5 Quick Steps to Further Your Academic Publishing Career

What are some steps you can take to move your Academic Publishing career forward, no matter where you are in your pursuit? This blog looks to answer that very question.

• Keep yourself informed on day-to-day events in the publishing world. The easiest way to do this is to subscribe to Publisher's Weekly or the New York Times. If you are a student, you get a substantial discount on the latter. These two publications speak volumes on publishing-related events. Yes, they do sometimes even cover non-trade publishing news.

• Connect with professionals on social media. LinkedIn and Twitter are great avenues to link up with publishing professionals. If a LinkedIn request seems too forward, try following on Twitter. Professionals will often utilize Twitter to share opinions on news and industry information.

• Sign up for talks within the publishing industry. Book lovers will come together to celebrate books. Go to author talks in your local library. Not only will you get to hear master craftspeople, but you may be able to network with those in attendance.

• Take classes or workshops in your publishing community. If you are fortunate to live in a publishing hub such as New York City, Boston, Chicago, or even smaller academic hubs like Columbus and Minnesota, take advantage of the local knowledge. In Boston, there are communities like BookBuilders of Boston where there is a job board and publishing-specific events. If you can get into one of those, you have the opportunity to network and learn by professionals from all over the business.

• Look at some of the most recent titles in your fields of interest. This may seem obvious, but look at some of the current textbooks or nonfiction books that interest you. Feel free to check them out at the library, or peruse a K-12 website's textbooks. Take some notes on these books--what's the most interesting? What could be used to teach someone more efficiently?

Those are some basic tips for you to get ahead. Keep yourself in the know--academic minded people appreciate those who are well-informed.