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In October I joined the close-knit team at Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh, and we were recently delighted to be named the 2019 Independent Bookshop of the Year in the Scotland category of The British Book Awards, also known as the Nibbies. We’re also chuffed to be shortlisted for Children’s Bookseller of the Year and Individual Bookseller of the Year, with the results being announced in May.

My role is primarily assisting with events, which range from book launches to book groups. The former involves liaising with authors, publishers, and guests to ensure the events run smoothly and overseeing logistics such as POS displays and merchandise, catering, seating, tickets, and sales. For the latter, I spearhead the monthly Short Story Clubs and YA Book Groups, selecting and preparing readings and facilitating group discussion.

For the YA Book Group, which debuted this year, I’m aiming to work through a range of author experiences, genres, and formats, ensuring we’re reading as widely as possible. Golden Hare is constantly innovating and finding new ways to be even more inclusive and representative. I’ve really enjoyed all the debates inspired so far, as we’re all pushing to read beyond our familiar genres and authors. Continue reading “Working Events for an Independent Bookshop”

With the semester is coming to an end it can only mean one thing: one step closer to entering the workplace and one step further in leaving university. Upon reflection, I have learned more about publishing and the impact that the industry has on society.  I have learned the importance of pushing to pursue a career in the field that may suit my skills in the future. It hasn’t been an easy year but it has certainly opened my eyes to what may be out there. Opportunity’s to attend events have been flowing in, such as SYP and LBF, to name a few and although I never did attend it is good to know that these exist to educate people on the industry and to network.

It’s been inspirational to see so many creative ideas formed throughout the course and I have even surprised myself, with the potential to not only create something new and exciting but challenge myself along the way. To me the software introduction such as Photoshop and InDesign have been my biggest challenge but also my most rewarding, and so I hope to continue to work with these in the future. I have learned the complexity of working out Adobes features, to piece together why they are relevant. In my latest project in which I have invested a lot of time due to such an interest I feel this is most relevant to the entire years’ coursework.  I have the passion of realising my own book has new potential and now with the right knowledge and direction I can push on with this project, on my own terms. The knowledge from the course has widened my experience and if anything taught me that there is still so much to leant after university has ended. The learning will be continuous, which is exciting as it aids in shaping a path for the future in publishing whether this be design, editorial or more personally becoming an author myself, it is an exciting path to take.

I hope to seek an opportunity in the publishing industry as an author soon but still feel I need to explore my options. The difficulty I have learned is that I still have areas that contain weaknesses and so are good to work on in the future. For example, editorial skills which are important could be easily improved with practice, workshops or mentoring and is overall key to further motivation in finalising my project.

With conferences like SYP and they provide an opportunity to network and although I never took advantage of this it is good to know there are events such as this to aid others in publishing.

Being a student at Napier and having the opportunity to study Publishing at a MSc level has been challenging. This challenge has been amazing and taught me the unexpected and why now more than ever, publishing is an important to our economy and education. To learn about publishing houses and companies alike that contribute, has truly opened my eyes and motivated me to want to learn more.

In 2019, the industry looks as promising as ever now that I have had more insight into what to expect. I look forward to graduating and finding my path into where I fit into it all, as anyone should. Knowing where my weaknesses are in aid to me in being conscious enough to be able to develop my skill set and work on what needs to be improved. As I leave behind the security blanket of university and seek opportunities in the real world, it shall he exciting. So far, my only goal for the reminder of 2019 is to begin to piece together all the current knowledge and exploit this to pursue in becoming an author in the industry.  Its exciting to know what 2020 shall bring and what changes in the industry shall occur.

If you look through this site, you’ll be able to see examples of the sort of amazing things that people do while studying publishing at Edinburgh Napier University. What I would like to talk about is a little bit different. It is what I have spent the most time doing over the past year and it is probably the most important thing that I do.

InDesign, it is a computer program by Adobe that has become the industry standard in book and magazine production. It is in the same family of products as Photoshop and Illustrator and more importantly, it is my friend. Continue reading “My Friend InDesign”

Hi, I’m Angus, one of this year’s batch of MSc Publishing students. My work placement involved editing some of the very first titles put out by The Wee Book Company, who publish in Scots and nothing else. Since I’m the kind of gadgie who likes to lecture others, I’m going to use this platform to share five wee tips for writing and wrangling with Scots.

Narrative Voice vs Dialogue

Something you’ll hear again: Scots is a spoken language. The page is not its natural home.

This means that in a first person story told by a Scottish character, you’ve got full license to write in their voice, and be as chatty as you like. Imagine the character is sitting in front of you, relating their tale. Scots isn’t for internal monologue. Scots is for speaking.

Which means that in third person, you might want nothing but the dialogue to be written in Scots. After all, third person narration is usually supposed to be neutral, and disembodied. If you have it speak in Scots, it becomes a person. Point in case: Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song.

Who’s Speaking?

Scots is a spoken language. There’s no official, standardised version. So when you write Scots, you really have to ask yourself: who’s speaking? Who we are affects the Scots we speak. Consider:

• I is Eh in Dundee, but Ah in most of the country. Eh dinnae ken.
• Is a 9 year old Fortnite addict speaking the same Scots as Granny? Naw, he’s no.
• Is @ScottishPatterr retweeting Victorian-era Scots? Nae chance.
• Do the suburbs sound just like the schemes? Tak a guess, Einstein.

Sense of Humour

Think of how modern Scots manifests in pop culture. Irvine Welsh. Chris McQueer. Limmy. Chewin’ the Fat. Burnistoun. Still Game. Are these smart people? Yes. Are they writing brilliant stuff? Yes. Do they give the impression they take themselves incredibly seriously? No. I’m not saying Scots English can’t be dour, direct, and deep. In fact, those first three guys on my list do dabble in the darkness. But not before they entertain you.

Spelling Consistency

Scots is spoken. It doesn’t have standardised spellings. The page isn’t its natural home. Blah blah blah. So when you do put Scots on the page, does it matter if spellings switch between ‘I’ and ‘ah’, or ‘highlan’, ‘heighlan’, and ‘heilan’? To some it might not. Don’t try to impose your rules on a rule-free language, they might argue. I decided that in the case of The Wee Book Company, I disagreed. I didn’t want smart alecs like me to be able to flick between two different pages, and see the same word spelled two different ways.

So, if you’re editing a big chunk of Scots writing, I’d suggest making a spelling grid. That means picking out every word with a contentious spelling, and settling on the rendering you think is most suitable for the piece. Later on, of course, you can always break and bend the rules, but to do this you need to have a rule to disobey in the first place.

Learning from the Greats

Did I mention that Scots is a spoken language? With no rulebook to follow, you’re better off following precedents, and learning from the Great Masters. That’s what photographers, painters, and filmmakers do. Why shouldn’t editors? Why shouldn’t writers? Here’s a recommendation for free: The Acid House by Irvine Welsh. Inside this collection of mostly insane short stories you’ll find a least half a dozen different ways to write Scots prose and dialogue, and you’ll probably end up very jealous of just how clever Mr Welsh is. Bawbag.

For UK based Persian to English translator Shahab Vaezzadeh, fiction translation is a rarity. It’s something a little bit different from his day-to-day commercial translation work. Translating literature is more collaborative and as language is generally freer in literature than British Council briefings its translation can throw up different problems to commercial works, i.e. what should be done with the longer sentences, higher frequency of adjectives and tendency towards onomatopoeic words that are far more common in Persian than English? Shahab addressed all these issues at the Contemporary Iranian Literature, Translation and Performance Workshop, put on by Visiting Arts. As well as other issues that are relevant to the publishing of translated literature.

Visiting Arts, organised the event alongside Comma Press and the Edinburgh Iranian Festival, as a means to a means to promote Iranian literature and translation in the UK, which they’ve been doing for the last ten years. The event included a workshop on live translation as performance art taken by Nazli Tabatabai-Khatambakhsh, an alumnus of the Visiting Arts’ National Centre for Arts residency programme. Nazli also gave a reading of some of her recent writing. Continue reading “What goes into a translation: lessons learned from a Visiting Arts translation workshop”