The ETC Press was founded in 2005 by Dr. Drew Davidson, a Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), as an open-access, digital-first publishing house.
What does all that mean?
The ETC Press publishes three types of work:peer-reviewed work (research-based books, textbooks, academic journals, conference proceedings), general audience work (trade nonfiction, singles, Well Played singles), and research and white papers. The common tie for all of these is a focus on issues related to entertainment technologies as they are applied across various fields. Our authors come from a range of backgrounds. Some are traditional academics. Some are practitioners. And some work in between. What ties them all together is their ability to write about the impact of emerging technologies and its significance in society.
To distinguish our books, the ETC Press has five imprints:
- ETC Press: our traditional academic and peer-reviewed publications;
- ETC Press: Single: our short “Why it matters” books that are roughly 8,000-25,000 words;
- ETC Press: Signature: our special projects, trade books, and other curated works that exemplify the best work being done;
- ETC Press: Report: our white papers and reports produced by practitioners or academic researchers working in conjunction with partners; and
- ETC Press: Student: our work with undergraduate and graduate students
In keeping with that mission, the ETC Press uses emerging technologies to design all of our books and Lulu, an on-demand publisher, to distribute our e-books and print books through all the major retail chains, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Apple. We work with The Game Crafter to produce tabletop games. We don’t carry an inventory ourselves. Instead, each print book is created when somebody buys a copy. Since the ETC Press is an open-access publisher, every book, journal, and proceeding is available as a free download. We’re most interested in the sharing and spreading of ideas. We also have an agreement with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to list ETC Press publications in the ACM Digital Library. Authors retain ownership of their intellectual property. We release all of our books, journals, and proceedings under one of two Creative Commons licenses:
- Attribution-NoDerivativeWorks-NonCommercial: This license allows for published works to remain intact, but versions can be created; or
- Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: This license allows for authors to retain editorial control of their creations while also encouraging readers to collaboratively rewrite content.
This is an experiment in publishing, and we invite people to participate. We are exploring what it means to “publish” across multiple media and versions. We believe this is the future of publishing, bridging virtual and physical media with fluid versions of publications and enabling the creative blurring of what constitutes reading and writing.