With Amazon announcing in early September that they were looking at novel serialisation, we got to wondering what goes into getting the content to you, in a non book form. I mean, would you really have read John Major’s exploits if you hadn’t picked up a paper in your local, mid Sunday roast lull? Here, Caroline Crofts, UK Rights Manager for HarperCollins, talks seriously about serial…
Comprising the Jazz Festival, the Art Festival, the Film Festival and of course the world famous Comedy Festival; Edinburgh International Festival has just drawn to a close. It’s a month of make or break for the brash and the brave talents of the arts scene. The book festival itself has been going since 1983 and like a fine cheese, gets bigger (admittedly, this is not necessarily true of cheese) and better with age. 2012 saw upwards of 190,000 bibliophiles trying to dodge the street performers cluttering up the city’s streets and investing in cultural hangovers. The obligatory actual hangovers may still be clouding a few brows, but Mark Buckland, head of Cargo Publishing, the Glasgow based Indy and future publisher of @50shadesglasgow – managed a few coherent sentences.
In an ambitious attempt to target those fuzzier (and I don’t mean cuddly) sides of publishing, this week Ben Goddard, Business Manager for Digital at Little, Brown, talks us through metadata and why it’s more than your job is worth to not know your data from your, em, data.
If you were to job swap for a week; could you do what your colleagues do – and do it well? Could you manage a schools marketing campaign or an author tour? Could you line edit a cook book with consistency, while taking in changes from a live photo shoot?
How about the lesser known side of publishing? Think you could manage the rights sales for a third of the world for a week? Could you manage the production of a multi language printing? Or generate interest in a new launch just through your network of contacts like our interviewee below?
Katie Nicholls, of Badcock & Rozycki Literary Agents takes us through one of the more opaque sides of publishing: Scouting. Dib dib dib.
The SfEP (Society for Editors and Proofreaders) was founded in 1988 and since then has nurtured and encouraged copy-editors and proofreaders both in and new to the industry. With the increase in digital self-publishing and national entrepreneurial spirit, chair Wendy Toole talks to us about the advantages of being part of SfEP and its place in the new world of publishing.
In the last 12 months Bonnier’s newest enterprise, Hot Key Books, has gone from boardroom idea to fully fledged business, currently supporting 17 people and a list of 9 excellent children’s titles in the first year alone.
With an ambitious target of 30 – 50 titles to take to market in the second year, Sales and Marketing Manager, Sarah Benton, talks about how it feels to be part of the team leading the charge into the rapidly evolving future of successful Children’s books.
BookMachine is a drinks social for publishing folks and book lovers. Read the site for event news, views and publishing tips.