August Publishing Roundup | 5 Essential Articles

September is here! It’s been another busy month in publishing. Whilst we may not be thinking about Christmas just yet, the world of publishing is busy getting ready for the winter market, as well as always developing new job roles and changing all the time. To let you catch your breath, I’ve complied 5 online articles that offer a snapshot of the publishing news from this month. Enjoy!

1. Skills Gaps in the Publishing Industry | bookmachine.org 

This is a two-parter: two interviews identifying what skills are currently craved in publishing. The interviews, the first with Relations Executive Seonaid MacLeod (The Publisher’s Association) and the second with Resourcing Manager Stephanie Hall (HarperCollins), should be essential reading fodder for any publishing hopeful. Insights into publishing from industry professionals are incredibly valuable, but these articles go that one step further by offering newcomers an idea of what skills to develop to meet the needs of an continually flourishing business. The ladies tackle questions like “How easy do you think it is for publishing professionals to gain new skills and change roles?”and “What do you think are the best ways to gain new expertise?”. Want the answers? Click the link!

2. Everything You Need to Know About Publishing Industry Etiquette | writersedit.com

As a publisher, it can be very important to understand the writer’s perspective. Conversely, writers need to be clued up about publishing etiquette. This article is a great meet in the middle, useful for writers looking to get published and also for publishers-in-training, many of whom are learning about client management. This article, by Hannah Macauley-Gierhart, supplies us with 7 top tips for publishing success and impeccable client/business relationships, interspersed with nuggets of advice from leading houses such as Penguin Random House. Essential reading for anyone looking to go into account management or similar.

Image from: writersedit.com

3. Rise of the Engagement Editor | mediashift.org

It can be difficult when you first step out into the industry to get your head around the sheer number of job roles and responsibilities publishing encompasses. An article from Media Shift caught my eye this month all about a role I’d never heard of before – the engagement editor. All about coordinating a business’s digital strategies, the engagement editor is in charge of all things to do with user interfaces and community interactions. A great read if you’re just learning about the mind boggling amount of job roles on offer for publishing hopefuls and if you’re interested in the future of digital media and it’s audience.

4. How Does Networking Help? | thebookseller.com

Networking – you may already have heard people talking about how important it can be for your career. But how exactly should we go about it, and how can we actively make it work for us? Written by fellow English graduate (now the chair of the Society of Young Publishers) Anna Cunnane, this article foregrounds the importance of letting others in the industry know how well they think they can work with you. In her words, networking “will help to build a network of people that can vouch for you and tip you off when the next job is coming up, and to consistently prove yourself to be engaged and likeable by showing up to networking events” and she leaves us with some tips to help us make an impact. Awesome!

5. The State of US Illustrated Books | publishingperspectives.com

Image from: publishingperspectives.com

This article comes as a four-part series on the illustrated book publishing climate in the US (read them all here, here, here and here). This news is nothing groundbreaking and perhaps not useful for everyone (or in fact anyone haha!)– but I just love illustrated books (I even own the Wes Anderson filmography book, above). If this is an area that interests you too, this is a pretty comprehensive guide to what is going on right at this moment. The series, released all throughout August, touches on the digital world, e-illustration-Books, and how the consumer may have changed as well as its general current state. Lots of interesting things going on in this area, that’s for sure!

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Which article did you find most useful/interesting? And did you find anything interesting out this month that I would be stupid to miss? Let me know!

Book of the Week | Freakonomics

Economics has never looked so good

This week’s book is all about economics or, namely, what studying economic data can tell us about the crazy world in which we live. It’s a non-fiction book co-written by economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner and they really are a great team, not just in terms of writing but also research, ideas and mindset.

Published in 2005, Freakonomics is not a standalone print phenomenon. Their (amazingly-named) sequel, Superfreakonomics, followed in 2009 and there is also a great Freakonomics blog which you can find here, which helps the duo overcome the stagnation that content such as this can run into, as the world, data and research are changing every day. Indeed, this copy, reprinted by  Penguin Classics in 2006, is a bumper extended edition – complete with snippets from the blog, new preface and select columns from their original publication in The New York Times – and offers a tweaked perspective from the original as the world has marched steadily on.

If you’ve read “economics” at the beginning of this blog post and are ready to run away screaming from this book – wait just a sec. You may think that to enjoy this book you have to already know something about how economics works and have to be a maths genius. I am painfully bad at maths (I used to read novels under the table in my high school maths lessons) – I simply just don’t get it. Comfortingly, the economist co-author of the two, Levitt, is abysmal at calculus and is certainly not an economist in the traditional sense of the word. As a result, Freakonomics is one of those very accessibly-written books that aims to debunk  “conventional wisdom” and present facts in the form of interesting and cleverly-written narratives (it even made me chuckle out loud in various places).

So, you don’t have to be exclusively interested in numbers to read this book, you simply have to enjoy asking a lot of unusual questions and be curious about the answers. Tackled within this book are strange ponderings such as: “What do estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan have in common?”, “Why do drug dealers still live with their mothers?” and “How can your name affect how well you do in life?”. Trivia and popular science/sociology/history are areas that have always interested me so this book is already right up my alley. But, I think, it is a great read for newbies to popular non-fiction (I also recommend anything by Bill Bryson) if you’re into learning about how the world may really work underneath all the misconceptions. I think the title goes a long way in attracting all kinds of readers as it’s fun and turns the word economics on it’s head.

I love that Freakonomics is a fluid and continuous project rather than being just one book published ten years ago (2005 doesn’t feel like ten years ago – scary!). I think that the blog – i.e. the chance to stay relevant and to update their research as new theories and data become available – greatly benefits the readers, and even the general public as sharing online content is so easy and fast (my Facebook newsfeed is now 60% shared stories and articles, I’m sure). I am slightly obsessed with free, online learning (and am eternally grateful that free content on the Internet is able to exist and I am able to have access to it) and how much of our knowledge is often riddled with conventional wisdom (yes, I’m one of those annoying people who likes to correct common misconceptions, usually prefaced with “Um, actually…”). I think it’s incredibly important to keep questioning what we think is true and having this handy blog to hand is one way of doing in our day to day lives, including those of us who don’t really like reading print books/can’t afford to buy them all the time. Also, I didn’t ever want the book to end, so I’m extremely glad that I can get my knowledge fix on Freakonomics blog with some regularity (plus it helps that Superfreakonomics is already on my wishlist!).

Internet Mornings | New Things

During my mornings this week, I’ve been using Feedly to help me discover more and it’s working an absolute treat thus far. I have covered more virtual ground than ever before thanks to this little RSS tool, and making my mornings more enlightened, inspiring and varied. Since becoming a copyeditor last November (and after landing a new copywriting job this week – exciting times!), this week I’ve been using the expertise of various people on the Internet to give me a couple of tips, as well as to look at books and art.

1. 6 Best practices for Working from home | entrepreneur.com

Seeing as most of my work is done from home, this article was perfect for me. Even the work I do for the UPP I do from home, as our tiny office is a bit too cramped. It can be difficult to motivate myself and get all my tasks done without burning the midnight oil or getting distracted by the multitude of things to be done at home, and this post on Entrepreneur.com tells us how we can make the most out of our home workdays. From having set office hours to making sure you don’t spend all your time in your pyjamas, the article tells me all I need to know about maximising my productivity! I did see a difference when planning my tasks for the day, and ticking them off my list and I have always been an advocator of regular breaks to keep you on track – some really great advice here. Be sure to check it out if you yourself have a home office!

2. Publishing Children’s Books that matter | groundwoodbooks.com

This article talks about children’s and young adult (YA) fiction and what kind of books are chosen to be published for these audiences. Groundwood Books, based in Toronto, featured this post by their own Shelia Barry this month, and I think it it’s great. Barry essentially is speaking about her (and Groundwood’s) decision to publish children’s and YA fiction that has real world elements that apply to many young people around the world, not shying away from certain topics but instead choosing the ones which are perhaps harder to talk about – but are ultimately more important. I am really interested in YA fiction and I remember being 12 and reading 15+ fiction, and being 15 and starting to discover adult fiction for the first time, wanting to read about more challenging issues. I think the work this publishers is doing is very important (they are also working to help give more children access to reading), and will ultimately help literacy for young people become more appealing and everyday.

© Julia Rothman

3.Julia Rothman | Juliarothman.com

I love unique and beautiful books for all kinds of people, and Nature Anatomy (above) is one of those books.  I discovered this book through a design page I follow on Facebook and it’s immediately made it onto my Amazon wish list. This wonderfully illustrated book, by illustrator-artist-author-designer (she’s done everything!) Julia Rothman, can be fascinating for children and adults and is simply beautiful. Never has nature looked so good in pictorial format. Her illustrations and designs (examples of which you can see in the form of wallpapers, right) champion hand drawn elements and are full of charm, which makes this book (and her others) that bit more special. I will soon be the proud owner of one copy of Nature Anatomy and I can’t wait to have a proper look through. Julia is also pretty savvy when it comes to giving advice about publishing, licensing and selling your work – useful for anyone looking to start making their own designs.

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