How our author surveys have helped to improve our publishing processes

Since August 2018 our Author care team have sent email surveys to our book authors asking for both the likelihood they would recommend publishing with Cambridge University Press to a friend or colleague, and what their reasons were for this answer. We followed this with a similar email asking specifically about marketing and sales experience, and extended this out to published journal authors in Cambridge owned and partner journal titles in October 2019. To date, across all of these surveys we’ve had responses from over 6,000 book and journal authors. But what do we do with all of that feedback? How do we ensure that our authors remain at the centre of all that we do? We speak to colleagues from across the academic division at CUP about the changes made as a direct result of author feedback and how important this feedback has been on our priorities as a team.

Improving the production and editorial experience

“Feedback on the copyediting process from our authors from the survey has been invaluable. It’s helped us understand the concerns authors have and we’ve since identified a number of ways we can improve proof quality such as more rigorous checking, regularly auditing the quality of our suppliers and introducing a new updated style guide”

Emily Cockburn, Content Operations Director on copy-editing.

“One of the major problems we identified from our surveyed authors was some inconsistencies in communication from different teams and at different stages in the publication process. We’ve since updated templates and set processes in place to help ensure our authors get a seamless experience throughout their journey in both consistency and frequency.”

Taylor Dietrich, Author Services Manager on communication.

Improving the marketing and sales experience

“The feedback we’ve had on all aspects of sales and marketing have really helped us in prioritising developments for Author Hub and make changes to our processes. It’s helped us better understand the information authors want to see, for example lists of conferences their book has been sent to and access to tools that support them in promoting their work.”

Abigail MacDonald, Brand and Author Communications Manager

“The  survey has really helped us see areas that need improving, helping facilitate the team in to proposing new solutions and ideas to make the author process even better. Whether this is trialling new ways of tagging on social media or making sure our authors have greater visibility of campaigns they feature in, we’re really excited about some of the improvements in progress.”

Maxine Hastings, Marketing Services Director on conferences and review copies.

Improving the experience for journal article authors

“We’ve taken on-board various aspects of feedback resulting from the author survey and specifically relating to the speed of publication. We’ve introduced system changes that allow for better overall visibility of a journals turnaround times and more regular reporting on this topic to help enable further improvement.”

Melissa Gilmour, System and Processes Manager

Showcasing excellence, trust and quality

It’s important to add that not all of the feedback asks us to make changes, the vast majority of feedback is overwhelmingly positive and reflects the key priorities of Excellence and Trust that we take so much pride in showcasing.

“Everyone I dealt with was friendly, responsive, and efficient.”

“Fast turnaround, fair reviews, easy publication process.”

“CUP provides wonderful support and expert guidance in all aspects of the publishing process.  Each member of their team utilizes their expertise and experiences to make sure your work, your publication is successfully completed and shared with an international community.”

“I have found the editorial and production staff at Cambridge University Press to consistently be extremely helpful, highly competent, always professional, and excellent in every regard.  The press has found a way to maintain academic rigor and high standards of scholarship while still being open minded to new ideas and approaches.   It has been a wonderful experience.”