear-old boy or girl so that one day they’ll be sitting in my seat wondering how on earth to get someone to buy a book! Martyn Beeny is Marketing and; Sales Director at Cornell University Press. The idea of stuffing bloated raisins with sleeping pills has fascinated him for years. Follow him on Twitter @MartynBeeny
“Creative thinking inspires ideas. Ideas inspire change.”
—Barbara Januszkiewicz
PAY WHAT YOU WANT #PWYW On May 15th we ran a one-day campaign that gave readers the opportunity to put their own price on any of our books, and that ultimately, yielded a whopping 4,700 book sales.
20,000 impressions generated by first PWYW tweet 4,700 books sold 1,500 offers 150 website visitors every minute during PWYW 20 hours our team worked on the sale 3 pizzas eaten by marketing team
We also received lots of lovely messages from our customers thanking us for PWYW, including this little haiku from Ryan Buscaglia: Cornell Press loves us Spreading books and knowledge far All readers rejoice!
“My impression of the PWYW sale was a feeling of gratitude from our customers. A positive experience for me and an affirmation of the importance of our books.” —David, Exhibits, Advertising, and Awards Coordinator
“It’s rare that publishers ever interact directly with their customers and I enjoyed hearing back from PWYW buyers who were deeply thankful and touched that we offered our books in this way. Late on the first night, a customer called us back and I helped her with a code and talked about her next book – an ethnographic study of living on the Afghanistan border in the early 2000s. It may end up with us.” —Dean, Director
“There was something exhilarating about directly interacting with so many ardent fans of our books in such a compressed amount of time. It felt personal and large-scale at the same time. I got into this line of work to help build communities of readers, and PWYW felt like we were doing exactly that.” —Cheryl, Publicity Manager
“My personal ambition remains the same: to be creative, to be modern, to stay one step ahead, to enjoy life.”—Natalie Massenet
PRINTING WARS AT #BKBF CUP Printing Challenge sponsored by HP!
January 28, 2018, sagehouse.blog
Let the Printing Wars begin at #BKBF! Anyone who has heard me speak about it or read anything I’ve written on the topic knows I’m a big proponent of the benefits of print-on-demand (POD) technology for university presses. Even so, when I received an email recently from a gentleman at HP I was quite surprised. He wanted to let me know he’d seen a video of me speaking about the advantages of POD and wondered if I would mind having a phone call with him to discuss in more depth. What takes place at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday is the result of that call. If you stop by our Cornell University Press booth # 624 you’ll be able to see it for yourself and take part in the one and only CUP Printing Challenge sponsored by HP! During my call with the Man from HP (I feel as though it needs caps; it’s seems so James Bond somehow), we started discussing the legendary “Pepsi Challenge,” a marketing promotion that allowed the brand to grab a significant market share away from its main competitor Coke. If you ever took it I bet you’ll instantly know what I’m referring to. Back in the 80s (or maybe it was earlier), Pepsi devised a worldwide marketing campaign in which people would be asked to blind taste a glass of Pepsi and a glass of Coca Cola and pick their favorite. The taster didn’t know which glass was which. As a result of the experiment, Pepsi announced with great fanfare that more than 50 percent of the participants preferred their sweeter taste and moreover, discovered that Coke was launching a new formula, in an attempt to resemble theirs. Pepsi USA declared that the “Cola-Wars” were over and gave its employees the day off. It was a festive day for the company. Even now, the “Pepsi Challenge” remains one of the most memorable marketing campaigns in history, and a great example of how consumer perception, and smart marketing, can tilt the scale in any way.
So, going back to what concerns us, the Man from HP and I started musing about something similar for offset and POD printing in the publishing world. It was my contention that most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the traditional and the newer methods of printing a book, and that like the “Pepsi Challenge,” perception was one of the factors inhibiting the university press world from making a more profound shift. The Man from HP agreed that we should try it, and so we devised the Printing Challenge. We’re unveiling what it’s all about this weekend, at the Brooklyn Book Festival. Do you think you’ll be able to tell the difference? Do you think one way is better than the other? And do you even care? If any of this sounds intriguing to you, come on by. You’ll get a sample of two books to look at and you’ll be asked a few questions. And just for taking the challenge, we’ll give you 50 percent off your next CUP book, together with some special @HP giveaways! Quite frankly, I’m fascinated to see the results. Martyn Beeny wrote this blog post. He prefers Coca Cola.
46%
The results of the HP challenge were revealing, and here’s what we found out:
46% of the participants preferred POD! 34% chose offset 28% couldn’t tell the difference
67%
Of those with a preference: 67% said the text printing quality was better 20% said the image printing quality was better 13% said the binding quality was better
62%
When asked if it was important that their books were always in print and available to buy, people claimed it was: Extremely important – 62% Somewhat important – 20% Not very important – 11% Not at all important – 1%
The One-Week Bookstore CUP’s first pop-up shop!
“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”—Joseph Chilton Pearce
In October, our team got an email from the Marketing Director that read: “Our Editor-in-Chief just sold a book! In Sage House. To a real customer. Fun.� A couple of lines later he introduced the concept that led to our first ever pop-up bookstore, right here at Cornell University Press, and on November 5th we were open for business!
a book with wings of its own Amplifying the unsung voices of South Vietnam
“Creativity is an energy. It’s a precious energy, and it’s something to be protected.”—Ava Du Vernay
August 17, 2018, sagehouse.blog Soon after I joined Cornell University Press, I met with Sarah Grossman, Managing Editor of Southeast Asia Program Publications (SEAP), for a cup of coffee. She happened to mention a book that the Press published in 2015—Voices from the Second Republic of South Vietnam (1967–1975), edited by K. W. Taylor. As Sarah explained, the book—a collection of essays by Vietnamese individuals who worked to build a democracy in Vietnam during the war—took on a life of its own after it came out. Mostly through word of mouth, news of its existence spread widely throughout various Vietnamese American communities, sparking conversation and remembrances, and serving as a much-needed locus for the kinds of stories about the war that are often shamefully overlooked. Learning about this book’s reception energized me instantly. As someone who works in publicity, I love the fact that the book reached the readers to whom it mattered the most. It also reminded me of why university presses are so important—we are publishing scholarship that has real impact on people around the world, both inside and out of the academy. I was fortunate enough to be able to connect with one of the contributors, Tam Phan, to further illuminate the story behind this book, and why it has mattered so much to so many people. Our interview is below.
Q. This book developed from a symposium on the Second Republic of South Viet-
nam held at Cornell in 2012. You played an integral part in the volume’s development by providing the initial inspiration for it and contributing an essay. Why did you think it was important to publish these stories for a wider audience?
A. I share the feeling of the majority of the South Vietnamese community that the
plight to build a free and democratic country in South Vietnam was misunderstood during the war. It was further clouded by a propaganda war that the South Viet-
namese simply lost. The voices of South Vietnam have largely been absent from US publications and scholarship on the war, and it felt important to have a platform for sharing another, crucial dimension of that time for the wider public. The 2012 symposium “Voices from the South” [Vietnam], organized by Professor Keith Taylor and coordinated by my son John Phan (who by that time was a PhD student at Cornell), provided us a golden opportunity to tell our stories. Professor Taylor went further and put together a volume that captured the main testimonies of eleven former South Vietnamese officials who served during the second republic. The South Vietnamese community has welcomed the book with appreciation and gratitude. The interest in the book to this point, according to my understanding, remains chiefly among the first generation of Vietnamese Americans, as well as a very limited American public. We hope that the stories of the South Vietnamese and of their many American friends who helped them build their country be known to the younger Vietnamese American generation and the larger American public as well.
The South Vietnamese community has welcomed the book with appreciation and gratitude. Q. The book’s publication attracted much attention within American Vietnamese communities. Why do you think it garnered such interest?
A. Since the publication of the book in 2015, we have made a consistent effort to pro-
tect its integrity by avoiding any attempt to “politicize” it. Despite the clear absence of large-scale publicity events, I am happy to see that the book has spread widely across Vietnamese communities in the US and to some extent in France and Vietnam. I believe that this interest among Vietnamese communities stems from its healing effect. One reader—a former South Vietnamese military officer—told me during a social gathering in St. Paul, Minnesota that he found great comfort after reading the book, and I believe that this comfort stems from a feeling that a broader range of South Vietnamese experiences and perspectives have finally been represented in a publication.
Q. You decided to translate the book into Vietnamese. What motivated you to personally undertake this project? How can people get ahold of this edition?
A. The book has generated great interest among the first generation of Vietnam-
ese-Americans, especially the older generation—many of whom are not proficient in English. I received several requests from a number of Vietnamese-American communities, as well as some Vietnamese-American media groups, for a Vietnamese edition of the book. I consulted Professor Taylor and Sarah Grossman and received permission to produce a translation. I contracted with a professional translator and did the editing, along with seven of the other original contributors (two of the contributors have passed away in 2017). The whole process was completed by April 2018, and under the suggestion of some of my colleagues, I had released it on April 30, 2018 in commemoration of the end of the Vietnam war. We quickly discovered a number of minor technical issues following the initial release, which were promptly corrected, and the final edition of the translation (titled Tieng Nói tu De Nhi Cong Hòa Nam Viet Nam 1967–1975) has been available via Amazon since May of this year. Cheryl Quimba is the Publicity Manager at Cornell University Press. She truly believes that books can and do change the world (and she’ll rattle off a whole laundry list of world-changing books if you ask her!).
“I think people who are creative are the luckiest people on earth.”—Judy Collins
CUP IN THE NEWS PUBLICITY HITS FOR OUR AUTHORS AND BOOKS
PUBLICITY
The New York Times reviewed Michael Beckley’s Unrivaled, writing, “The evidence [Beckley] assembles should be part of any serious debate about where we are headed.” The New York Times reviewed John Loughery’s Dagger John, calling it, “A comprehensive, insightful, and robust biography of a transcendent but neglected figure.”
SiriusXM’s “Conversations with Cardinal Dolan” on The Catholic Channel interviewed Dagger John author John Loughery. The New York Post ran a feature article on Larry Racioppo’s Brooklyn Before and called the book “A moving portrait of a vanished world.” VICE News also ran a feature on the book and interviewed Racioppo for a photo-by-photo look at some of Brooklyn Before’s highlights.
The Wall Street Journal reviewed the book as well, noting that, “Mr. Loughery deftly narrates a life spent in defense of immigrants and as an imperfect advocate for tolerance and, yes, diversity.”
Teen Vogue discussed I Am Not a Tractor! by Susan Marquis in its new column on labor issues in a piece about Latinx farm worker labor movements.
America Magazine selected Dagger John as its Catholic Book Club pick.
Marquis was interviewed on NPR’s 1A and KCRW’s To The Point.
PUBLICITY VICE News Tonight on HBO interviewed Wounds of War and The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare author Suzanne Gordon in its episode about the VA turning to private groups to handle the veteran suicide crisis. Democracy Now! interviewed Gordon for their Veterans Day episode about privatization risks to the VA. Politico included Gordon Lafer’s The One Percent Solution in its “Politico 50 Reading List” of the best books that “the smartest people in politics” read this year. Gordon Lafer spoke in a video about how corporations use their influence to write laws behind closed doors, which was featured on Senator Bernie Sanders’s official Facebook page (7.4M followers) and Twitter page (7.8M followers). The New York Times reviewed Robert Chiles’s The Revolution of ’28, noting that the book “may galvanize readers currently feeling cheated by a shortage of contemporary political heroes,” and that Chiles “reanimates” New York’s 1920s governor Alfred E. Smith. The Times Literary Supplement praised Claire Shaw’s Deaf in the USSR, calling the book, “A compelling study of the Soviet deaf community.
The Washington Post recommended Tanisha Fazal’s Wars of Law in its Early Summer Reading List: “You know what states rarely do nowadays? Issue formal declarations of war. You know why? Of course you don’t, because you’re not Tanisha Fazal, who knows more about the laws of war than you do. So you should read her book.” Slate ran an article by Obscene Pedagogies author Carissa M. Harris that discusses the practice of financially compensating rape survivors, in light of the Bill Cosby trial. Scientific American ran an article by Embattled River author David Schuyler on the Hudson River’s role in launching the modern environmental movement. BBC’s Thinking Allowed podcast interviewed How China Escaped the Poverty Trap author Yuen Yuen Ang about China’s route out of poverty. Forbes interviewed Transforming the Clunky Organization and The Agenda Mover author Samuel Bacharach about being an agenda mover and building support for good ideas in a three-part series (parts one, two, three).
“I’m always looking for the creative spark. Always.” —Jimmy Page
We Won All the Prizes here’s a list of some of the awards and prizes our books and authors won this year
Michelle Armstrong-Partida’s Defiant Priests: Domestic Unions, Violence, and Clerical Masculinity in Fourteenth-Century Catalunya won the Premio del Rey. Ahsan I. Butt’s Secession and Security: Explaining State Strategy against Separatists won the International Security Studies Section Book Award. Elidor Mëhilli’s From Stalin to Mao: Albania and the Socialist World won the Davis Center Book Prize and the Marshall Shulman Book Prize. Erika Monahan’s The Merchants of Siberia: Trade in Early Modern Eurasia won the Bruce Lincoln Book Prize. Stephen C. Nelson’s The Currency of Confidence: How Economic Beliefs Shape the IMF's Relationship with Its Borrowers won the Peter Katzenstein Book Prize. Andrea L. Turpin’s A New Moral Vision: Gender, Religion, and the Changing Purposes of American Higher Education, 1837-1917 won the Linda Eisenmann Prize. Terence Young’s Heading Out: A History of American Camping won the Hal K. Rothman Award. Katherine Steele Brokaw’s Staging Harmony: Music and Religious Change in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Drama won the David Bevington Award for Best New Book in Early Drama Studies. Michael A. McCarthy’s Dismantling Solidarity: Capitalist Politics and American Pensions since the New Deal won the Paul Sweezy Marxist Sociology Book Award. Yuen Yuen Ang’s How China Escaped the Poverty Trap won the Viviana Zelizer Award for Best Book.
Gordon Lafer’s The One Percent Solution: How Corporations Are Remaking America One State at a Time won the Michael Harrington Book Award. Kenneth Cohen’s They Will Have Their Game: Sporting Culture and the Making of the Early American Republic won the Broussard Book Award. Mark de Rond’s Doctors at War: Life and Death in a Field Hospital won the EGOS Book Award. Wim Klooster’s The Dutch Moment: War, Trade, and Settlement in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World won the Hendricks Book Award. Max Bergholz’s Violence as a Generative Force: Identity, Nationalism, and Memory in a Balkan Community won the Council for European Studies Book Award. Jules Pretty’s The East Country: Almanac Tales of Valley and Shore won the East Anglian Book Award. Elidor Mëhilli’s From Stalin to Mao: Albania and the Socialist World won the Stavro Skendi Book Award.
MARKET
UP
On September 20th, 2018, Cornell University Press’ Marketing team embarked on an adventure to NYC to attend Market UP. Divided into two cars, seven of us drove into the city from Ithaca (departing from Sage House at 5:30am!) to meet up with colleagues from eight university presses in the NYU library.
Over the course of six hours, we covered hot-button issues in exhibits, metadata, course adoption, publicity, branding, and the future of book marketing, dissecting the ins and outs, looking for trends, ideas, and new concepts we could all take home to improve what we’re already doing.
The goal: to share information, exchange ideas, and have an open discussion about marketing scholarly books.
The outcome: a fun day filled with engaging discussions, camaraderie, and notions on how to better market our incredible authors and books!
“Everybody has a creative potential and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world.”—Paulo Coelho
SAY WHAT YOU WANT #SWYW
Behind the scenes of the marketing campaign for our customer surveys
Say What You Want, the spin-off of Pay What You Want. Who creates a marketing campaign for surveys? We do. Three surveys, designed to get to know our customers better, understand their needs and preferences, and prepare to better cater to them in the future. We want to help professors in their mission to motivate and support students, so we need to hear them say what they want. We want our authors’ experience with Cornell University Press to be one they are delighted with, so we need to hear them say what they want. We want customers to have the best possible experience with us, so we need to hear them say what they want. Within a week of promoting the campaign, more than five hundred people had participated, and as a thank you present, we gave them a 50 percent off discount code for books on our website. And here’s the icing on the cake: a lucky respondent won the #SWYW raffle, and $250 in #CornellPress titles of her choice! The responses in the #SWYW campaign sometimes surprised us but also revealed trends in reading and our customers’ preferences when it comes to books that we needed to have firsthand data on. In the competitive, forever-evolving world of publishing, it is our belief that we have to be willing to learn all the time, to be flexible
enough to adapt to new environments and changes in our consumers’ lifestyles, striving to constantly improve what we do. The customers spoke, and we listened. And as a result, we are acting on their expectations and desires. Our first measure was to slash the prices of our eBooks in half, and we’ll be rolling out more initiatives in 2019 directly triggered from this market-research campaign.
The customers spoke and we listened.
73%
of people chose to publish with
CUP because of our
reputation
5
th
marketing was the 5th most important thing when choosing a new publisher for prospective authors, behind things like, editing, reputation, and the acquiring editor. (we think it should be 1st!)
nearly half those surveyed said they buy more than 21 books a year! that’s a lot of books.
21
3rd
SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOW THE THIRD MOST POPULAR WAY TO DISCOVER NEW BOOKS
“A fascinating insider look at the mind behind M onty Python and Fawlty T owers. Cleese’s lectures are, expectedly, equal parts ente rtaining and thoughtful.”—Va nity Fair
“This collection of speech ith es and conversations w se Monty Python alum Clee lf: is not unlike the man himse d hilarious, always clever, an ers a little off-kilter.”—Publish Weekly
“Cleese reveals a sharp but humane sensibility as well as a wicked sense of humor when it comes to human frailty. What surprises is the depth of his understanding. As provocative as it is amusing—an edifying journey through the mind of a major talent.”—Kirkus Reviews
“An entertaining co llection. . . . Informative and eng rossing with expert insights.”—T imes Literary Supplement
1869 the cornell university press podcast
15,000 listens 50 countries 37 episodes
“The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”—Carl Jung
CHILDREN’S CANCER AWARENESS MONTH SEPTEMBER 2018 WAS A SPECIAL MONTH, AND TOGETHER WITH TIM WENDEL, AUTHOR OF CANCER CROSSINGS: A BROTHER, HIS DOCTORS AND THE QUEST TO CURE CHILDHOOD LEUKEMIA, WE DESIGNED A PROMOTION TO HONOR CHILDREN, THEIR FAMILIES, AND CAREGIVERS.
“CELEBRATE LIFE” WITH OUR #CCAM CANCER CROSSINGS GIVEAWAY! September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month (#CCAM), and both politicians and healthcare professionals are calling for a “Cancer Moonshot.” Thanks to exciting work in checkpoint inhibitors, anti-cancer vaccines and immunotherapy, we’re making major inroads against a disease that impacts 14 million people across the globe every year. Yet to have real progress, we need to remember the lessons of a small team of doctors who reached the pinnacle of cancer research a half-century ago. Nicknamed the “Cancer Cowboys,” this extraordinary group of doctors took acute lymphoblastic leukemia from a 100 percent death sentence to the 90 percent survival rate it has today. Not that long ago few in the medical community dared to take on cancer. In the 1960s, pediatric handbooks had little to offer about possible care and treatments. The Cancer Cowboys decided this was unacceptable. Even though they were sometimes ostracized by their peers, these doctors developed modern-day chemotherapy practices and invented the blood centrifuge machine, helping thousands of children live longer lives. And despite being at hospitals scattered across the country—Buffalo, Memphis, Houston and Washington, DC—these doctors gathered every few months, often after-hours at each other’s homes, to discuss their latest clinical trials and findings. THESE DOCTORS DEVELOPED MODERN-DAY CHEMOTHERAPY PRACTICES AND INVENTED THE BLOOD CENTRIFUGE MACHINE “Of course, this was before cellphones and video conferencing,” says Dr. Donald Pinkel, who founded St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. “So, it wasn’t easy. But we made sure we always knew where we stood with each other.” The patients and their families benefited greatly from such efforts. My younger brother, Eric,
was diagnosed with leukemia in 1966. Soon after he was admitted to Roswell Park in Buffalo, New York, my mother was told she was now part of his medical team. That this team extended from the doctors to the nurses to the families themselves. “I appreciated that we were all in it together,” she says. “That we needed to be to make any real progress.” Throughout my career, I’ve been fortunate to write about many successful teams and organizations, including the 1980 US Olympic hockey squad, the 1968 St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers. But none was as impressive as the Cancer Cowboys. Today, many more hospitals and healthcare systems have joined the efforts to stand up to cancer in all its forms. Yet in touring the country in support of Cancer Crossings—my book that’s part family memoir, part medical narrative—I wonder if today’s health-care community can be as united, as determined, and as accessible as the Cancer Cowboys once were. In the end, our hopes for another Cancer Moonshot may well depend upon it. Tim Wendel is the author of Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors and the Quest to Cure Childhood Leukemia. Part family memoir, part medical narrative, his latest work is a valuable voice in Cancer Awareness Month.
THE BESTSELLERS
Because in the end, it’s about selling your book so that people can read it!
THE WORLD IN 2018
BOOKS THAT
CHANGED
9
Wounds of War, by Suzanne Gordon
“Important and timely”—CounterPunch
Financial Citizenship, by Annelise Riles
More than 500 downloads as an open access book
I Am Not a Tractor!, by Susan L. Marquis
“Offers valuable lessons for other activists and organizers”—Kirkus Reviews
Confronting Dystopia, by Eva Paus “An important topic”—James Boyce
The Venture Capital State, by Robyn Klingler-Vidra
“A valuable contribution to the political economy literature”—Linda Weiss
Wars of Law, by Tanisha Fazal
“Read her book.”—Washington Post
Communicating Climate Change, by Anne K. Armstrong, Marianne E. Krasny, and Jonathan P. Schuldt More than 1,000 downloads as an open access book
Unrivaled, by Michael Beckley
“Should be part of any serious debate about where are headed.”—New York Times
Politics of the Headscarf in the United States, by Bozena C. Welborne, Aubrey L. Westfall, Özge Çelik Russell, and Sarah A. Tobin “An excellent assessment of the experience of Muslim-American women who wear the hijab”—Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual
VETERANS’ DAY BOOK GIVEAWAY
“There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release.”—Eddie Van Halen
ON VETERANS’ DAY 2018, WE HONORED THOSE WHO SERVE OUR COUNTRY BY OFFERING THEM, THEIR FAMILIES, AND CAREGIVERS THE CHANCE TO READ SUZANNE GORDON’S NEW BOOK WOUNDS OF WAR: HOW THE VA DELIVERS HEALTH, HEALING, AND HOPE TO THE NATION'S VETERANS, FOR FREE. AS PARTICIPANTS STARTED TO ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN THE RAFFLE, WE DECIDED TO INCLUDE ONE MORE PRIZE TO THE PROMOTION AND OFFER A FREE COPY OF THE BATTLE FOR VETERANS’ HEALTHCARE, TO THE FIRST 500 PEOPLE WHO EMAILED US ON THAT DATE. BELOW IS HOW WE ANNOUNCED THIS CAMPAIGN. One thing I appreciate about meeting with Cornell University Press’ Director Dean J. Smith, is that I always leave his office with some kind of insight or anecdote. He seems to be a natural story-teller, and last week he told me how he gave a free copy of Suzanne Gordon’s new book Wounds of War, to a veteran who walked into Sage House. The conversation moved Dean and he decided he wanted to do something special for veterans. His words resonated with me. For those who are not familiar with her work, Suzanne is an award-winning healthcare journalist and author who spent more than thirty years researching health care delivery and nursing in the American private, profit-driven marketplace. And even though she is not a veteran herself, she is
genuinely concerned by the move towards outsourcing veterans’ care. Last month, Suzanne wrote a blog post for our website about the dangers of privatizing the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), emphasizing the need to protect a system that manages the healthcare of a vulnerable population that is, “at high risk for mental health and substance abuse problems, suicide, chronic pain, homelessness, and legal issues, to name a few.” Her fight is one born out of personal motivation; as a civilian, she has nothing to gain from the political debate around the VA. All this said, and in anticipation of #VeteransDay in the US this Sunday, we have decided to celebrate all veterans, their families, and caregivers, with a special book giveaway! And we are inviting them to
share a flyer on Facebook or Twitter, for the chance to enter to win a FREE copy of Wounds of War. Additionally, we’ll send a free copy of Suzanne’s previous book, The Battle for Veterans’ Healthcare, to the first 500 people who email us at cupress-sales@cornell.edu on November 11th*. Please type “Veterans’ Day Promo” in the subject of your email. At #CornellPress, we believe that it is our duty to spread knowledge and support the men and women who have served this country, showing them our appreciation with these two promotions. We hope that everybody participates and enjoys their new books! Adriana Ferreira is the Social Media Coordinator at Cornell University Press. She is excited to extend this offer to veterans and hope that they can celebrate their day in a special way!
The Marketers of CUP USING PIONEERING AND IMAGINATIVE METHODS, BECOME THE PREEMINENT MARKETING TEAM IN THE AUP, DELIVERING INFLUENTIAL CONTENT TO A GLOBAL AUDIENCE.
Meet the team behind The Recap and all the great marketing of our wonderful books and authors Martyn Beeny Marketing & Sales Director @MartynBeeny Adriana M. Ferreira Social Media Coordinator @AiaFerreira Nathan D. Gemignani Special Sales Representative and Metadata Specialist Jonathan L. Hall Digital Marketing Manager David Mitchell Exhibits, Advertising, and Awards Coordinator Cheryl Quimba Publicity Manager @cheryl_quimba Carmen Torrado Gonzalez Marketing Assistant @CarmenTorradoG