University Press Week

Day #4: Managing law titles

In the latest of our University Press Week posts, Newgen Project Manager Ashirvad Moses, a member of our offshore production team, talks about the challenges of working on specialist law titles.

What type of books do you work on?

I jumped directly into the publishing field after my studies and the books that I’ve worked on so far are all legal books ranging from academic law, to professional land titles. All published by university presses.

And are there any particularly challenges involved in working with this content?

Some of the content I work with can be quite volatile, with late additions and updates to the content coming in while the book is still in production. Striking the balance between keeping the book updated to the market’s demands and getting the book produced on time is one of the few challenges that this kind of content involves.

Tell us what you enjoy about working on university press content.

Though the content of the books that I work with is very technical, occasionally, there will be books whose titles will cause one to stop and think. For example, I would have never known about “Suicide Tourism” at all if I had not worked on contents like this. Though the title is a bit stirring, the mind is opened to newer perspectives with respect to life, human rights, and so on.

What have you learnt through your work in scholarly book production?

As with any production process, one has to be adaptive to change and also be aware of Murphy’s law which states that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong”.

Having had the opportunity to work with a few copy-editors, proofreaders, and other freelancers in this kind of a production setup, I’ve also learned Murphy’s law which states that “If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.”

Apart from the above, I’ve also had the opportunity to learn how the scholarly book production process operates and how important university presses are: they are the centre of the global knowledge ecosystem, publishing peer-reviewed information in the highest standard with integrity, diversity, stewardship and intellectual freedom.

How do you think university presses will change in the future?

Though the methodology to get the content ready may not change, the time taken to churn the books and the way it is presented in various platforms will change based on technological advancements.

The Newgen team produce content in a range of specialist areas, including law, medicine, engineering and finance. Contact us today to find out how we can help you produce complex and technical titles quickly and efficiently.