After a long gestation period, Doug Seibold, founder of Evanston, Ill.–based Agate Publishing, has begun the official rollout of the Agate Publishing Academy (APA). The goal of APA, Seibold said, is to provide an affordable professional development program for those interested in joining the publishing industry, as well as for publishing professionals looking to improve their understanding of the business. And by making it a hybrid program, Seibold wants to provide alternatives to the typically expensive publishing master's programs and summer courses that are mostly held on the coasts/
The APA grew out of Agate’s own long-running internship program, which has trained more than 130 interns, many of whom later found jobs in the publishing industry. All courses are taught by Agate staff members and are informed by the work of Agate Development, Agate Publishing’s sister company, which specializes in developing educational content for educational institutions, businesses, and trade organizations.
The APA currently offers certifications in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Basics for Publishing Professionals, Instructional Design Basics, Freelance Business Basics, and Publishing Basics—the latter of which Seibold called APA’s flagship course. Students taking Publishing Basics complete eight online modules at their own pace, each of which is followed by a live video conference discussion with an industry professional and a group of students. The course, which takes roughly eight weeks to complete, costs $1,000, although there are a number of ways the cost can be discounted, Seibold said. The cost for the other three, shorter, courses is currently $100 each.
Seibold is exploring a number of different avenues to market APA. Since launching the Publishing Basics course in November, two small groups, including interns and junior staff from other small publishers, have taken the program at a discounted price. Seibold has also been working with the Independent Book Publishers Association, the Independent Publishers Caucus, and PubWest to build a network of small presses who may be interested in using APA.
Seibold is also tying the academy into Agate’s Training Intern Network (ATIN), an expansion of Agate’s own internship program. Through ATIN, Agate matches participating enrolled students from different colleges, who are able to earn college credit for internships, with a small press; the press then pays, at a steep discount, for their participating student intern to take the Publishing Basics course, Seibold said.
For both its own intern program as well as the new network component, Agate’s outreach to universities has focused on the public university systems in the 10 largest states, plus the network of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. By using this approach, Seibold hopes that APA’s accessibility and low-price point will attract people from diverse communities who have traditionally shied away from working in publishing. He also hopes to attract academic and faith-based presses to use APA.
The next stop on Seibold’s marketing tour will be the IBPA’s Publishing University, set for April 25-27 in Denver, and he will be at PW’s U.S. Book Show in New York City on May 22.
