IICA to develop business plan for books on agriculture

Español • Print

The University of Stanford in California offers the Professional Publishing Program.

IICA to develop business plan for books on agriculture

The Institute is receiving assistance from professionals in publications based in Silicon Valley.

To acquire the expertise they need to develop a business plan for books on agriculture and reactivate the AGROAMERICA imprint, IICA officials took part in the weeklong Professional Publishing Program of the prestigious University of Stanford in California, USA.

Other participants in the intensive program included booksellers, editors, compilers, traders and writers from all over the world. All have a professional link with the production of printed and digital books, magazines and other publications. “After participating in this program, we shall be developing a business plan for books on agriculture and are working on the reactivation of the AGROAMERICA imprint, to better manage the knowledge we are producing,” said Federico Sancho, IICA’s Head of Documentation and Publications.

Sancho announced that improvements would also be made to the Institute’s technical journal, COMUNIICA, for which input and recommendations were received from experts in content and design who work in the famous industrial district of Silicon Valley, and scientific researchers in various parts of the USA.

The course also focused on the inclusion and use of social networks and new media like Twitter, Ning, Facebook, YouTube and Qik to promote and manage agricultural knowledge.

“We were able to interact with the leaders of the Ning social networking platform, study the processes for collaborating with Wikipedia and the production of journals in Wired, and assess the new techniques of printing on demand (POD), the effective use of Twitter and its links with the publishing industry, trends in digital video production, the creation of titles and covers that sell books, and many others,” Sancho said.

IICA’s Head of Documentation added, “The logical conclusion is that the world of publishing has changed. It is not the end of printed books, but we know that the digital era is the perfect complement to activate deeper, more intense processes in the construction of knowledge.”

For more information, contact
federico.sancho@iica.int

IICA Connection is the electronic bulletin of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture. Writing and production: Office of Public Information and Institutional Image.
iicaconexion@iica.int