M.A. results are in!

Well, when they said we'd have our results on 01/12, they really meant it. The dissertation marks went online to our PIP pages exactly at midnight. Luckily I was spared having to worry by the fact I was online finishing NaNoWrimo (which I won by the way! *strut*).

So now I can say that I REALLY have an M.A. I mean, I've been saying that I have for months now on my CV but then, I didn't think I'd fail. But now I can proudly write on my CV that I got... A DISTINCTION grade! I mean, sure, it's just a 71%, barely distinction worthy but still :D Although, to be honest, I think they're going to call me any day now and say "sorry, made a mistake, actually, we meant to type 17% and that you failed".

o.O Oh no! Just realized that this means that my diss will be in the library doesn't it? It means anyone can read it and realize how crap it is and then I'll have my M.A. taken away from me at some indeterminate time in the future... Gah!

Because it's interesting

First things first, just got an email to inform us p-grads that our results will be online on Monday 22! *stressss* I'm fairly sure I passed every module but I'd love one more distinction (I only have the one I got in Production and Design last semester). Not that it really matters but it's nice and would be a nice way to finish.

I'm definitely not going to get a distinction (that's above 70 here in the UK, weird) in my dissertation because 1) I've hardly been working on it, 2) it's not the most interesting subject in the world (at least, not to me but how much is natural interest and how much I'm biased by dread... I don't know) and 3) at the pace I'm going, I'll be pulling crazy all-nighters which means it'll be decent but riddled with typos.

It's ok. I just need a passing grade and then I out of Academia for a looooooooooong time. THANK GOD!

But speaking of the dissertation, I've been doing a bit of reading and I'm finding Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture really interesting. It's available for free online (under a Creative Commons licence of course :) ) and well worth a read. It's also very easy to follow rather than uber academic so never mind if your brain isn't wired for sesquipedalian prose, mine ain't either. It's been relatively easy finding good sources for pro-CC arguments but I can't seem to find the anti-CC arguments unless they are cited in pro-CC literature. Any help would be welcome...

One of the interesting things (to me anyway) that Lessig mentions is how Doujinshi culture works. Doujinshi are manga created by the average Japanese Joe, some of who have amazing artistic skills but nevermind that, that are sort of like fanfic but for manga. The rules are that your doujin cannot be a mere copy of a manga, it has to add something. Legally, it's copyright infringement but the reality is that the trade and sale of doujinshi is a huge market and there are very few cases where copyright holders sue. Part of the reason for this is that doujinshi helps manga's commercial success in Japan.

So, would derivatives such as fanfic help literature sell better?

My opinion is that for some genres such as Science-Fiction, Fantasy and Crime (Adult and YA versions of all), it probably would. This are genres that already have quite a lot of fanfic going so I'd say that shows there's community interest in getting involved and manipulating the lit. If you'd encourage that to go in certain directions, it could produce interesting results. I need to think more about this...
But I don't think it would help sell more memoirs or chick lit... I could be wrong of course but I just don't see it.

the update

So I haven't posted in forever. So sorry, got caught up in stuff.
First, the semester is FINALLY OVER! Thank all the Gods Humanity has ever worshipped! It was seriously starting to get long and exhausting. But we did learn an aweful lot like, I don't like to work in a team :p We spent a whole day watching everyone's presentations which was really interesting. I only had a very small idea of what everyone was doing so I was really surprised by how good everyone else's projects were.

That said, I thought some of them really weren't viable if it had been a proposal for real. But the ideas behind it were really intriguing. We don't know yet which group has the best proposal. I have no idea when we'll be told but I sure hope it's us in Education :D I think we had a very solid proposal. Maybe not the most exciting but in the real world, it's usually the safest option that makes it. Sad but true.

I think my favourite idea was the Trade Fiction division. They were going to do a range of lit in translation but they would translate best-selling novels from other countries rather than literary fiction which is what most commonly gets translated. It's a great idea but I thought it wasn't very realistic. It demanded a very high investment and the risk would have been really high. Still, I would have loved it if someone did that. Also, their presentation was really funny.

We're now in Dissertation/Major Project time but I have done very little work which is making me very stressed which makes me procrastinate even more. Not a good combination. I wish I had picked a Major Project rather than a dissertation. The schedule is more obvious :) Some people on the course are doing real projects for real publishers as in making actual books that are actually going to be sold in bookshops. It's scary but it sounds so awesome too and you have resources and money to do it. I would recommend to future students that they take one of these on (they are usually advertised by lecturers or they come and give a bit of a presentation and take CVs and stuff). I didn't go for it because I thought it was beyond my abilities but I wish I had now. It also counts as awesome work experience and looks amazing on the ol' CV.

I keep forgetting that the dissertation needs to be bound so I have actually a bit less time than the deadline. I really should be working harder :(

London Book Fair

The LBF was my second book fair ever, the first one being Frankfurt way back when. It has the advantage of being close by but somehow I spent almost as much money in between getting a hair cut and getting there and other stuff I can't think of right now but managed to empty my debit account. Seriously, in two weeks, I ended up going from 100GBP to 0.36! Oh and, American friends (and friends from elsewhere too for that matter) if you need a haircut, don't do it here. Regardless, the fair gave me an excuse to go back to London, which I love (probably because I don't have to live there), and it also meant that I had a legitimate reason not to do any NPD work. That's a big plus. Another one was that as a volunteer and a student, I didn't have to pay an entry fee (£40). Another tip, if you're a student and want to get in for free, you need to preregister online. No one told us this and boyfriend ended up having to pay the full fee to get in. He was so pissed he only went one day.

I think I enjoyed this fair better than the one in Frankfurt. Part of it is that we were better prepared, we know more about what is going on in the industry so we were more interested and knowledgeable about the products certain publishers were exhibiting. Another thing was that we could go to seminars which broke up the hours of aimless wondering through the stands although I found the seminars fairly vague and general and I knew most of what the speakers were saying already (minus the exact numbers of course) maybe they weren't very good speakers or maybe Brookes just prepares us really well. I'll go with number 2 ;) It was also much smaller, as in, a small fraction of the size of Frankfurt. And I still managed to get more free stuff. LBF FTW!

I was doing some volunteer work but that was very light. Just change the paper at the door with the title of the seminar and make sure the speakers had water. Most of the seminars pretty much ran themselves and I didn't even need to do that. After that, I could leave if I wanted to. Which I did only once because the seminars were fairly interesting. Also, my first one was a talk with James Patterson and I got to shake his hand and got a free hardcover too. There was this scary woman managing everything, really scary. I was very intimidated. Also, there was police on the floor, woot, James Patterson is so VIP :) It was the most interesting talk too, about literacy and getting boys to read. I have to say the talks on literacy and getting boys/teenagers to read were the best of all those I went to. I learned about this effort called "Headspace" run by teens for teens that creates library spaces where teens are encourage to spend time relaxing with music, internet and of course books. Apparently, they're quite successful in getting kids to start seeing books as fun. I missed the talk about Spinebreakers which was a shame because apparently it was excellent and everyone was very impressed.

Other than that, I got to try some food prepared by international big name chefs and even chatted with a Peruvian one, yay! I got four free books (that's 3 better than Frankfurt) and loads of publishers bags (which I kind of collect) and other neat freebies :D

Canon Tales was a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone thinking of going to the Fair next year. That's also were I managed to ambush Cory Doctorow and got his card (I want to interview him for my dissertation) so there, I made the day count for something, academics-wise. Of course, I'd had a bit of wine beforehand so I'm afraid I babbled a bit and wasn't very coherent. Oh well, I'm sure he doesn't even remember anymore and as long as I get my interview, who cares?

Creative Commons

Heya,

so, here's a post about something publishing related rather than university related. I don't know if I told you that I'm doing my dissertation on Creative Commons. It's quite interesting although I'm not passionate about the topic. I wish I were but I chose my topic very last minute and 'til this day I can't think of anything else that gets me very excited. Depressing. You'd think I'd have some kind of passion. I'm dead inside!

Anyway, I spend most of the morning reading Cory Doctorow's book, "Content". The book is available as a free download on his website under a CC license (appropriately enough). It's a collection of essays that covers a very wide range of topics from DRM to fanfiction and a very engrossing read, even for those of us not particularly good at understand legal issues of any kind. I read it cover to cover even though some of the topics didn't relate to my research at all simply because he makes it accessible and very readable.

It's very relevant to current issues in publishing and other creative media and I recommend the read to aspiring writers, publishled authors and people currently in or wanting to go into publishing. It makes certain things clear that I was very confused about.

Cory Doctorow's website is at www.craphound.com

Research Proposals

So, Research Proposals are the devil.

We have to write a 2000w. proposal for our dissertation. Based on this paper, they will assign us a supervisor. The thing is, the proposal assumes you've done some research on the subject already: how are you going to research the topic, what resources do you have/need, what's your schedule, how much money etc. I mean, most of us just decided on a subject at the very last minute.

BTW, mine is "Open Access and Creative Commons: Giving your Work Away for Free" . Working title only :)

So here I am, trying to write a proposal that will be acceptable (it's not graded but if it sucks, they don't let you do a Master's but you can still do a post-grad diploma - that's the course minus the dissertation/major project).

I'm not especially interested in Rights but as the proper Humanities scholar that I am, I'm more interested in the social aspects of this topic as well as how I can think of making it profitable to publishers (because I want a good grade on this project ;D ).

I'm kind of looking forward to writing my dissertation but I'd enjoy it more if I didn't have the mammoth NPD project at the same time, let alone the DMP blog to fiddle and update regularly (as my faithful readers will know, not my strong point) and a looooong essay for Children's. Oh, and work experience, which is getting progressively more boring and routine.

*sigh* I can't wait to finish the course and get a real job.

Oh and, I will try to post something other than me whining. I was thinking maybe a post on the history of Children's lit or something like that, distilled from my class notes. I just have to work up some motivation to do something course related. I need a holiday...

Now it feels more like a Master's course!

Phew! Week 3 and already there's lots of work to be done. The way I see it, I have it pretty easy. All I have to do is read a couple of articles on Children's Publishing that Claire assigned, do a bit of research (more because I'm interested than because I have to) and do some NPD research. This last bit is not very stimulating but I think it's mainly because I'm not too thrilled with the project and the group.

Oh well!

On the other hand, the Magazine module looks tough although the Lecturer is usually so much fun. Boyfriend has to write a 3000 word essay on a cultural subject rather than straight publishing. It's on Men's Magazines (yeah, thooose) which is an interesting topic but involves a lot of research an 3000 words is a LOT!

We also have to hand in our official dissertation proposals next week or the week after that. I've barely even thought about mine. I think having NPD and dissertation work in one semester is exagerating. The NPD project could be a dissertation all on its own! It's that huge and stressful! I mean, it's very interesting from the point of view of getting experience of how it's supposed to work in a real company without risking real money on it but it's a lot of work that is a bit too much like the editorial project for my taste. I don't know, maybe I'm panicking prematurely but I feel it like this weight on my shoulders all the time, even when I'm not really thinking about it. I guess this is how a postgrad is supposed to feel.

Trial by fire and all that.

The new semester has begun!

Meh, classes started again on Monday. At 9 am with Research Methods (for our dissertations/major projects). It was very exciting to see everyone back together again though. I was ridiculously perky. It's that "first day of school" thing, I guess. I wouldn't know because this is the first time I'm experiencing this which, in my opinion, speaks volumes about how much I've been enjoying myself here.

We have 5 student from Paris X university over as ERASMUS exchanges. I started chatting with them. It feels so good to have someone to speak French to! They're quite nice too. Someone had the good idea to invite them to Jazz night yesterday, which I had completely forgot to tell them about. So we had a chat over the music. The Bullingdon (a.k.a. The Bully) has live jazz every tuesday in the backroom. The Bullingdon is right in front of Tesco on Cowley Road. It's something of a regular thing for a lot of the people on the course. It's very good. I meant to go more often but I'm a lazy bum who doesn't want to go walk down the hill to it (and then back up again).

We also had New Product Development on Monday. It's a class that brings together everything we learned last semester. It's a role-play class! We're "Buckley Publishing" and are divided into groups that are different division within the company. I'm in the Education division (meh). We each have to come up with a new product that will fit with our goals (slightly different per division according to our "profile"). It looks like it's going to be labor intensive and the groups are huge! 9 people! It was bad enough with 4-6 last semester! We're all going to end up hating each other!

We also handed in our dissertation registration forms. They're going to assign us to Research methods seminar groups that are relevant to our subjects. In the end, I've decided to go with Open Access and Free audiobooks. I wanted to work on an ecological topic but I couldn't come up with one especially interesting angle to work on (that's what happens when you have too much interest in something I guess) and I was going to touch on digital media anyway so now I'll do it the other way around. Incorporate some ecology into a digital dissertation. I'm quite excited about the subject now and looking forward to starting to work on it.

I have Digital Media class this afternoon where, get this, one of the assignments is to have a blog and update it regularly. I've got the blog part down, I'll need to work on the updating regularly thing though, heh. We'll also be graded on how we customize our blog which I don't know how to do yet but we'll be taught and on the research that goes into the posts. Yes, I can't use this blog for the class (*le sigh*) but at least I have some blogging experience and I'll be able to make this blog better too. I love it when things work out that way. We'll also be covering Photoshop and Dreamweaver, two programs I've used before and some other two things I can't remember and have never used.

Should be fun, all in all.

Dissertation or Major Project Subject

*Sigh*

The time is coming soon when I have to tell the lecturers what the subject of my dissertation or major project will be. I think I want to work on an environment and publishing subject but I need to narrow it down to something. I can't think of any one particular subject I want to concentrate on.

I'm also interested in Open access, YA, fanfiction, podcasts and blogs. If I could just find a subject that joins at least a couple of these interests, it would be great. I wish I had something I was really into then at least, no matter how bad an idea, I'd know what I want to do. There's a girl in the course who wants to do hers on Twilight, which I think is stupid (not the books, as a topic for postgrad work in publishing) but at least she knows what she wants.

I'm starting to get worried. There really isn't that much time to pick a subject for work that will take months to do and will determine whether I get my M.A. or not.

New Year! Wooot!

Happy New Year everyone!

I get ridiculously excited with the New Year. It's the only holiday I care about (after Hallowe'en). It's 2009, that's one year away from the geektacular year, 2010. I've only made one resolution for this year that I think I can stick to. That's to keep on losing weight and reach my target this year. Should be okay, it's only 30lbs to go. I've already lost around 70 so...easy...

Sorry I haven't posted more often but I'm still recovering from semester one. That was a lot of learning. I'm also stressing a bit because I need to come up with a dissertation/major project topic this month and to be honest, I have no idea what I want to work on. The dissertation/mp is the single most important bit in getting the M.A. Either you do the dissertation, a long written piece or the major project which is more hands-on (some people produce a book, some run projects bringing literature to some disadvantaged area (one girl wrote and produced a book which she went and distributed in South Africa bringing chick lit to the poor) etc.)

There are a lot of very interesting topics. I'd love to do something children's and/or environment related. I had a crazy really good idea but the more I think about it, the less I think I can do it. It's very complex. I'd also like to research this whole thing of podcasting stories and novels for free which I find very intriguing from a publishing point of view (not just as a wannabe writer).

I've been talking to one of the lecturers about the possibility of starting my own podcast within the frame of his Digital Media class. He said he'd be happy to show me how to go about it and host the podcast although it wouldn't be graded because it wouldn't be fair to the others that I get to make up my own assessments. So, there might be a Publishing U. podcast sometime in the future. I don't know exactly how to go about keeping a 'cast, Gods know it's hard enough to keep track of a blog and find something to write semi-regularly. What am I going to talk about?

Still, I've wanted a podcast for ages. It'll be a good learning experience if nothing else.