I will be taking a new position at Wiley, serving as the Associate Publisher of Technology for Wiley’s EMEA Group  beginning July 1.  I will be based in the US, but will have an office at our UK division located in Chichester to which I will travel frequently in addition to some assorted European travel over the course of the year.

It’s an exciting opportunity for me, and gives me a chance to continue to learn and grow and hopefully try some new and innovative things – as well as finally meet some of my authors located outside of the US.

It also puts me in a unique position for some changes in this blog, as I will be learning first hand about publishing in other parts of the world, and I’ll be sharing that with you.

So it’s all very new and exciting, and a little scary at the same time, but I’m definitely ready for a new challenge – wish me luck.

What advice do you have for changing roles within an organization?  Share your stories in the Comments.

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.”

This may be my new favorite quote and although it can be applied to many situations it certainly reminds me of the current state of book publishing. Here we are being dragged down the stairs by business models, margins and revenue targets that are decades or even centuries old.

We must think about other ways we can create valuable content that meets reader needs and deliver it in new ways that readers want. We need to realize that there is a whole new way to deliver our messages to the readers. We must cast off restrictive mindsets and embrace the changes occurring around us.

And like poor Edward Bear, we need to stop bumping our heads long enough to realize there really is another way.