For the next month, Anthony Levings, Managing Editor, Gylphi Limited will be guest blogging for PhD2Published to give readers a better idea of how a small academic press operates…
Here’s his first post:
Academic publishing is not only one of the most technically demanding forms of publishing, but also one of the most technological as well. And yet, there appears to be an opinion that academic publishing, like all other forms of publishing, is at a crossroads where self-publishing is the obvious way forward.
Although this is only one opinion among many, it is becoming an opinion that is being voiced with increasing volume, as writers, new and established, experiment with new electronic (and sometimes print) forms of publishing.
Naturally I watch with interest as the experiments take place, and as writers mutate into publishers, and I don’t think you’ll ever find a self-publisher who would tell you that publishing is as easy as it looks, or who didn’t initially underestimate the ‘publishing’ part of self-publishing.
However, the point is not to deride such experimentation. Publishing needs this enthusiasm, and the conviction that things can be done differently and possibly better than before. It is what pushes publishing forwards, as I believe small presses help push publishing forwards. Important to remember, though, is that it is not only small presses and self-publishing that propel publishing forwards, but also the larger presses as well, which uphold standards and provide a level of quality for the rest of us to live up to.
Gylphi Limited is a small (or, micro might be a better word) academic arts and humanities publisher focused on the twentieth century and beyond, and I’d like to take the opportunity of blogging for PhD2Published in order to provide a behind the scenes look at what happens at a small academic press in its first years of existence.
This week the manuscript arrived for a book of critical essays on the writer David Mitchell, and printed copies arrived for the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry (Volume 2, Number 2). Together they highlight the two ends of the production cycle, and I’ll be discussing the book, the journal and the beginnings of Gylphi in more detail next week.
I hope that the posts will be of interest to readers of PhD2Published and academics looking to understand the academic book market better.
Anthony Levings
Anthony Haynes said on October 12, 2010
Blog on this subject very welcome. Wish more editors gave the inside view. I look forward to reading further posts.