On January 1, 2015, the University Press of Colorado began celebrating the fifty-year anniversary of its founding in 1965. The first six months were full of publishing and rebranding activity, as we launched a new website, a new logo, and plenty of new books. The Association of American University Presses also held its annual meeting in Denver in honor of our birthday, where Adams State University poet and English professor Aaron A. Abeyta delivered a moving speech at the opening banquet.
The fiscal year that ended in the middle of this celebratory activity did not disappoint. For the third year in a row, University Press of Colorado topped $1 million in operating revenue. Print sales continue to produce the lion's share of that earned revenue, with 87 percent of revenue generated by sales of print books. Ebook sales generated 10 percent of operating revenue, and rights and permissions generated another 3 percent. Ebook sales continue to grow at the fastest pace, up 13 percent compared with the previous year, although that growth is slowing down compared to the previous few years. Perhaps the most interesting trend to note is that ebook unit sales actually outpaced hardcover sales at UPC for the first time, although paperback sales remain much stronger than either hardcover or ebook sales. In 2014–2015 we sold 10 percent more paperback units than we did during the previous year.
In 2014–2015, UPC produced fifty-four new print titles and editions in the fields of anthropology, composition, folklore, history, and natural history, which is eighteen more titles than in 2013–2014, an increase in output of 50 percent. Six Colorado and Utah State titles won awards this year, and we also published or distributed a number of important publications from member faculty and departments, including Different Roads (distributed for Western Press Books at Western State Colorado University), Generation Vet: Composition, Student Veterans, and the Post-9/11 University (edited by Sue Doe and Lisa Langstraat, Colorado State University), Making an American Workforce: The Rockefellers and the Legacy of Ludlow (edited by Fawn-Amber Montoya, Colorado State University–Pueblo), Old Blue's Road: A Historian's Motorcycle Journeys in the American West (James Whiteside, emeritus, University of Colorado Denver), Songs (Mountain West Poetry Series, distributed for Colorado State University), Still Life with Rhetoric: A New Materialist Approach for Visual Rhetorics (Laurie E. Gries, University of Colorado Boulder), Supplice (winner of the 2014 Colorado Prize for Poetry, distributed for Colorado State University), Transient Landscapes: Insights on a Changing Planet (Ellen Wohl, Colorado State University), and The Verging Cities (Mountain West Poetry Series, distributed for Colorado State University).
Finally, in 2014–2015 we continued to build toward the future. In addition to adding a full-time position in support of editorial and production and releasing correspondingly more titles, we created a new full-time position in our marketing department and hired someone who began on the first day of the current fiscal year. As we continue to increase our title output, we also recognize the need to improve our ability to spread the word regarding the good work we do, our brilliant authors, and their great books. The fiscal year spanning 2014–2015 was an excellent step in the right direction.
—Darrin Pratt, Director
2014–2015 Board of Trustees
Katherine E. Browne
Colorado State University
Bradford Cole
Utah State University
Edward R. Crowther
Adams State University
James Drake
Metropolitan State University
Joyce Kinkead
Utah State University
Michael Lightner
University of Colorado System
Suzanne MacCaulay
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Pete McCormick
Fort Lewis College
Heather Orr
Western State Colorado University
Jared Orsi
Colorado State University
Kathleen Pickering
Colorado State University
Thomas Reynolds
Regis University
Payson Sheets
University of Colorado Boulder
Jeannie Thomas
Utah State University
Jay Trask
University of Northern Colorado
Mary Van Buren
Colorado State University
Kariann Akemi Yokota
University of Colorado Denver