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Duckworth publishing

The last internship was at Duckworth publishing, a publisher originally set up by Virginia Woolf's half brother Gerard Duckworth in 1898, but bought over by ex Penguin CEO Peter Mayer, the books are an eclectic bunch of fiction and non-fiction including several co-editions and new editions. The company thrives on US generated content, but there are some original voices to watch out for particularly Rohan Kriwaczek and Eric Klinenberg. A book I'm dying to read that's topical, although not revolutionary would be Going Solo. 

The words of its leader and former Penguin head, Peter Mayer, ring ominous (and true) even today when he once described the editorial quality of these books as echoing the voices of past greats. "The past need not be the dead past. If we get it right, with new books, the past can be a beacon for the future."

Charles McCarry is an author they're trying to bring over to UK next year. His books enjoy a good fanfare here. Spy thrillers, espionage novels and crime. Among the duties I performed included editing and proofing the AIs and Duckworth catalogue, preparing the basic press releases and filing press clippings and publicity and sales materials for the entire booklist of the first quarter of 2013. About twenty five books for the entire year (so far). Proofreading and suggesting changes to its editorial director and sales department were the main duties I undertook, while also researching literary press contacts and packaging and mailing invites for the publicity division.

One of the greatest things about this office are the friendly staff and Jamie maintains the sanctity of office hours for temp workers, and will never let you go over 10-5, and the reason this is especially good is, that it forces you to finish all your work within this timespan as well as enjoy an hour long lunch break in between. Ain't that neat? And the best was I got to spend all my time on a Mac again.

From Fitzrovia to Farringdon: The journey has been deep, albeit fleet footed. If Fitzrovia was the high street overladen with wealth and beautous sun facing luxury towers and offices, Farrington must be the Berlin of London;every morning I see the b(r?)awling artsy poor from last night's party scumming it into the early rays of dawn happily shuffling past single minded, many minded and absent minded throngs of office goers. Which one are you?

A Publishing Intern at Kyle Books-- Cookery, Health and Gardening

Hi, that's who I have been these days... (see above, albeit for 2 weeks)

Day 1: SMEAR PESTO ON SKIN

To my utmost thrill and horror, it was a MAC!!!!! (A mac a day .... and there's a million ways to finish that phrase). The Kyle Books catalogue was the first thing I was asked to make acquaintance with.

I was left drooling all over chocolate and cake and cheese and lexical odysseys into culinary delights of present day London. All kinds of gastronomic exotica leapt out of Kyle Cathie ltd.’s multimedia and print matter. This was going to be difficult, especially if I was not going to be able to buy half those delights (of course all books would come priced to me at a special discount of 35%), good motivation to keep at the grander objective, and perhaps careers do rise like a soufflé, as critics tease about a certain boy who bakes to Britain's glory ever since he ditched his banking past. You can read more about his books and bakes here.

Kyle asked me to check out the cheapest direct flights from London to Maldives and return. I had no idea Thompson Airlines existed, and not only did they exist, but they offered direct flights to Maldives and back for cheap. Flight websites always assume you have fixed dates of travel, and not that you like reading their timetables, unlike bus or train companies.

Sophie the editor asked me to begin my research on world grains for Ghillie James' book Grains and Rice (June 2013). So, I created a spreadsheet with a focus on grains for UK, Iraq, Pakistan, Paraguay, Mexico, China and South Korea.This would aid the author in researching sourcing and writing relevant recipes pertaining to each region, in her book. 

The editorial group was larger than I had imagined, with about four editorial assistants, who managed the ground work and followed up with authors once they declared what books they planned to write. 

Armed with wishful calories, the next task would involve compiling AIs and publicity materials for about hundred books from the period July to December 2012, including those not yet ready, to send to sales agents who looked after buyers in Asia. Although it looked intimidating, it returned me to my favourite programme, Acrobat.  

Day 2: DIP BREASTS IN OPEN PAN

The Rights and Co-editions coordinator kept me busy with collating advance information sheets, printing covers and spreads (also called--blads!). Here is when I realized the totality of the process and how each department works in tandem with the editorial, in putting together sales copy, cover spreads and content for books for co-publishers in Europe and USA. I also learned the courier logistics while using Seabourne services and sent out packages as a follow up for communications between the Rights director and certain clients and publishers abroad. Rights is so lucrative, and although digital is not a big part of Kyle’s books’ strategy—they face no immediate threat, with the presence of a large gift books’ market that is not yet too comfortable cooking off I-pads or gifting appy materials over the physical books—it was very interesting to learn about the kinds of books that do sell and don’t. And how invincible Curries are, worldwide, and in Germany for instance! But Single themed books make for the best Co-editions, Allison warned. Like Soup Glorious Soup! Foreign digital rights are still in their infancy (with USA leading the chase), and very much a part of their author contracts.

I researched five broadcasters and their birthdays for Kyle, and then ran down to Camden town to purchase 5 kilos of Ethiopian Mocha for the office and its boss--who has a long term relationship with the Camden Coffee House (which I am thankful to have visited).

I am getting Mac-er by the day.

Day 3: SIMMER UNTIL BRONZE

Fiona asked me to go through the entire stack of press clippings for Katie Caldesi's The Italian Cookery Course since its publication (2011) and extract the best mentions for the reprint of the same book. 

I continued to compile book information for proposed co-editions and publishers in Germany and USA. Titles of certain books keep getting changed at the last minute, so you have to keep checking with editorial. So the editorial process is at the very heart of publishing. A lot of press coverage happens for cookbooks, and cookery, with so many celebrities competing their recipes and diets and TV shows; it is a very cut-throat industry, punnery and all!  Camilla Punjabi's 50 Greatest Curries is one of the hottest exports, and Meat Free Mondays, is a huge seller too! Allison mentioned that despite the fact that cookbooks bring in the most revenue UK cookbooks don't translate very well in Asia, just as gardening books don't enjoy that much of a rights market in Scandinavia, where climates are more extreme and the growing season utterly different. 

Is cooking recreation? Or survivalist?  Because the genre feeds a range of budgets and mouths, wallets and stomachs, making it the most commercial or revenue generating aspect of their business model, (mostly because they are celebrity endorsed, and or partnered with restaurant or retailers). The grammar books and other minor walking and geography books, sell well in Asia.

With so much controversy brewing over whether highly illustrated cookbooks will survive, in the future and with people saying apps might do for cookbooks what still visuals never could, I am convinced there are enough people in London hankering for delicious looking feel good recipe books.  

Asking what is the difference between whole wheat and whole grain is like asking what is the difference between a carrot and a vegetable? However, these are answered at length by the chef-writers in the process of their books. There are no defined genres in Cookery, ingredients and recipes overlap, recipes get slashed and rejected in the bodies of email and the packaging for emphasis is key. There are odd ball genres, like Grammar Rules, and The Complete Verse by Yeats, and English phrase books, but these satisfy different book palettes, and make for great gift books overseas.  

Day 4 & Day 5 & Day 6 were spent putting together rights information for export sales and rights directors.

BIKINI JAMES

James Duigan is one of Kyle's regular authors who writes about how to flatten up, and get lean and clean on his no fuss diet. I notice a big tendency with co-authorship in cook-books, Katie Caldesi and her husband being one, and James and his wife, being the most recent I remember.

I am falling in love with some of these delicious books. Maybe I will go on a 14 day diet, in the absence of a swimming pool. Berries are the official office breakfast, it appears. You get them for a pound a pound by the station!

Editors and assistants are often rushing off to shoots to capture stills for the books on the shelves and videos for their you tubes and social media virals. 

One such afternoon he called and I answered the phone. I learned, that "sugar is like a nuclear fat bomb exploding all over your body" ;)

I am still torn about conflicting messages with relation to Coffee and the body. Some say it improves memory, others that it gives you cancer. Excess, in either condition, is no answer, I suppose.

AND A PINCH OF SALT

Ultimately, I ran into the new intern, very young, just turned 21 and had spent the last year teaching English in Paris until she realised books were more compatible than students! Together we made book jackets for books that will be taken to trade fairs by Sandy and Catherine.

I have soaked in two weeks of crash course in publishing house interning. I will also remember everyone, the beautiful macs, the spacious sunny office overlooking the broad high street, and hopefully get to stay in touch too.

Until then, I am very much going to be a Chic on a shoestring.

J

Cattle gazing, Ewe teasing and Book selling at the Royal highland show '12

Cattle Gazing, Ewe teasing and lots of Book selling (at the Royal Highland Show) on Flickr.

'The buffalo ate my homework, Miss,' moaned an eight year old.

'What do you mean?' boomed his teacher.

'It looked hungry, so I offered my en-cy-clo-pe-di-ya.'

Years later, he would die in his own plane crash; but he was the only one his classmates would remember as the kindest boy in class who fed his cattle books.

* * *

I spent this past weekend selling books at Publishing Scotland's stall in the Royal Highland Show 2012, Europe's largest agricultural show held in Ingliston each year at the draw of June. We were stall 837, in the corner between Silver Pride Jewellary and a pianist and organ seller who provided complete 10 hour live musical entertainment with his symphony and orchestra each day. This was the first time that Scotland's trade association for publishers decided to enter the trade fair as an exhibitor, to spread awareness about Scottish publishing, Scottish books and the importance of such a trade and knowledge resource at hand. The point was not necessarily commercial hard-sell, but a PR initiative, we were oriented. (For purely commercial activities Publishing Scotland already had a big presence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August each year, where the point is hard selling, and buyers overwhelming).

Footfalls at the Highland shop nevertheless increased by the day, as did sales pick up from a lean Thursday up into a frenzied Sunday. Katie's Ferm and Katie's Moose (Waverly) were probably top favourites on the books' list, nudged closely by Maisie's Activity Book for children and Animal Farm (the Scottish alphabet) as well as books on learning Gaelic, and books about the local wild and managing the native pinewood revealing a hitherto hidden demand for books by the Forest Commission. In between shifts, one experienced attractions like cooking demonstrations including by celebrities like Nick Nairn, horse racing, show jumps, sheep shearing, tug of wars, fleece shows, poultry paegants and caraways.

Fooled!

Is this what Nicholas Talib refers to often?

KHUSH WANT singh's Poem

Does this means he Wants Khush (Happy) all the time?!

This poem made me very Khush today.

A member of the Delhi Gymkhana Club at 92 years, he wrote this for the DGClub newsletter:

‘Pickled In Rum’

The horse and the mule live for 30 years,
And know nothing of wines and beer;
The goat and sheep at 20 die,
And never get a taste of Scotch and rye.
The cow drinks water by the tonne
And at 18 is mostly done
Without the aid of rum and gin.
The cat in milk and water soaks,
And then in 12 short years it croaks.
The modest, sober, bone-dry hen
Lays eggs for others, then dies at 10.
All animals are strictly dry,
They sinless live and swiftly die.
But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men
Survive for three score years and ten,
And some of them, though very few,
Stay pickled till they’re 92.

A Digital Publishing Internship

I’m doing an editorial and production internship at Blasted Heath, and just finished copy editing two volumes of crime fiction by Gerard Brennan and Ray Banks, some fine crime noir of short, gripping tales that were an utter relief to soak into. Crime novelist, literary agent and more recently digital publisher Allan Guthrie, discussed the changes with me, in what was a very enlightening and engaging session. Some very quick highlights and lessons I gained as a copyeditor (for fiction) follow:

Be consistent, if correct. (Be correct)

Do not un-hyphenate compound adjectives. If they follow a noun, then you may.

Blood-covered dust but Dust, blood covered.     or of course, BLOODY DUST!

If you are not sure, comment, but do not change.

The Author comes first,  knows better.

Do not mess with dialogue.

Do not change the writing unless the author is technically wrong.

If even one dictionary spells like the author, go with the spelling.

Americans love the Oxford comma, more than the British. 

Do not suggest editorial changes, as a copy editor. Okay to think ahead, but think straight. 

More later!