Publishing By Degrees

I applied for this course last summer after years of considering a postgraduate degree in publishing. I specifically chose Edinburgh Napier University because I had researched the program and spoken with previous students about the course. It had been seven years since my undergrad and I was apprehensive about returning to higher education. I had crafted a comfortable life for myself and was hesitant to disturb it. But I was restless and I had always dreamed of living abroad and getting a master’s, so I summoned my courage, quit my job, and boarded a plane.

Pursuing a postgraduate degree is an ambition in itself. But pursuing a postgraduate degree as a mature student and one who’s moved thousands of miles away from home presents its own set of challenges. It’s doable and it’s a heck of a lot of fun, but you’ll run into some roadblocks along the way. If you’re a returning student, international student, or both, here are some tips and advice for how I survived my year on this course.

Find your friends. They’ll be your support. Go for drinks when asked. Get a coffee when asked. Find a society or a club and join it. I’d be lost here if it wasn’t for my friends. They become your family, your home away from home. You’ll be meeting loads of lovely people on this journey and your pals on the course will all be there at the front lines with you. Don’t let yourself feel alone.

Prepare for change. Seems like this should go without saying, but your life is going to change in so many ways when you come here. Explore your new surroundings, enjoy your new experiences, but don’t forget who you are and what makes you tick. Find ways to bridge the gap between your life now and the life you left behind. Do the things that make you feel like you or else you’ll end up feeling lost.

Get ready to be a student again. If you’ve been out of education for a while there’s a chance you’ll struggle with the transition back to full time study. I did. Classes and coursework will consume a great deal of your time but you’ll have to develop a structure or you’ll end up feeling a bit scattered. I wish I had pursued a part time job with a bit more gusto or had applied for earlier placements, as I think it would have helped me keep a better schedule.

Believe them when they say the year goes by fast. Make the absolute most of your time here. Seize the opportunities you can to gain experience while you’re on this course, because before you know it’ll all be over. This city has a lot to offer, so expose yourself to the publishing industry in Edinburgh as much as you can. Heed their advice and network, go to industry events and apply for placements.

This will be a challenging and stimulating year. It won’t always be easy but it will definitely be rewarding. This course prepares you for a career in publishing, but you’ll learn a lot of really practical and transferable skills as well. You might find it hard to adjust to student life, or to be so far away from home, but when you feel down just remember what you came here for. Keep working hard and keep pushing through because in the end it will have all been worth it.

 

 

Earlier this year I was fortunate to be offered a placement with the Traditional Music and Song Association of Scotland (TMSA). While they are not a publishing company as such, they do publish a variety of books and song books in association with publishers such as The Hardie Press, an Edinburgh-based music publisher, and Collins.

During my placement I got the opportunity to work in a variety of different fields – I conducted extensive market research for the upcoming event calendar, drafted social media posts and press releases for the new “101 Songs – The Wee Red Book 2” DVD, edited the DVD booklet, and even translated promotional material that will be used to market the TMSA’s publications as well as the association itself on the European mainland.

 

However, one of the most interesting experiences was the co-operation with The Hardie Press, a small, but successful company that has been in business for over 30 years.

Thanks to the great number of guest speakers who visited Edinburgh Napier University and the numerous publishing events I attended during my time in Scotland, I got a fairly good grasp of how most modern publishing companies operate, what their priorities are and how they choose their content.

Some of it can be quite daunting – for example the fact that quite a few publishers seem more interested in an author’s ability to build an author platform, engage with an audience or, to be brutally honest, their physical appearance (all of which has been mentioned on multiple occasions), rather than the actual content of their work.

While I understand these publishers’ rationale and am aware that the publishing industry is a commercial business – whether they want to admit it or not – I fear that this attitude will mute the voices of people who have important and beautiful things to say, but are unable to meet the aforementioned criteria due to mental or physical disabilities, an unwillingness to bare their lives on social media (which has been proven to have a negative effect on a great number of people’s mental health), or their inability to meet popular beauty standards.

It was therefore quite refreshing to work with a publisher who operates on a more traditional basis. The Hardie Press has no social media presence, maintains a very straightforward website and their decisions are rarely based on market research. While I am aware that this may not always turn out as well as it did for The Hardie Press, it is encouraging to think that a combination of the two may be feasible. The Hardie Press are currently attempting to bridge that gap.

 

It was one of my tasks to advise them on how to build a social media presence and improve their website. For this I designed a number of new logos for the company and even created a potential new website layout, which was a most educational and interesting task.
It will be exciting to observe how the company develops and I am glad I got the opportunity to be a part of the project.

I would like to thank my placement supervisor, Fiona Campbell, and everyone at The Hardie Press for making this placement a wonderful and instructive experience.

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In May and June I was given the fantastic opportunity to complete a work placement at one of Scotland’s most successful and exciting publishing houses – the fiercely independent Canongate.

During the internship, I worked in the Rights & Contracts department. Rights is an area of publishing I am already interested in, so I was keen to develop practical skills to add to the basic theoretical knowledge I had gained beforehand.

My placement started with a meeting with Caroline, Senior Rights Executive, and Pauline, Rights Assistant. After offering me a tour through the various departments and introducing me to the staff, they gave me an overview of what I would be learning during my time at Canongate and answered all my questions about rights in general, and my internship in particular.

Over the few weeks I spent at Canongate I undertook a variety of tasks, including logging royalty statements, processing foreign editions, sourcing book reviews, and much more. Under Pauline’s supervision, I was trained in Biblio and learnt in detail about contracts.

It was a pleasure to go through Canongate’s bright red door every day and work within such a committed and dynamic team, surrounded with the many foreign editions of their titles overflowing on the shelves, and sometimes distracted by Office Dog Sylvie. The Rights department at Canongate is a key part of the company – there is great emphasis placed on selling rights internationally and indeed, they have built a strong reputation from doing so. I could definitely sense that I was part of a hugely committed and skilled team, passionate about bringing Canongate’s titles to an international audience.

Some highlights of my placement? I was fortunate enough to be in the office for the celebration of the launch of their new website, which was an exciting moment. I’m also grateful for the opportunity to attend rights meetings and hear all about new acquisitions, submissions and deals pending – this allowed me to gain an insight into the strategies involved. Finally, prior to the placement, sitting with Caroline during one of her meetings at the London Book Fair and learning about how she plans her pitches was particularly informative.

This internship has helped me solidify my understanding of publishing rights and contracts, and gave me valuable hands on experience in the world of rights. I’ve become more familiar with some of the administrative duties involved in a rights department, while also gaining awareness of foreign publishing markets as well as a taste of how a successful team works together to sell sub-rights.

The team were great, very friendly and supportive; I would like to thank Caroline, Pauline and Andrea for such a fantastic learning experience! ♦

You can follow Canongate’s Rights department.
Sylvie sporadically appears on @canongatebooks

Alice F.
@alicesfischer