GOALS, CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS, AND OBJECTIVES
(including Strategies and Assessments)

INVEST IN THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY

Goal 1. Access and Diversity: Publish books, within the Press's focus areas, to make the fruits of scholarship available to a wide range of constituents, include more works by Texas Tech faculty authors among the Press’s publications, and give a more diverse group of students the opportunity to experience working in scholarly publishing.

Benchmarks (measures of the degree of success over the next 5 years):

• Publish at least 15% of books on topics related to history and issues of diverse groups.
• Publish at least two books per year by Texas Tech faculty members within the Press's focus areas.
• Increase the diversity of staff and student employees as qualified people can be found or trained.
• Establish at least two internships in scholarly publishing.

Objectives:

Objective 1.1: Publish books on diverse topics and diversity issues within the Press’s focus areas.

Strategies:

• Make acquisition of manuscripts on diversity issues a priority.
• Identify authors of manuscripts on diversity issues.
• Work with authors of manuscripts on diversity issues to develop their work.
• Search for outside funding specifically to support publication of books on diversity issues.
• Find and reach new markets for books on diversity issues.

Objective 1.2: Publish books within the Press’s focus areas by Texas Tech faculty members.

Strategies:

• Make acquisition of manuscripts by Texas Tech faculty members a priority.
• Address Texas Tech faculty members to inform them of the Press’s interest.
• Identify Texas Tech faculty authors working on topics within the Press’s focus areas.
• Work with Texas Tech faculty authors to help develop their work.
• Search for title funding to support publication of books by Texas Tech faculty members published by the Press.

Objective 1.3: Increase diversity of student employees.

Strategies:

• Review possibility of barriers to diversity in hiring of students.
• Eliminate any barriers to diversity in hiring of students.
• Increase publicity for student jobs available.
• Announce job openings through a variety of student and community organizations.

Objective 1.4: Establish internships for students interested in and suited for a career in scholarly publishing.

Strategies:

• Coordinate with academic departments to establish a program of internship for credit.
• Interview to identify the most qualified student applicants for internship.
• Find outside funding to assist the Press in paying student interns.

Goal 2. Human Resources and Infrastructure: Maintain a high-quality work force and work environment.

Benchmarks (measures of the degree of success over the next 5 years):

• Expand to fourteen full-time, professional employees.
• Meet or exceed Association of American University Presses (AAUP) average salaries for equal positions among western public university presses in our sales range.
• Achieve annual endowment income to contribute toward staff salaries and professional development.
• Send at least three staff members annually to AAUP-sponsored workshops and in-residency programs.
• Raise state funding and gifts for a new building for the University Press containing offices, warehousing, and shipping.

Objectives:

Strategies:

• Give employees more responsibility and a broader range of experience.
• Increase pay at regular intervals and provide merit-pay increases commensurate with job performance.
• Provide career development opportunities.

Objective 2.2: Increase staff salaries to match Association of American University Presses (AAUP) averages for compensation for western public university presses within the same general sales income classification.

Strategies:

• Compare Texas Tech University Press salaries to AAUP statistics for corresponding periods.
• Write recommendations for revision of University Pay Plan, using AAUP statistics.
• Coordinate recommended revisions with University Personnel Office, Provost, and Vice President for Fiscal Affairs.
• Write position descriptions for new positions required.

Strategies:

• Identify potential sources of endowment.

• Work with the Office of Institutional Advancement to secure endowment.

Strategies:

• Identify potential donors to a building fund.
• Work with the Office of Institutional Advancement and other relevant university and state offices to secure gifts for a building fund.

ENRICH THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Benchmarks (measures of the degree of success over the next 5 years):

• Publish 20–25 books annually in 9–10 established focus areas with 90% or more of books in those areas.
• Publish six journals in the Press’s focus areas.
• Publish books by senior scholars with top reputations as published writers.
• Achieve at least two state or regional awards and at least one national award annually in recognized state, regional, and national competitions.
• Achieve at least two positive reviews on 80% of the Press’s books in prominent scholarly journals and trade book review media.

Objectives:

Strategies:

• Review the Press’s focus areas with the Press Editorial Committee and determine whether changes need to be made in those areas.

• Limit acquisitions to the selected focus areas.

• Establish series, with qualified series editors, in the selected focus areas.

• Work with the series editors to acquire manuscripts.

Strategies:

• Identify publishing needs of scholars in the Press’s focus areas.
• Identify books that will fill those needs.
• Recruit senior scholars, with top reputations among their peers, to act as authors and series editors.
• Develop and edit books for highest scholarly quality.

Strategies:

• Identify one subject area, related to one of the Press’s focus areas, in which a journal is needed.
• Identify a published journal, related to one of the Press’s focus areas, sponsored by an outside organization for which a new publisher is being sought.
• Coordinate to identify and recruit a journal editor or editors for the prospective journal.
• Negotiate publishing terms with the sponsoring organization.
• Oversee the initial stages of publishing the selected journal to ensure a strong start.

Strategies:

• Attend scholarly meetings in the Press’s focus areas to show books and journals.
• Advertise the Press’s books and journals in other scholarly journals and in scholarly meeting programs.
• Encourage, through professionalism in all aspects of publishing, our scholarly authors to promote the Press to their colleagues.

Benchmarks (measures of the degree of success over the next 5 years):

• Offer or participate in at least one activity or event of service to the community annually.
• Participate in 5–6 community book festivals, writers’ conferences, or panel presentations annually.
• Publish 15–20% of the list on topics of interest to the state or the region.
• Achieve at least three awards annually in recognized state, regional, and national competitions.

Objectives:

Strategies:

• Identify community and regional groups interested in books and reading.
• Publish books of interest to community and regional groups.
Offer advisory services to groups interested in books and reading.

Strategies:

• Identify topics, within the Press’s focus areas, of interest to the community and region.
• Sign authors whose works are of interest to the community and region.
• Devote specific marketing efforts to community and regional markets.
• Carry out community and regional publicity for books of interest to the community and region.

ADVANCE CREATIVE ENDEAVORS

Goal 5. Publishing Productivity: Increase publishing productivity and funding in all focus areas in which the Press publishes.

Benchmarks (measures of the degree of success over the next 5 years):

• Publish 20-25 books annually in 9-10 focus areas.
• Achieve at least two state or regional awards and one national award annually in recognized state, regional, and national competitions.
• Achieve at least two positive reviews on 80% of the Press’s books in prominent scholarly journals and trade book review media.
• Raise endowment sufficient to support publication of scholarly books.
• Raise individual title subsidy for every book that requires supplementary funds.
• Raise funding earmarked for advertising in important national and regional media.
• Contract sales representation in every region of the United States as well as Canada, Europe, and Asia.

Objectives:

Strategies:

• Exhibit books at national meetings to attract attention of prominent scholars.
• Recruit prominent scholars with top national reputations in the Press’s focus areas.
• Employ prominent scholars with top national reputations as series editors and contacts for further recruitment.
• Raise funding to be used as advances to attract top scholars.
• Raise funding earmarked for advertising in important national and regional media.
• Increase national advertising and promotion of Press books.
• Increase the number of reviews of Press books in national review media.

Strategies:

• Identify potential donors of funds for advertising Press books.
• Work with the Office of Institutional Advancement and other relevant university offices to secure donations.
• Select books that deserve national advertising and develop and launch ad campaigns for them.

Objective 5.3: Increase book sales.

Strategies:

• Focus the Press’s efforts in particular focus areas.
• Publish books directed toward those selected focus areas.
• Increase the marketing effort in those focus areas.

Objective 5.4: Increase sales representation in more regions.

Strategies:

• Identify prospective sales representatives in this country.
• Contract sales representatives who are enthusiastic and active.
• Increase sales to a level acceptable to overseas sales representatives.

Strategies:

• Perform title budget analysis on every title considered for publication.
• Determine those titles that need supplementary funding.
• Identify source of funding for each title that needs supplementary funding.
• Present grant or gift requests to identified sources.

Strategies:

• Establish series of books in Press focus areas.
• Work with the Office of Institutional Advancement to identify sources of funding whose interests match a particular series.
• Make presentation of the Press’s needs and requests.

Strategies:

• Work with the Office of Institutional Advancement to identify sources of endowment.
• Establish a Friends of the Press organization as a core group for raising endowment.
• Present the Press’s needs and requests.

Strategies:

• Strengthen the Press’s general ledger accounting system.
• Compile account statistics in AAUP format.
• Report annually to the AAUP statistician.

Strategies:

• Strengthen the Press’s general ledger accounting system.
• Perform internal departmental budgeting.
• Make general ledger information available to Press management.

Strategies:

• Obtain a shopping cart for the Press’s website.
• Coordinate with Texas Tech Information Technology to interface the shopping cart with the university’s financial system.
• Maintain the Press’s website to enable easy ordering on-line.

STRENGTHEN PARTNERSHIPS

Goal 6. Partnerships: Build strategic partnerships and alliances, as appropriate to the Press’s focus areas, with publishers and other organizations nationally and internationally.

Benchmarks (measures of the degree of success over the next 5 years):

• Copublish one or more books per year with foreign publishers.
• Publish annually 2–3 books commissioned by other organizations.
• License Press books and journals to netLibrary, Questia, Project Muse, EBSCO, and other electronic research and publishing media.

Strategies:

• Identify other organizations, within or outside of Texas Tech University, publishing books in Press focus areas.
• Contact those organizations.
• Offer services to publish their work on commission and show the advantages of such publication.

Strategies:

• Continue digitization of journals as funds for scanning, editing, and coding become available.
• Identify suitable books from the Press’s backlist for scanning and digital publication.
• Continue coordination with the Library for scanning of books and journals.
• Continue coordination with the English Department for editing and coding of scanned journals and books.

Strategies:

• Identify other publishers in the region who maintain their own order fulfillment function.
• Contact those publishers.
• Offer Press services for order fulfillment on commission and show the advantages of such an arrangement.

Strategies:

• Contact foreign publishers through international book fairs or by mail and e-mail and express interest in copublishing with them in the Press’s focus areas.
• Evaluate foreign publishers’ books offered for copublication.
• Offer Press books for copublication with foreign publishers.