rights – Publishing By Degrees

Discovering the World of Rights

A few months before coming to Edinburgh, I had my first experience with the publishing industry in Mexico. I happen to know a young writer whose first novel was about to be published, and luckily for me he let me help in the process. One of the main things I noticed after reading the manuscript, was its intertextual quality. To create the rhythm of his writing, he constantly quotes other authors, poets and philosophers. As a consequence, the book is full of ‘hidden’ references, only noticeable because they were set in italics. As stated by the author, his intention was precisely that the identity of his own words and the ones borrowed became blurry by not mentioning any sources within the text nor in any reference list. At that time, we weren’t aware of any copyright norms, other than the academic way of referencing. Of course, we understood the importance to give the appropriate credit to IP, nevertheless the editor didn’t mention any copyright issues. Actually, he told the author that referencing to the original texts was optional and that no further action was required.

Fast-forward to the present and I’m halfway through the MSc Publishing course. During the last few months I’ve been able to learn about the different areas of the publishing industry, one of them being rights management and acquisition. Learning about rights in publishing was overwhelming, since I never imagined it to be such a complex and exploitable area. Continue reading “Discovering the World of Rights”

Bookie Updates: Submission Day!!

The whole team is busily beavering away, finishing up for the submission of both of our book projects for our final assessment – which will ultimately decide whether our books will be sent to our chosen printer, Bell and Bain!! We are all so excited for finally reaching this point, regardless of all the stressful days and numerous obstacles which have come our way – we are so close we can almost see the books!! When we look back on what we have managed to achieve: editing, financing, producing, negotiating rights and marketing TWO books in just 13 weeks – I can speak for all of us in saying how proud we are of ourselves and every member of our little Wednesday Team!!!

In recent weeks we have been able to finalise so many things, from confirming the support of Cordelia Fine and Helen Sutherland who are providing a foreword and an author biography for one of our projects (GO Rights Team!), The Day Boy and The Night Girl – for more details check out our Project page: The Day Boy and The Night Girl – through to the production of the covers for both books, which are looking amazing. A big well done to our awesome production team!!

Collectively we have done so much to pull together and we have been able to achieve so much!! The Publishing Degree Show is coming up very soon and is open to the public from Friday 23rd of May until the 1st of June. You are all welcome to come along and see this year’s projects. There are also opportunities for you to get involved and vote for our selected covers for Ah Dinnae Ken. There will be four to choose from and we would love to hear what you think about them and vote for the winner.

This is a sample of one of the covers that will be on show for Ah Dinnae Ken:

And one for The Day Boy and The Night Girl:

We are also continuing to approach independent bookshops across Edinburgh and even researching retailers further afield; however, our sales are strongly dependent on your interest. Therefore, if you are really interested in getting a copy of our illustrated edition we would love to hear from you, and hear which bookshops are convenient for you and which you would be interested in purchasing from.

If we can find reassure bookshops of the interest that exists, we can create more sales and make them more accessible to you. Please send us a comment or a Facebook message if there is anywhere you are particularly interested in. Any bookshops interested in buying a number of copies please feel free to contact us also.

Meet the Maisie/Pushkin Team

Hello. We thought it was about time we introduced ourselves.

We’re students on the MSc Publishing studies programme at Edinburgh Napier University and we’ve recently started working on some exciting new projects for Merchiston Publishing, the University’s long established in-house publisher.

We are one of two groups working on four different projects for Merchiston Publishing this year. Our team are in charge of two of these projects – The Pushkin Prizes Anthology 2014 and Maisie and the Night Visitor. To find out more about both projects, visit our Live Projects pages for The Pushkin Prizes Anthology 2014 and Maisie and the Night Visitor. You can also follow the @EdNapierPublish twitter to keep up to date with all of our projects.

Project Managers

Georgia Walters and Eve Scott

Heading up the team are our enthusiastic, organised and committed Project Managers, Eve and Georgia. As the driving force behind our team, both Eve and Georgia have been instrumental in getting both projects going and we have every faith that their determination and passion will carry us through any challenges we may face. Georgia is taking the lead on The Pushkin Prizes Anthology 2014 and Eve, who has been a Maisie fan since she was young, is in charge of Maisie and the Night Visitor.

Here’s what they had to say about the projects –

Georgia Walters (PM) The Pushkin Prizes Anthology 2014-

“I’m honoured to be part of the team publishing the latest Pushkin Prizes anthology. Fraser Ross Associates has generously allowed us free reign in showcasing 2014’s winners, and we hope to do justice to the 26-year history of the prizes whilst adding our own new design and ideas. As students ourselves it’s lovely to be helping to inspire the creativity of our younger counterparts.”

Eve Scott (PM) Maisie and the Night Visitor-

“When I learned that Merchiston Publishing focuses on Scottish authors, the Maisie series seemed like a perfect fit. I grew up with it so it’s really exciting to have the opportunity to add a title to such a fantastic series. We’re working closely with the author to add some special content to this tale and we’re looking forward to launching this special limited edition to celebrate 30 ‘amaising’ years!”

Editorial

Team: Keara Donnachie (DM), Saskia van der Lingen, Chris Byrne and Annie King

Our super editorial team are ready to battle against poorly constructed sentences and excessive use of exclamation marks! They are involved in everything content-related, from the initial stages of adding content, right the way through to editing that content to make sure it is of the best possible quality. Armed with red pens and a sharp eye for detail, they are ready to catch any rogue commas that may threaten our projects.

Production

Team: Gaby Barrios (DM), Alix Thomazi, Laura Will and Melissa LoParco

Our lovely production team are the artsy, creative types behind the projects. They’re in charge of making sure the projects look great. They think you should always judge a book by its cover, so they have one of the most important jobs. With their InDesign shortcuts memorised they are ready to go and they have already started work on some fantastic covers for both projects.

Finance/Rights

Anastasia Gorgan (Rights DM), Harriet Leslie, Doug Sloan (Finance DM) and Xin Dong

Arguably the most important decision makers, these guys are there to make sure we are following all the rules and to stop marketing from spending all their money on a helicopter trip. They have the difficult task of budgeting, contacting printers and dealing with contracts. We’ll let you in on a secret: we’re not quite sure what they get up to, but we imagine that when they aren’t dealing with finances and rights they’re off fighting crime or something equally impressive . . .

Marketing

Team: Becky Brown, Leanne Butchart, Michele Cheng, Jack Evans (DM) and Candice Sooknarine

Lastly, it’s us: the marketing team. Or as we like to be known, the five marketeers! You’ll hear a lot from us over the next few months as we promote our exciting new projects. Armed with nothing more than enthusiasm and an endless supply of cat puns, we hope to act as the mascots for our projects and can’t wait to show off the work done by the rest of our team members. We’ll be tweeting, posting, organising events, creating videos and just generally being enthusiastic about everything (especially that helicopter trip!).

That’s all for now.

Stay tuned for more updates about our projects soon!

What happens when you mix publishing and fashion?

You get outofprintclothing, an independent fashion company that produces t-shirts based on iconic out of print book covers. They treat covers the way they should be, like pieces of art that should be appreciated every day. The best thing of all is that for every t-shirt bought they donate books to communities that need them. I just stumbled across the website and thought that everyone would appreciate this venture.

More after the jump.

Continue reading “What happens when you mix publishing and fashion?”