Alex Painter, Marketing and Development Director at Editorial Training, discusses editorial standards and gives some tips – if you’re also a stickler for detail, make sure you read right through to the end…

Changing the direction of your career in publishing may be a challenge but if you are determined, prepared, and take a realistic approach, it should not be impossible. Helen Speedy from Atwood Tate has some insightful suggestions:

The BEBC is Britain’s largest specialist English Language Teaching bookseller. Here, John Walsh, Managing Director shares  all… from the days of the Net Book Agreement, to the more recent threats from Amazon…

Tom Ashton (AKA Ashton Editorial) has been a freelance project manager for nearly a    year  now. Here he shares an overview of his experience. I must say, he does look rather happy!

I was fortunate to meet Fiona Skowronski, author of Smuggler’s Caves, a few weeks ago and loved her experience of self-publishing. Here she shares all:

At the last BookMachine event we were pleased to meet Sam Coleman from Atwood Tate. He’s certainly a man in the know if you’re looking for a job, as he speaks to recruiters in the industry every day. Here he shares some tips for finding work.

 
Times have certainly changed since I started work as a Production Assistant for a distinguished publishing house only a decade ago. Now, rather than massaging strained biceps from carrying piles of carefully packaged proofs from desk to desk, we harp on about carpel tunnel syndrome and ponder deep thoughts about metadata. The era of Digital publishing is upon us and, like a towering Galactus it’s going nowhere.

In our second guest post, Anna Faherty, lecturer at Kingston University, discusses the merits of an MA in Publishing.

I spent a whole week at Frankfurt this year – a whole week selling, networking, schmoozing, wining and dining. Most of the time I was among veterans. Those who know the fair, who know how to work it and who go again and again to boost business and catch up with colleagues.

It amazes me the power of twitter. The ability to create an evening of great conversation in a friendly, relaxed environment, with fellow ‘tweeters’ – surrounding ourselves by people who work in the same industry, have similar visions and most importantly are able to learn from each others experiences and views.

I’ve been using twitter now for a few months and there are certain people who just get how it works. These people make you feel like you know them, who, by updating their ‘page’ using 140 characters periodically, manage to command an online presence. The kind of people you feel you should know. I mean, how clever is that? With just 140 characters you can almost be ‘famous’ (if you’re into that kind of thing of course….!).

So, last Thursday was good, very good. It had been mainly organised by Sam (@samatlounge). Although I’d never met her I knew where she lived, where she worked and that she was a fan of Glee! The frequency of her tweets showed that she’d worked really hard at putting this event together.

On the night she wowed us even more – we were given bags (everyone likes a treat); she shared advice about how to set up our own night (it’s happening on the 30th, watch this space – @book_machine) and introduced us to her colleagues (we all like to meet people). I think this event can only get better and better. (and thanks so much for the hints Sam, if our second night is half as good as yours, we’ll be laughing!)

So who else was there? @benjohncock, whose voice I’d heard before (makes two podcasts); knew what he was reading and even what computer he has. Great to see him in the flesh! @druceydrama – who’s recently written a great article for the SYP on finding work in publishing; @jonslack – setting up the first South Asian Litterature festival (looks ace); @mafunyane (real name Anna Faherty) who is about to start lecturing in publishing to share her knowledge (good luck on your first day of term!) and plenty more inspirational and interesting people…. (I could go on naming but it would take forever!). 

So thanks Sam, and the rest of the @futurebook team for being such an inspiration to all of us fellow ‘tweeters’ – hope to see you on the 30th!