History
For almost 20 years, Harrington
Park Press (HPP) was the LGBT imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.
(now part of the Routledge/Taylor &
Francis Group. During this period of time, HPP copublished hundreds
of scholarly Haworth Press monographs and texts in paperback editions and
distributed them to bookstores for the general public. The imprint boasted its
own distribution network through five regional sales teams plus specialty
distribution in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and
elsewhere.
In addition to LGBT titles, the
imprint also copublished professional books in health care and self-help.
As part of the mutually
successful negotiated sale agreement between Haworth Press and the
Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, it was agreed that the Harrington Park
Press imprint and trademark would be retained by Bill Cohen (Founding Publisher
of Haworth Press) for future business purposes.
The current effort aims to retain
the heritage of Harrington Park Press. Although its focus will be on
specialized academic and scholarly titles, its program will be, whenever
possible, to provide simultaneous ebook coeditions to potentially broader
readerships.
Harrington Park Press (HPP) aims
to maximize dissemination of research and impact in the scholarly and
practitioner community, while at the same time taking advantage of the global
reach increasingly made possible through e-book co-publication.
Formats[
Printed Books
The printed book remains the
focal point of archival achievement. It must still be promoted and marketed
through traditional but targeted direct mail, and where possible, through
e-mail “blasts.” Attention will be paid to the different methods of
distribution in North America as against other parts of the world still
serviced by the conventional book trade (stock-holding specialized bookstores).
E-books
The digitized book, accessible
both online and downloaded to e-readers such as Kindle and Nook, is still very
much in flux. HPP is convinced, however, that it has become a permanent part of
the publishing landscape. E-books are amenable to broader but targeted
publicity efforts, and may simplify the dilemmas of content “chunking” (finding
that a book is being distributed non-commercially in parts). HPP will aim to
promote its electronic editions in the same manner as aggressively as its
printed work. Its task will be to identify and ally with new sorts of book
reviewers, bloggers, listserves, social media, and both frontier and emerging
channels that are receptive to the focus, content, accessibility and subject
being covered. The goal will be to help each author achieve and exceed their
ambitions and aspirations for their work.
Officers
Owner/Publisher – Bill Cohen
Bill Cohen graduated from
Columbia College (Class of ’71) with an undergraduate degree in psychology. He
jumped directly into the publishing industry with Human Sciences Press, now
part of Plenum Press, a division of Springer Science+Business Media. Starting
as a clerk-typist, Bill became Director of Marketing within a year, and was in
charge of all publicity and sales efforts for academic journal and book titles,
managing a direct mail campaign reaching one million pieces a year. At the age
of 26, Bill left Human Sciences Press, Inc. with its President, Patrick
McLaughlin, to launch The Haworth Press, Inc. The name was taken from the
township of Haworth in the United Kingdom, which was home to the famous
literary Bronte Sisters Haworth Press began in Bill’s bedroom office. From 1975
to 2006, the firm grew from one peer-review academic journal to almost 200, and
published almost 5,000 monographs and texts, based in a multi-building office
system with almost 200 employees in Binghamton, New York and Hazleton,
Pennsylvania. Its imprint, Harrington Park Press, focused on “cross-over”
titles of interest to both academics and the educated public, with a special
strength in pioneer LGBT topics as well as in psychology and health care. In
1994, Bill bought out Patrick’s shares in the firm and moved it forward under
single ownership. Patrick died several years later after a long illness. In
early 2007, Bill divested the firm to the Taylor & Francis Group/Routledge,
and joined with them in a consulting capacity for two years. He retained
ownership and trademark rights to Harrington Park Press. The imprint continues
with this effort.
Senior Editor – Dr. Richard Koffler[
Dr. Koffler brings over 30 years
of distinguished editorial/publishing experience to the Press, with a solid
background in the social sciences and health care, amongst other disciplines.
His academic career includes a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. from New York
University, and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Rutgers University,
followed by Fulbright and Old Dominion Fellowships. Subsequently he taught at
MIT, and then served as Program Officer for Publications at the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Koffler followed up his tenure as Vice
President, Editorial for Associate Faculty Press/Kraus with a brief stint as
Executive Editor for Rowman & Littlefield and a long and fruitful period as
Executive Editor for Aldine de Gruyter, the American division of Walter de
Gruyter of Berlin, Germany. Afterward he joined the relatively new firm at
Questia Media of Houston, Texas, as Director, Publisher Relations. More
recently, Dr. Koffler joined The Haworth Press, Inc., as Senior Book Editor.
After the sale of Haworth to the Taylor & Francis Group/Routledge, Dr.
Koffler has been teaching Humanities courses at Fairleigh Dickinson University
in addition to his position as Senior Book Editor with Harrington Park Press.
Some years back, Dr. Koffler also held the position of Executive Director for the
Association of American University Presses, serving as chief executive and
Board Member for that leading educational nonprofit organization.
Associate Editor – Dody Riggs
Dody Riggs was Production Manager
of Harvard Education Press (HEP), the publishing arm of the Harvard Graduate
School of Education, for nearly two decades, before retiring from the
university in 2008. Her career began 38 years ago at Electronic Engineering
Times, where she started out as a typesetter and rose quickly to become
Associate Manager Editor. In the 1980s she was an Editorial Production
Coordinator at Time magazine and Production Editor of Adweek, and then took a sabbatical
to volunteer with various organizations overseas.. Dody is both an editorial
work-flow manager and copy editor. She managed production of all Harvard
Education Press products, including negotiating with vendors, overseeing
designers and other freelancers, and working closely with authors to help them
keep their projects moving forward. During her tenure at HEP she copy edited 70
issues of the esteemed Harvard Educational Review, more than 70 books, and
countless issues of the award-winning Harvard Education Letter.
Operations Manager – Art Lizza
Art Lizza studied philosophy at
St. Bonaventure University and later at New York University. After a short
stint at Prentice-Hall, he began his major 27-year career at Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, an important mid-sized academic and scholarly publishing house
specializing in psychology and the behavioral sciences, as well as in education
and curriculum studies, and in communication. At LEA Art rose to the position
of Senior Vice President of Production. In that capacity he was ultimately
responsible for overseeing production of 200 books a year as well as 100
academic journals, and as many as 300 reprint titles annually. Many journals
were published on behalf of scholarly membership societies. He supervised 45
personnel, managing end-to-end production, including art, outsourcing
contracts, marketing and promotions, digital reproduction, and the titles
database. He also contributed to IT direction, annual budgetary forecasting,
marketing strategy, and negotiating overseas contracts.
