Tag / Western History Association

by ndsupress

How Our Books Go from Us to You

Note from NDSU Press Publisher, Suzzanne Kelley

Here is Emma Borah, Graduate Research Assistant in Publishing, taking care of sales and communications during the 2024 Western History Association conference in Kansas City. Hosting an exhibit table at conferences and book festivals is one way we are able to get our books into the hands of readers.

Almost every time we sign on a new author, they ask about our methods for distribution. This is a good and important question to ask. Authors (and their presses!) want to make sure that their books are getting into the hands of readers everywhere. Our authors are much relieved when I share the following information about our distribution practices.

  • All of our books (since 2015) are available at Amazon, which works with us as a wholesaler. When Amazon receives orders for our books, they will then send us a list of the books we are to ship to one of their multiple distribution hubs. We receive that list every Monday at 3:00 a.m. We can only send Amazon the books that they request.
  • Ingram Content Group also works with us a wholesaler, meaning they place orders with us when they receive orders from third parties, usually from bookstores.
  • Follett School Solutions and Higher Education Follett work with us as wholesalers, too, filling orders for public schools and university or college bookstores.
  • Baker & Taylor places orders with us for libraries across the United States.
  • We sell direct to public libraries and bookstores (at discounts to each). For the past couple of years, we’ve opened subscription accounts to public libraries that want to receive a copy of every book we publish. As soon as we have those books in hand, we ship them off to the subscribing libraries. We also gift a copy of every book to the eleven higher education institutions in North Dakota. We send those gift copies to the North Dakota State Library, and they take care of placing the copies with the universities.
  • We sell direct to individuals at our online store, at various conferences and book festivals, and at our own events, such as the POPP Poetry reading event that will take place this coming Saturday, December 12, and at our annual NDSU Press Party. Our 10th Annual NDSU Press Party is scheduled for May 3, 2025.
  • We even give some copies away! If a book editor from a journal requests a copy, we send it, no charge. Likewise, if a faculty member at any college or university is thinking about using one of our titles as required reading for their classes, we’ll send a desk copy to that faculty member.

With the various vendors that are involved, we spend a lot of time on fulfillment: accepting purchase orders; picking, packing, and carting orders to delivery points; and then invoicing the companies in a variety of ways that meet their requirements for record keeping. We try to send out all orders within two business days of receiving them.

So, that’s the distribution scoop for NDSU Press!

by ndsupress

Hello, Emma!

NDSU Press is pleased to introduce you to our new Graduate Research Assistant in Publishing, Emma Borah.

Emma is a graduate student at NDSU, seeking her MA in English. She is a recent graduate from NDSU with a BA in English, a minor in History, and the Certificate in Publishing. In her free time, Emma enjoys reading, creative writing, playing video games, and making coffee. She is also a fan of Chicago Manual of Style and digging into the 18th Edition!

In addition to Emma’s in-house duties for marketing, publicity, and fulfillment (she’s the one who ships out our orders), Emma has been representing NDSU Press at various conferences. So far, she’s hosted our exhibitor tables at the annual meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory (Fargo, ND), the Northern Great Plains History Conference (Sioux Falls, SD), and the North Dakota Library Association Conference (Bismarck, ND). Upcoming events include Rain Taxi’s Twin Cities Book Festival (St. Paul, MN), and the Western History Association Conference (Kansas City, MO).

by ndsupress

Fond Farewell

Note from NDSU Press Publisher Suzzanne Kelley

We are elated/sad to announce that Oliver West Sime, our Graduate Assistant in Publishing, has accepted an offer to work at the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in St. Louis Park. This move is a perfect fit for Oliver, and of course it is the kind of career move we hope for all of our graduates. However, that means his last in-person day with NDSU Press is September 28. We are redirecting e-mail regarding fulfillment, marketing, and publicity from Oliver’s email to ndsu.press@ndsu.edu.

Oliver’s presence will be sorely missed. A master’s in History student, he has also taken part in Public History activities, most recently aiding in interpretation and planning activities at a museum in Minot. His varied roles with Thunder Radio, KNDS 96.3—the student-run radio station hosted by NDSU’s Communication department that features independent and alternative music—landed Oliver front and center as example of how students at NDSU are at the center of hands-on learning.

Oliver at the mic, in just one of his roles at NDSU, captured for the landing page at NDSU.edu website.

Likewise, Oliver’s work with NDSU Press captures his hands-on, real-world, responsibility-driven experience, first when he earned the Certificate in Publishing, followed by his many opportunities to meld his goals and aspirations with the aims of this decades-old university press. The dual mission of NDSU Press is to publish the best books and to provide fabulous opportunities—through our Certificate in Publishing and its unique relationship with NDSU Press—to prepare the next generation of publishers, in whatever form that might take. In Oliver’s case, his experiences here put him in perfect position to work as Communication Director at a non-profit museum.

Practicum in Publishing book team from February 2020. Working on Half the Terrible Things, a novel by Paul Legler, are (left to right) Zachary Vietz, Oliver Sime, Nataly Routledge, and Kalley Miller.

As Graduate Assistant in Publishing, Oliver has overseen all of our shipping operations, and—requiring more creative thinking and professional writing—he has taken on the nomination of books for awards, creating press releases and other physical and digital forms of outreach, and traveling to conferences and book festivals far and near as envoy for the press.

Oliver Sime, pointing out our listing among other stellar university presses at the Western History Association conference, Portland, OR.

Oliver credits his research activity and experiences with the Department of History, KNDS, and NDSU Press for providing him the opportunity for a fully-rounded resume in his job search. We hate to see you go, Oliver, but we’re so glad everything worked out beautifully for this next stage in your career.