Chief Revenue Officer at SharedBook & AcademicPub.com

AcademicPub Welcome Page

I have joined SharedBook full-time and will be focused on continued development of its custom content product AcademicPub, which allows educators to create made-to-order compilations of educational materials for their classes and students.  This is an exciting new venture for me and, while I have been deeply involved in the launch and roll-out of AcademicPub for some time, as a full-time employee I will have broader responsibilities including revenue growth and strategic partnerships.

Alert readers of the blog may recall I have written aboutSharedBook and AcademicPub in the past. I first became aware of SharedBook in 2006; it had launched a few years before and has since built a custom publishing platform that enables users to mix and match content from a wide variety of sources.  It wasn’t until early last year (2010) that I began working with CEO Caroline Vanderlip, the result of which was the launch of AcademicPub last August.  Via a series of strategic meetings and discussions, we determined that the SharedBook publishing platform could be used to revolutionize the custom course business in higher education; thus, with some modifications, we launched a beta version of AcademicPub in January.

AcademicPub allows a faculty member (or any person on campus charged with creating the custom compilation) to select content from an extensive library of high-quality academic and scholarly content, incorporate proprietary materials from their own hard drive and source content directly from the web.  The library of available materials continues to grow and currently stands at over 100 publishers supplying over 2 million items of content (i.e., chapters, articles, cases, textbook chapters).  Caroline and I just returned from Frankfurt where we met with more than 50 potential publishing partners who will be added over the next several months.  In addition, we are also integrated with Copyright Clearance Center so we can clear and price content faculty may wish to include in their custom packages but is not already in our content library.

Select content from the Publisher library, your Files and the web

The exciting thing about AcademicPub is that it not only automates a manual, inefficient and time-consuming process but also widely expands the universe of material faculty members can use to create their custom compilations.  By combining the three elements – library, personal and web content – AcademicPub has effectively lowered the barriers for faculty looking to explore new, inventive and timely content sources and deliver educational content specific to their educational goals.  Students are happier, too, because the finished product is often significantly cheaper than a traditional textbook and they can rest assured that the content will be completely relevant as they progress through their course.  (Students do not have access to AcademicPub other than to purchase the finished product either in print or electronic form.)

The platform upon which AcademicPub is built is very flexible and, because of that, we are able to create (and will be launching) custom views for publishers, bookstores and others, providing each with their own specific version of AcademicPub.  Through these versions, which will feature participants’ own branding and their specific content exclusively, a publisher will be able to offer customers the ability to mix and match their content and produce a custom compilation of material.  The beauty of these versions is that technical development is straightforward and cost-effective for the publisher and far exceeds what they could develop themselves given similar resources.   Many of our demos have concluded with the publisher asking whether they can use the functionality themselves, which is why I’ve often felt that AcademicPub sells itself.

We have been able to build our content library faster than expected, in part because our publishing partners immediately grasp the benefits of our approach to education. And many recognize that AcademicPub represents a unique opportunity to easily establish a foothold in educational course materials.  In support of our model, we have staff on the ground calling on (for example) universities, copy centers, bookstores and libraries.  We are also attending conferences and trade shows and everywhere we go and everyone we speak to sees how AcademicPub can improve their ability to provide more meaningful educational experiences to their students.

AcademicPub Custom Projects View

I believe AcademicPub represents a new way to create course materials and, as all traditional educational content becomes more ‘modular,’ our platform will be a primary leader in providing this type of functionality to faculty and educators.  As far as I am aware, there is no direct competitor to AcademicPub and the simplicity of our platform--which belies some very sophisticated technology--means that we have a significant advantage over new entrants or existing providers willing to invest in technology to replace their manual processes.

At SharedBook, I am joining a great group of people who have already taken the company a long way.  I will be responsible for building revenue and establishing key strategic relationships with partners – including expanding our library of content partners even further – and helping define and execute our business strategy over the coming years.  We are actively working on a number of key partnerships (look for announcements over the coming months) as we implement some very exciting functional enhancements to the platform.   If you are interested in participating in or learning more about AcademicPub, please don’t hesitate to contact me.  My new email is michael @ sharedbook.com.