Connected - Issue 2

Palgrave Macmillan Authors’ Newsletter

Issue 02 - June 2011

Report from the BSA Prize 2011 Using Social Media to Build Your Brand by Simon Mainwaring Revolt in the Middle East, Resurgence for Palgrave Macmillan Authors Save 35% off all Palgrave Macmillan titles (see back cover for details)

Palgrave Macmillan is delighted to offer a customisation service for our leading Study Skills books Hello, Welcome to Issue 2 of the new Connected, the author newsletter from Palgrave Macmillan.

The Palgrave Student Planner The Study Skills Handbook Cite them Right If you’re looking for a way to welcome new students to academic life and further their independent learning then you could consider customising one of the UK’s

Connected is sent out twice a year, and aims to update you on new products and achievements from Palgrave Macmillan, as well as providing some useful information and special offers for all our authors, contributors, and journal editorial

best-selling study skills books. Stella Cottrell’s definitive

board members.

options designed to your specification:

This issue we’ve got many interesting articles, such as handy tips for using social media, and how our expert authors have provided commentary on recent events in the Middle East.

study resources - The Palgrave Student Planner and The Study Skills Handbook - and the invaluable referencing tool, Cite them Right, can help your students get ahead in their studies and introduce them to the learning environment. Write a personalised introduction on the flyleaf, and fill up to eight pages of integrated imagery and content; Palgrave offers a flexible range of custom Leeds University Example

The Palgrave Student Planner Custom Options;

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The Study Skills Handbook and Cite them Right Custom Options;

Don’t forget that as a Palgrave Macmillan author you can save 35% on all Palgrave Macmillan titles.

Details of how to use your author discount can be found on the back

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well as a commitment. This year, Leeds University Union found the outcome well worth the

Co-branding on the jacket and/or the back cover Up to 2 sides of customised content One-to-one collaboration with a Palgrave representative

The decision to collaborate on a custom publication can be an exciting, creative project as endeavour. Keen to embrace the full range of custom options inside the planner, LUU took the

As ever, if you have any queries about your Palgrave Macmillan title, please do not hesitate to contact authors@palgrave.com where we will be happy to help.

Best wishes

Palgrave Macmillan

opportunity to produce a bespoke jacket in line with the union’s image. Staff at Essentials, the student union shop, coordinated the project in conjunction with their in-house marketing team who were able to incorporate the university colour scheme and create their custom pages using a range of graphics and text:

“My experience of Palgrave custom publications was highly positive from start to finish. The freedom of content and format for the part of the planner I designed allowed me to put across Leeds University Union’s messages and information in an attractive and useful way. We even had creative control of the cover. Thanks to the creative freedom afforded me by Palgrave, students at Leeds now have a striking and relevant planner, tailored to their needs.”

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If you are interested in customising a Palgrave book, or if you have any queries, please contact Clare Mence: c.mence@palgrave.com

BSA Prize 2011 Can Palgrave Macmillan win 4 years in a row?

By Philippa Grand The high point of my year as the Sociology Publisher in the Scholarly Division at Palgrave Macmillan comes every April at the British Sociology Association Conference and the awarding of the prestigious Philip Abrams Memorial Prize for the best first and sole-authored book in the field. This year was a particularly tense one – Palgrave titles have won the prize for an unprecedented three years in a row – could a Palgrave author

Rethinking Modernity 9780230227156 • Paperback • April 2009 • £21.99 Researching Intimacy in Families 9780230248090 • Paperback • April 2010 • £20.99

win again this year?

Palgrave’s recent run of success began in 2008 when Gurminder Bhambra’s sweeping historical sociological account of modernity from a non-Western perspective Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination scooped the prize. 2009 saw the prize split between the two Palgrave shortlisted titles – Researching Intimacy in Families, Jacqui Gabb’s methodologically innovative contribution to family sociology, described by the judges as “a fine piece of work” and Ribbon Culture: Charity, Compassion and Cultural Awareness by Sarah Moore, which went on to receive reviews and mainstream press attention in the UK, Canada, Australia and the US. Last year it was hard not to feel confident – 3 out of the 4 shortlisted titles were

Ribbon Culture 9780230247895 • Paperback • Mar 2010 • £20.99 The Politics of Multiculturalism 9780230210349 • Hardback • Apr 2009 • £55.00

Palgrave books – The Politics of Multiculturalism: Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain by Ben Pitcher, The Exclusionary Politics of Asylum by Vicki Squire and Becoming European: Cultural Identity and Cultural Politics by Monica Sassatelli. Sassatelli won, with the judges noting that “the study addresses the process of Europeanisation and the discipline of sociology’s wider issues of identity, globalization and culture are woven into this process with great deftness”.

So what does the prize mean to the academics who win? As Bhambra, currently based at Warwick University, says “academic research is frequently a lonely activity.

It was great to receive such recognition from fellow sociologists and particularly nice to get unsolicited messages of congratulations from colleagues across the country.”

Sassatelli agrees “to be shortlisted and invited at the BSA conference was already an

The Exclusionary Politics of Asylum 9780230216594 • Hardback • Apr 2009 • £57.50 Becoming Europeans 9780230537422 • Hardback • Jul 2009 • £55.00

honour. Winning really felt like becoming part of the British sociological community, especially for me, having moved to the UK only a few years before as a research fellow”.

Moreover, there are also career benefits – Sassatelli again: “I’m sure the prize was good for my career. I got my new post as lecturer at Goldsmiths only a few months later”.

For me, it’s a wonderful opportunity to showcase the wider sociology publishing we do here and highlight our commitment to younger academics, as well as those who are more established – something that is recognized by the academic community: “one of the things that colleagues have said to me,” Bhambra notes, “is how much they appreciate Palgrave’s commitment to monograph publishing and to early career academics. So it’s nice not just as an author to receive the award, but to see that one’s publisher is so well represented in the list of nominees and winners”.

So did we win again this year? Sadly, no. Despite dominating the shortlist yet again with two outstanding titles – Will Atkinson’s Class, Individualization and Late Modernity: In Search of the Reflexive Worker and Andrew Smith’s CLR James and the Study of Culture we didn’t make it to four in a row. But I’m looking forward to seeing if we can win it back in 2012!

Class, Individualization and Late Modernity 9780230242005 • Hardback • Oct 2010 • £55.00 C.L.R. James and the Study of Culture 9780230220218 • Hardback • Aug 2010 • £50.00

Order any of our sociology titles now with your author discount; www.palgrave.com/sociology

Revolt in the Middle East, Resurgence for Palgrave Macmillan Authors

By Michelle Fitzgerald and Christine Catarino On January 28, 2011, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians took to the

by Bradley titled Tunisian Tsunami which will detail the events that

street to protest President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime.

leading up to and after the revolt in Tunisia.

The Egyptian people wanted change; they wanted a democracy; they wanted Mubarak to step down. In a matter of days, Mubarak had

Barry Rubin, editor of the Middle East Review of International

been toppled, and it wasn’t long before this civil unrest spread to other

Affairs Journal and author of Palgrave Macmillan titles The Muslim

countries in the Middle East: Libya, Tunisia, Syria. The people wanted

Brotherhood and The Truth about Syria, among others, was called on

their voices to be heard and implementing a unified front of resistance

by Fox News to discuss his thoughts on the Muslim Brotherhood’s role

was the way they sought out to do just that.

in the protests against Mubarak.

This monumental moment in history brought a wave of change to

Dirk Vandewalle, an associate professor of government at the

the Middle East, and also opened new doors for Palgrave Macmillan

prestigious Dartmouth College, was called on by National Public

authors to bring their thoughts on the Middle East back into the

Radio’s “Fresh Air” to offer his thoughts on the continuing situation

spotlight. As a leading publisher on Middle East studies, Palgrave

in Libya. He is the author of the 2008 Palgrave Macmillan title, Libya

Macmillan authors were a natural choice for media looking for expert

since 1969, which offered the first fully comprehensive evaluation of

opinions, and the Palgrave Macmillan marketing and publicity teams in

Libya since the Qadhafi coup.

both the UK and the US went into overdrive trying to capitalize on the news cycle wherever possible. They pushed for account reorders, sent

Many other books on the Palgrave Macmillan list seemingly predicted

press releases to the media, and posted on the Palgrave Macmillan

the events in the Middle East and saw renewed interest from readers,

Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote these titles.

bookstores, and the media. Those on the list offer a variety of viewpoints on domestic policy, foreign relations, and overall culture—

Once we saw the news in Egypt hit the wire, the quickest way to get the word out on authors was through social media,” said Siobhan Paganelli, Publicist.

“We knew we had to be quick, and that our authors, as Middle East experts, had something very powerful to say.” Clearly, the media agreed.

John Bradley, a journalist who has written for The Economist and Financial Times, accurately predicted Egypt’s revolution in his groundbreaking book, Inside Egypt. This tell-all account that was banned by Egypt when it was originally published in 2008 illuminates the foundations of this year’s uprising and provides insight into the future of the country. Fluent in Egyptian Arabic, Bradley spent time reporting from Egypt and brings an insider’s knowledge to his assessment of the country’s situation. In the wake of the Egyptian revolution, Bradley was called on by global news outlets such as Bloomberg News and The Guardian for comment, and Inside Egypt was chosen as one of the top five books on Egypt by the Christian Science Monitor.

Bradley is currently updating Inside Egypt to include news on the January 2011 revolution. The updated edition will publish in January 2012—in time for the Egyptian revolution’s one year anniversary.

At the same time, Palgrave Macmillan will also publish a new book

some opinions of which are so starkly different in their founding from one another that the diversity in perspectives within the collection appeals to not just one type of person, but a plethora of those that come from different backgrounds and experiences all over the world.

These include: Arab Voices by Jim Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, which draws on 40 years of experience to lift the fog that has obscured understanding of the region and provides insight into the myths, assumptions, and biases that hold West nations back from understanding this important people, their societies, and cultures.

Engaging the Muslim World by internationally respected historian and celebrated blogger at Informed Comment, Juan Cole, which offers a bold vision for the future of US-Middle East relations and reveals how to repair the damage already done and forge ahead on a path of peace and prosperity.

The Mubarak Legacy and the Future of Democracy in Egypt by Alaa Al-Din Arafat, Assistant Professor at Hail University, Saudi Arabia, looks at the situation in Egypt through 2009 and considers both the opposition parties active in Egypt as well as the potential successors to Mubarak.

Civilian Jihad by Senior Director of Policy and Research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, Maria Stephan, examines

peaceful protest and civil unrest as a catalyst for change in the Middle

it’s a list that continues to grow and attract the most reputable Middle

East and examines the role of technology in that change.

East commentators of our time. “Our Middle Eastern studies list is an impressive program of scholarly experts and established

The Shah by Abbas Milani, Director of the Iranian Studies Program at

writers that cuts across disciplines and regions, incorporating

Stanford University, details the sweeping saga of the last Shah of Iran—

diverse points of view,” says Farideh Koohi-Kamali, Editorial Director.

his life, legacy, and role in the creation of the modern Islamic republic.

“This fall we’ll publish Obama and the Middle East by one of the top What remains striking is the prescience with which all of these books

experts in Middle East policy, Fawaz Gerges,” said Airié Stuart, Senior

were published. Because of Palgrave Macmillan’s strong knowledge

Vice President and Publisher. “Often called upon by Charlie Rose,

of Middle East studies and current events, all of these books were

Oprah, and ABC Nightline to offer his view on the ever-changing

published far before the actual revolutions began to take place. Even

political landscape of the region, we’re excited to have him associated

as backlist titles, replete with expert-driven cutting-edge reports,

to the Palgrave name—he’ll undoubtedly be in good company.”

sweeping historical analyses, and timely perspectives all of which continue to lengthen the life, relevancy, and acclaim of our list. And

Inside Egypt 9780230614376 • Paperback • Sep 2009 • £10.99

Arab Voices 9780230102996 • Hardback • Oct 2010 • £16.99

The Muslim Brotherhood 9780230100718 • Paperback • Jun 2010 • £19.99

Engaging the Muslim World 9780230102750 • Paperback • Nov 2010 • £10.99

The Truth about Syria 9780230604070 • Paperback • Jul 2008 • £14.99

The Mubarak Leadership and Future of Democracy in Egypt 9780230615588 • Hardback • Jun 2009 • £50.00

Libya since 1969 9780230607651 • Hardback • Sep 2008 • £52.50

Civilian Jihad 9780230621411 • Paperback • Feb 2010 • £20.99

Obama and the Middle East 9780230113817 • Hardback • Dec 2011 • £16.99

The Shah 9781403971937 • Hardback • Apr 2011 • £14.99

Order any of the above titles online now with your author discount; www.palgrave.com

Using Social Media to Build Your Brand

By Simon Mainwaring, author of We First Social media is critical to the publishing business because consumers now co-author the stories that brands tell. In the past media companies maintained a monopoly over the messaging tools that effectively told people what to think, do or buy. Consumers are now armed with free tools such as Twitter and Facebook that allow them to be content producers, distributors and curators, and as such impact the reputation of a brand. The challenge for a brand then, whether it’s a publishing house or an author, is to engage their community in a way that makes them want to promote you through word of mouth advertising.

The most critical shift from a brand management point of view is the change from being the celebrity of your community to being its chief celebrant.

What this means is that if a brand wants to use social media to engage their audience, they must participate in ways that are meaningful to their audience within social conversations that are already under way. Each tool must be used differently with specific goals and target audiences in mind, as with any marketing campaign, but it cannot be overemphasized that the social business marketplace demands that brands engage in the reputation management business by becoming day traders in social emotion.

In practice, this means that brands must lead with a listening ear, communicate in human and transparent ways, and finally, have crisis management systems in place should anything go wrong. Done correctly, social media are powerful tools through which to amplify the awareness, profits and positive impact of a brand. With that in mind, let’s look at two specific tools that are familiar to everyone, but that must be used very differently: Facebook and Twitter.

Top 5 Dos for Facebook

Top 5 Dos for Twitter

Do bring consistent creativity to your Facebook ‘Like’ page to inspire engagement.

Do engage with a follower when they reach out to you with a question or information.

Do respond to negative comments in order to turn a brand critic into a brand advocate.

Do post between eight and ten times a day and spend the rest of your time on engagement.

Do recognize your brand loyalists and reach out to them to build them into brand ambassadors.

Do share photos, video links and text messages to inspire interest.

Do keep up to date with the latest applications and plug-ins that add new dimension to your ‘Like’ page.

Do monitor your tone carefully, because it only takes 140 characters to undo all your good work.

Do stay consistently engaged to avoid community attrition.

Do recognize that your are effectively bidding for people’s attention in an overcrowded marketplace and that their time deserves to be rewarded.

Top five Don’ts for Facebook

Top 5 Don’ts for Twitter

Don’t participate if you do not intend to invest time and energy into long-term relationships with your fans.

Don’t buy followers. It’s a waste of time and money.

Don’t participate if you are not willing or capable of moderating the conversations you start on a daily basis.

Don’t measure success by the number of fans or followers you have, but rather, how deeply they engaged.

Don’t treat social media like direct mail where you simply talk about yourself tirelessly in shorter sound bites.

Don’t spam your audience with constant messages about yourself.

Don’t forget to bring some humor and wit to your communications so that people want to read what you share.

Don’t forget to retweet what your followers share.

Don’t forget to be interesting. You must demonstrate your passion for your topic.

When you make a mistake, don’t get defensive or self-righteous, but rather, accept responsibility, apologize and do what you can to make up for it.

Simon Mainwaring is author of We First: How brands and consumers use social media to build a better world (www.wefirstbook.com). An award-winning social branding consultant he is also an Expert Blogger on social media for Fast Company. Simon blogs at www.simonmainwaring.com and tweets @simonmainwaring.

We First • 9780230110267 • Paperback • Jul 2011 • £17.99

Crying in the Archives Writing history can take an author – and ultimately a reader – on a journey through time, across the globe and into the lives of others. But writing history that people will actually want to read is a lot more difficult to achieve.

Drawing upon the deep experience of two historians who have written many histories themselves, How to Write History that People want to Read explains how to succeed in writing exciting historical narratives. It explores why some historical writing is not so engaging, and why some of it is as good as any writing you will ever read.

Read on for the authors’ tips on writing history in the 21st century….

9780230290389 Paperback • Apr 2011 • £14.99

Top Ten Tips for writing history that people will want to read.

ÂÂ Introduce the people in your story properly. Explain who they are

when first mentioned, and then reveal more information as needed.

ÂÂ Carve out a manageable and do-able topic that can be completed

Action is more interesting and exciting when we know something

in your own lifetime. Think hard about these questions: What is

about the people involved.

your topic? What do you want to find out? Why does it matter?

ÂÂ Write in the language of the present day. No matter how immersed

ÂÂ Check out histories that have been published in the relevant

you may be in what happened in the past, you are writing for

historical field. You could save yourself years of research that

readers in the present. Find and use your own lively present-day

someone else has already done.

voice.

ÂÂ Do your own original research. Use whatever information you can

ÂÂ Don’t write in isolation. Discuss your work in progress with others

find – private letters and diaries, newspapers, government records,

who share your historical passions. It also helps to have a firm, hard

and non-written sources like photographs, oral history interviews,

deadline - like having to speak in public or having to submit

historical objects, and places. Be thorough but also be aware that

something to a publisher.

there is a time when you must stop, take the plunge, and start

writing.

ÂÂ Create and protect your precious writing time. Avoid trying to write

ÂÂ Learn to exercise ‘tough love’ when editing your work. Okay, so you

love those words it took so long to put together. You’re a born

hoarder and that’s one of the reasons you love history. But now is

in your house during the school holidays with kids or teenagers.

the time to pare down to what’s really essential, and to ensure

There is a low probability that they will provide feedback on your

your meaning is clear. We suggest you start up a desktop folder

historical prose. Be obsessed and focussed for as long as you can.

called ‘Treasures’ and put all your beautiful but unnecessary prose in

there to admire at a later date.

ÂÂ Make clear to your readers the order in which events happened.

This doesn’t mean you have to present your information in strict

chronological order. Make use of the flashback and the flash-

forward. Mix things up a little.

See Palgrave Macmillan on You Tube We know how it can feel to be a student - search ‘Palgrave Macmillan Study Skills’ on You Tube to watch our short animation.

Order now using your author discount at; www.palgrave.com

There is no Wealth but Life – Philip Blond (Extract taken from Chapter Four)

Exclusive to authors !

Save 35% off all Palgrave Macmillan titles !

If our economy essentially collapsed by destroying society as the ultimate arbiter of the good, then only a reintegration of economy and society can heal the wound and deliver a cure. The elevation of society above economy and the creation of a moral market is then the only genuine alternative to the continued destruction of wealth, both financial and social. There is no wealth but that enshrined in the good life and the extension of that to all subjects and all citizens.”

How to order : Simply log in to My Palgrave where you will be recognised as an author and your discount will be applied automatically.

Investment and Public Policy inIfayour Globalized email addressEconomy is not recognised, please contact authors@palgrave.com – Robert Skidelsky (Extract taken from Chapter Two)

Human life is indeed a tapestry of diverse activities, not reducible to each other. It is not the case that all motivation is “really” economic, that all relations are actually to do with exchange and the search for profit. Yet it can be said with some reason that economics in the sense of housekeeping is a background for other things; and because of that it is particularly important to keep an eye on its moral contours. Get this wrong and many other things go wrong, in respect of individual character as well as social relations.”

New and forthcoming titles to look out for

The Financial Crisis and the End of the Hunter-Gatherer – Will Hutton (Extract taken from Chapter Nine) When cave dwellers were unfair, they died. When capitalism is unfair, we have financial crashes. Ethics and justice, it turns out, are the indispensable values to underpin successful capitalism. They were neglected and the crisis broke over our heads.

Managing our way out will require that they are once again respected.”

978-0-230-22367-7 Mar 2011 • Paperback • £19.99

978-0-230-29644-2 Apr 2011 • Paperback • £19.99

978-0-230-11515-6 Apr 2011 • Hardback • £14.99

978-1-8445-7203-8 June 2011 • Paperback • £16.99

978-0-230-112049 Aug 2011 • Paperback • £11.99

978-230-23343-0 Sep 2011 • Paperback • £19.99

Cover image: Dandelion Seed © Anette Linnea Rasmus/fotolia.com

978-0-230-24995-0 May 2011 • Hardback • £26.00

978-0-230-10941-4 Nov 2011 • Paperback • £16.99