Standford University Press has started a digital imprint called Stanford Briefs, which will release short e-originals on a variety of academic topics. The first brief, "The Physics of Business Growth" by Edward D. Hess and Jeanne Liedtka, will be available on May 15 for $9.99. Alan Harvey, who takes over as director July 1, said: "The evolving nature of digital publishing and the tastes that it has cultivated in our readers calls us to further that mission by providing content in new formats."
The short pieces will be available through all major e-book sellers, as well as on the press's Web site, www.sup.org. Print on demand trade paperbacks will also be available. According to SUP, the line is intended to deliver content in a "bite-sized" package and "provide the essence of a topic." The titles, SUP said, will fall across disciplines and closely reflect the house's list. SUP called "Physics of Business Growth" a work that is "crisp and keenly focused on approaches for business readers to grasp and implement."
According to Harvey, “We’ve always said we’d plan for six to eight briefs per year across our subject areas, but we are prepared to scale up as far as the interest supports. If we find twenty outstanding projects, we'll publish twenty.” Two additional briefs are expected to be released this summer: "Moving Forward: Understanding U. S. Health Care Under the Affordable Care Act Working," and "The System: How to Resolve Organizational Quandaries by Engaging Systems Thinking."
