settting off on my own

S0, some of you may know that I'm having a very hard time finding a job. I can only ascribe this to bad luck as apparently, I interview very well. But it seems like every time they have loads of people with more experience than me. I have decided to take this lack of experience into my own hands (well, what else can I do if no one will hire me because I have little experience and I can't get experience because no one will hire me?). So, while I'm still looking for a job in publishing, I'm going to make the most of this time I have at home to set up my own publishing company dedicated to books I like.

I know it's going to be difficult, especially as I want to go into a fairly niche market (Steampunk) and I don't have a lot of money and I don't have experience of running a company. But I figure, as long as I can break even or at least not lose too much money, it's always experience that will look good on my CV. And there's always the chance that I will succeed beyond my wildest expectations.

It seems like a good source of posts for this blog which has gotten a bit quiet since I graduated. A new direction for it to go in and might also be educational to others whether I succeed or fail miserably.

If Science-Fiction is dying, let it...

it'll only find a way to resurrect and come back with awesome super powers.


I don't usually get involved in internet debates because, well, I never know about them until it's too late but this was brought to my attention by different people over the past couple of weeks and the subject is close enough to my heart that I've decided to butt in.

In yet another display of rather SF-ish non-fatal spontaneous combustion, the blogosphere is alight again as everyone tries to decide whether Science-Fiction is or is not “dead” as a genre. Number are being bandied about showing (usually) a decline in the number of sales of SF books and comparing those to other genres, including its close relative, Fantasy.
The truth, as I see it anyway, is that this debate has been had before and there is very little new to say about it. First off, you can't really compare SF to most other genres, especially giants like Crime and Romance.

This is because SF is a completely different beast that is aimed at a very particular sort of market. It takes completely different thinking muscles to absorb SF and see it for what it really is: the human condition, taken away from its natural environment and poked, prodded and probed into showing its true colors. A lot of people, intelligent, educated people even, just can't wrap their heads around it. Okay, their loss, but they are the majority and book sales are naturally going to reflect this.

Secondly, yes, Fantasy is gaining in popularity and there are huge amounts of new titles making the shelves. This is also natural, especially after the popular success of Harry Potter. Fantasy is much more accessible than Science-Fiction. People who previously would not have been caught dead in the Nerd section of the bookshop are now seeking it out. Does this mean that SF will die and only Fantasy will remain? I don't think so. After all, there have been some huge success stories in the genre but that's driven by a massive number of people buying books from a very small number of authors rather than wide success of Fantasy titles in general. The truth is that most Fantasy novels do as well as most SF novels, maybe they do worse actually, except perhaps in the YA market, it's just more showy.

SF is not a genre given to massive success in its literary form. It's a genre where success is measured in longevity and influence. Some books do well financially but because its not easily accessible to the masses like some Fantasy can be, you will simply never see the same kind of numbers. SF has been proclaimed moribund regularly for decades but if you look at pop culture, at life itself, you see that the great works of the past are everywhere. They have infiltrated almost every aspect of life with the stealth of a ninja. Compare the contributions of the Romance genre on the world with that of SF. People quote SF every day, use SF every day, think cellphones, cyberspace (a word and concept from Gibson's Neuromancer), the moon landing... Even Fantasy which is so commonly associate it with it that they often go together as SFF has not been assimilated as much into our collective consciousness. That's why SF cannot die. Because it touches people in ways they don't even realize. It's a slow process of contagion. All it needs is one Typhoid Mary.

Carrying on with the disease metaphor (because in SF we like our diseases, what can I say?), the virus has to mutate over time in order to defeat what we will call drug resistance. In this case, that means outdated tropes. SF flourished during the Cold War but we've moved on from those times and those worries. The things that scare us now, the things we need to strip of the real world so we can see it more clearly, are completely different therefore the genre naturally changes to speak to these new visions of the future, of humanity and the universe. What was relevant back then, is not relevant now and that is what SF is basically all about, being relevant. Some subgenres of SF are more popular and others that used to be are not. That is true of every literary genre. It is necessary to renew the genre, revitalize it. Maybe your favorite subgenre is not what it used to be, your space operas are darker or heroes less heroic but this is just a reply to people's needs changing. There are so many new subgenres of SF that there has to be something out there that speaks to you, just consider all the “something”-punk variety. There's something for everyone whether you want something that reminds you of Jules Vernes' books or you're more of an Asimovite.

Perhaps this is part of the problem. There is so much now that can be classified as SF that people just don't know anymore what is SF and what isn't. What is your criteria for what constitutes Science-Fiction? Does it have to have aliens? Does it have to be in the future? Consider Steampunk, that's still usually considered SF but it's usually set in an alternate past. Maybe the genre has become somewhat diluted and people are losing track of how much of it there is and the confusion comes from there. Personally, I think this is a very good thing. SF is not a genre that should be limited. On the contrary, it should be free to diverge, converge and diverge again. The ideas behind it should mix and hybridize like a million Captain Kirks set loose among the women of the galaxy.

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 :(

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

The Dreaded Interview

Someone emailed me asking about the interview process. Fool that I am, I had forgotten my password for the gmail account in the "about me" box. I've just recovered it but I was too late to answer this reader in time for her interview. I'm SO SORRY! I'm such a doofus sometimes! Well, most of the time, I'll admit it.

But, it was a good question, so I'll answer it here anyway (can't believe I didn't do it sooner, after all my agony over it last year!).

---

Yes, I had an interview before I was accepted at OBU. Mine was done by phone (at the inhuman hour of 7 am) as I was living in Peru at the time. Some people had to come to Brookes for a face-to-face encounter.

Let me tell you from the start that there really isn't much to worry about. The Lecturers are all very nice and informal, we were on first name basis with all of them since before the course began :) They're not looking to reject you, quite the opposite. If you're asked for an interview, you're pretty much there already!

They'll ask you things like:
- How do you define publishing?
- What do you feel are your strengths?
- What do you feel are your weaknesses?
- Why did you chose OBU?
- Why did you chose Oxford?

It's a conversation more than an interview, really. At least, it was for me.

Here is some general advice on how to do this (bearing in mind I've only done this once): relax, the lecturers are your friends and want you to succeed. It's hard to believe but I know these people and I can say there isn't one of them that isn't a good person. Leander might be scary but she's really a teddy bear (just don't tell anyone I said that...). Be confident, publishing is a business, a tough one at that, where people juggle big sums of money every day. Shyness is normal, they understand that (and most people in publishing are naturally shy), but it's very impressive if you manage to fight it off when it matters. They also know you're gonna be nervous. Speak with conviction, doesn't matter if you're wrong or if they disagree with you. They'll respect you more for thinking for yourself. Don't be arrogant though, they don't tolerate fools easily (especially not Leander - can you tell she's one of my fave lecturers yet?).

Oh, and don't prepare too much or you'll get stuck if your interviewer deviates from the script you've imagined. Take it easy, it's mostly a formality.

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.

Another letter from a would-be student

Hey there!

I'm planning to apply for the Publishing course at Brookes in Sept '09. I wanted to know how the course is, how you find the course structure to be, the faculty and the uni? Also, how many people do they take in a class?? Is it really hard to get through to this course?? Do you know much about the other Publishing courses (UCL,Kingston,LCC,Stirling

,Plymouth and City?)

Thanking you,

Hi

I'm glad to help. I'll handle your questions in order :)

1. The course is very intensive. We learn a lot of stuff very quickly and by the end of the first semester we knew enough to work in any department and possibly publish a book on our own. There are 4 mandatory modules, 3 (Editorial Management, Marketing management, Production and Design) are taken in the first semester and the 4th (New Product Development) is in semester 2. Everyone, regarding which of the Publishing M.A. (straight M.A. in Publishing, European, Digital etc) they're doing, has to take these modules. Then in semester 2, you also have to take 2 other modules that you get to chose (Digital Media, Rights Management, Children's Publishing, Magazines and Independent study in which you pretty much get to make up your own module etc.). The classes are half lectures which the Lecturer teaching and the other half is seminars or workshops in which we do some practical exercises usually divided into smaller groups.

The Lecturers are all great and very helpful. There are a couple whose teaching style is a little lacking but they make up by being happy to answer questions and see you in private if you need more help. It's fairly informal and we call them all by their first names, so you see, it's really very friendly. Everyone's here to learn so it's not a problem that we're so informal. Some of the lecturers are born comedians so their lectures are hilarious as well as informative.

The uni has a computer room just for publishing in the Tonge building with all the software used in the publishing business. We mainly learn to use Adobe InDesign which is the most widely used now. There's also Quark but if we want to learn how to use it, we're on our own.


2. The mandatory modules are for everyone and there's no limit to the number that can be. This means that everyone taking any of the Publishing M.As. will be there. At this time, that's about 75 of us. Of course, some people don't show up to classes and prefer to learn on their own using the lecture slides and the part-time students don't take all the mandatory modules at the same time so they're only there for one or two modules every semester. It sounds like a lot of people in one room but it isn't that much really and the lecturers are very good at reaching even the people at the back (I know because that's where I usually sit :D). For the elective modules, we're in smaller groups. There's no limit to how many people can be in one class but they're usual self-limiting in that there's many modules and people have different interests and goals so the main group breaks up into smaller ones. Children's publishing and Rights Management are the ones with more people.

3. I didn't find the classes to be too hard but they do demand a certain amount of work and, in my opinion, it's important to go to every class. It's not really possible to start your assignments at the last minute, for one thing, because a lot of it is group work. You don't get to chose your group so you never know who is more or less reliable. There's some maths involved in Marketing and Production which some people have a hard time with but I was terrible in maths in school but found it fairly easy if boring. Another possible difficulty is whether you can learn software easily or not, then there's the design aspect where some people are just naturally better at it than others. But I've seen everyone's Design projects and was very impressed by them.

4. I know that the City and Kingston programmes are good. City especially has a good reputation. I looked it up a bit because I applied there too. I think the difference is in how theoretical vs. practical the programmes are. Otherwise they teach more or less the same things. City is in London so that's one thing to keep in mind as well.

Have a look through my blog at http://publishingu.blogspot.com

I talk mainly about what I'm learning and doing and things like that. I'm not a very regular poster but there might be something that could interest you.

I'll be happy to answer any other questions you have.

End of the semester crash

As of Friday, I'm on holidays. I hadn't realized how exhausted I was until I finally crashed yesterday and spent most of the day asleep. I'm still tired right now even though I went to bed early and woke up later than my usual.

Looking back at the semester, I realize just how far the lecturers have gotten us. I started the semester thinking one year was not enough to be any good at this. Now though, I realize I know more about certain aspects of publishing than my supervisors at work and I understand pretty much everything else that's going on, why they do certain things etc. I also have a decent knowledge of marketing (although I really do not enjoy doing that kind of work and will not go into that if I can help it) and I notice the clever things other people do to get you to buy their stuff. In fact, it's kind of taken over my brain. I'm always spotting things I tell myself "I gotta remember that for when I'm working". It's evil. I also know about production, how to order a book, what paper and what kind of press should be used etc., stuff most people in publishing don't know or care about because they have other people to do it for them.
And finally, I know how to make a book look good.

One of our project this semester was to design a non-fiction fashion book. I was skeptical at first. We'd never studied design before, let alone book design, were just learning the basics of Adobe InDesign and didn't exactly know what was expected of us. We had a look at all the projects on friday and it was AMAZING! Everyone's work was professional and the look fit the purpose of the book. You had all sorts of styles from the traditional, discreet catalogue to gorgeous, striking and elaborate. Some people had a very classy, discreet look and other very modern, eye-explosion stuff.
We're going to get a CD with all the projects to have a look at. I am really impressed with how far we have come in less than 4 months.

I'm slowly realizing that I know enough to completely create a book from scratch all by myself. Not a lot of people, in publishing even, can do that. This is really a very well rounded program and although I often complained about having to take marketing when I don't want to go into that, I can see why Brookes students get hired so easily. We have a good knowledge of what everyone else does and how hard/labor intensive it can be and makes us better at collaborating.

I'm really looking forward to next semester, starting in 02/09. I'm taking the mandatory "New Product Development" and two electives, Children's Publishing and Digital Media Publishing. It should be really interesting.

Reader response to the Green publishing post

Going through my spam infested inbox today, I came across a response to a past post about the environment and publishing. I'm reposting it here in the hopes that we can have a discussion about the topic which interests me enough that I'll be doing my dissertation/major project on it.

----

Hi Chantal,
I've just been reading your blog and tried posting a reply, but being the non-blogging luddite that I am I decided that email was easier anyway!
I was also at that seminar (I was the one asking about the impact of ink and water usage). What struck me as surprising is the seeming acceptance of inaccurate print runs. In all my experience of publishing, including a few yeas of postgrad study in Australia, I've learned that getting your print runs right first time is a crucial factor to running an economically viable publishing business. In the old days of printing from film it used to be much cheaper to do a short print run and then do a reprint when your stock ran out. Nowadays with computer-to-plate (CTP) processes it costs much more to do a reprint because the plates have to be reproduced.
What we were taught in my postgrad program is that a smart publisher gets their print runs right first time - don't print too many or too few. Pulping also costs money, and is obviously a huge waste, and I'm quite surprised to hear that it may be common practice (maybe it is here in the UK more than Australia). If publishers want to be good, they have to do their research before they sign off on their final print run. Pulling numbers out of thin air is not good business practice. Researching the market and knowing that you can sell every single copy of your print run is good business practice.
Perhaps pulping should be more expensive, or perhaps should be penalised more. Perhaps publishers/editors who end up pulping their stock because they've printed too many should be penalised by having their performance bonuses reduced.
There are many things we can do to make a difference (even if it's only a small difference; it's better than sitting back complaining and doing nothing).

Good luck with your publishing career (and studies).

Cheers

------

Now that our classwork revolves around calculating costs, I understand what you mean about the cost of plates. It is pretty high and printing more seems to be almost always more economical than printing less. I think most people would rather just overestimate the number of copies they can sell rather than run the risk of missing out on sales when booksellers run out of stock.

I like the idea of coming up with some kind of punishment for waste although I don't know how it would be enforced fairly. Everyone will be trying to assign blame somewhere else, "the publisher overestimated the number", "the bookseller didn't do their part in the marketing process" etc. I think people won't try hard enough until they care about it for their own sake/conscience. I guess I'm still very naive :)

Answering Questions

I'm posting here a conversation I had through Facebook (oh, how I love thee Fb!) with Julie (check out her very informative comment on Books Don't Need to be Perfect, btw). She's currently an editor in South America considering coming to Oxford Brookes. Welcome to the blog Julie, hope you stay, I'd love your insight into the realities of working in publishing, in South America or elsewhere :D

----

Hi Chantal. It's nice to hear from another south american young publisher :P ((Chantal: I am half Uruguayan))

I have lots, and lots, and lots of questions, the first one (two in fact) would be the obvious one(s): why did you go to Brookes? Why an MA in Publishing?
Oh, I am not sure if you want to write in spanish or english, so I just did in english, but whichever one is ok for me.

Thank you for your kind answer :)

Julia

To answer your questions, I've been meaning to go into publishing for at least the past five years (that's why I did my B.A. in English). [...] I figured with an M.A. I'd probably get interviews fairly automatically, not to mention better paid. The M.A. shows commitment and it counts as serious work experience too.

I looked up other places like City University London. I got interviewed as well. In the end though, Brookes won out because the lecturer who interviewed me was very informative, the program sounded great (they help you get work experience, seriously, within the first 2 weeks I was working at a local small publisher!), the lecturers are all currently working in the industry, they have guests over all the time and it's in Oxford ;) I found out when I got here that Brookes' is pretty much the best publishing program in the country and one of the best in the world too. Some of my coursemates are working for HarperCollins, Oxford University Press and other big names. The classes are very practical with one half being theory and the other all practice.

The price is steep for sure especially if you don't have a student loan (I don't) but I definitely don't regret it. Everything about England is expensive but I'm finding once you get into the rhythm of things, you can manage.

From a more human side of things, I've never been as happy as I am here. Yeah, there's some downsides (like costs and being away from family and friends) but the people in my course are so much fun. Everyone is very nice and although there's starting to be a couple of conflicts between some people (sometimes it's a downright "telenovela"), we go out together a lot, we can talk comfortably, we even help each other out when someone has financial problems. It's like nothing I'd ever gone through before. The lecturers are very friendly and available and hilarious (some of them make us laugh all through class). They're a little quirky sometimes (if you come and meet Leander you'll see what I mean :D) I honestly think OBU is the best choice when it comes to publishing programs.

From what you say I guess in South America is easier to get a job in publishing than in Europe (that kind of scares me, hehe). I got my current job without even meaning to, without even knowing what I was getting myself into. However, there are indeed fewer publishing houses. But there are also a lot of different kinds of always-available freelance jobs (translations, proofreading, evaluation of new material), and if you know the right people you'll almost always be required as a freelancer. Anyway, I am on the "lucky" side of the permanent staff of a publishing house, so I don't have to worry if there's job available or not :)

Which leads me to ask: what kind of work experience (what kind of tasks) have you had in Brookes? For how long? Are they paid? Are they compulsory for the masters?

Also, which of the masters are you taking? Why? I see at the website that there are different paths, like European Master in Publishing, Publishing and Language, International Publishing, etc, etc. It's kind of confusing to tell which one would be suitable for me (something related to language sounds perfect, but all of them are soooo appealing :P).

I started at the end of september at a small academic publisher. I'm doing mostly marketing there, every monday 9-5. What you'll be asked to do depends on the where you're working but everyone's been talking about lately about how they give us an aweful lot of responsibility for interns and they ask for and trust our judgement.

Work experience isn't paid but most of them will reinburse any traveling fees (bus etc) to and from work. Mine even pays for my lunch :) They're not compulsory and I know plenty of people aren't doing any but they are highly recommended. Of course, since you already work at a publisher, you don't really need more experience.

I'm doing the simple "M.A. in Publishing". The others are interesting but I plan on staying in the UK or go to North-America afterwards anyway. They're all good and really, mostly the same. Right now, semester 1, we're all doing our classes together. In semester 2, those in European etc have 1 module that's compulsory to them that my group doesn't have. It's really the only difference.

One last question that I thought of today: what about entrepreneurs? are there any students whishing to stablish their own publishing houses? Any special approach that you've seen?

Oh, there are quite a few who would like to start their own publishing house someday. Not right at the end of the M.A. I think but after they have some experience.

One of the girls in the course runs her own charity in Africa and is doing the course so she can use it to support it. Oh, now that I think about it there is one person who's studying so she can open her own company in Macedonia but she's been working in publishing for a long time.

Honestly, we learn so much, we could probably handle a small publishing house on our own but experience is really important so I don't think we'd do it so well. Better to work for someone else for a while.

Julie has a blog (in Spanish) at http://juliejolie.net in which she sometimes posts the funny things that happen to her as an editor.
I know I haven't posted about the paper issue. Sorry! In my defense though, I found a chapter of a book that ties in really well with that lecture. I'll read it through and come up with a decent post that's extra informative to make up for it.

Dirty little marks, Publishing and the Environment

Last Tursday, I attended a talk on "Greening your Publishing". The presentation was supposed to be about how you can make publishing more eco-friendly. Let's face it, it's one of the worst industries that way. I'm all for being greener even if I'm often too lazy to separate my trash. I do buy organic as much as possible and avoid wasting energy and water. It's a first step. I'll get better.

Anyway, I and most of the classmates that showed up were pretty dissapointed. The presentations didn't really propose anything new and there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the already employed audience and presenters. I understand that publishing is a business and that books are absolutely necessary or I wouldn't be studying this but trying to be eco-friendly is good. Token gestures to be politically-correct or for good PR is pointless. Basically what they were saying is "try to buy recycled paper or from legal wood farms but if it's too expensive, whatever, the buyers aren't going to care anyway".

We did learn a few interesting things though.

We had no idea just how much paper was involved in the publishing business. Obviously we knew it was a lot, duh, but what goes in books is only part of it. Aside from the obvious waste of paper in offices (unnecessary photocopies, printing etc), the practice is to print about twice as long a run as is likely to sell which means that half of the books printed end up being pulped. The problem is, once pulped, that paper can't be recycled into book grade paper again.

What do they do with those books? Sell them for cheap to tissue/toilet paper companies. In the words of one of our presenters, "I happen to know for a fact that we are XXXX loo paper." So now you know, you're wiping your bottom with someone's deathless prose.

There are some publishers making more of an effort than others, Earthscan is the leading publisher on all things environmental and apparently they're doing their best to be carbon neutral, whatever that really means for the environment.

POD might help though. There really is no need for gigantic print runs when you can do several small runs fast and affordably. We touched a little on ink but not much. One of the things they didn't discuss until someone asked was about water. Lots of talk of paper but no water. This brought out the fact that the paper industry is TERRIBLE for water. They are finding ways now to use the toxic remains of making paper but from what was not said, I assume it's not going great. Plus, there's the social aspect. A lot of paper is bought from poor Asian countries where people are displaced so they can grow more trees, everywhere ancient forests are cut down, companies illegally cut down trees they are not supposed to touch etc.

There are organisations that research companies and vouch for their practices but the problem is that the paper is expensive. Also, the term "recycled" paper is used for virgin paper that's gone through the process again and some companies "recycle" their own paper just to put the label on it and get an automatic pass.

We also learned that the price of paper is going up all the time. The world basically runs on it, think about it. Paper is everywhere and in everything. It takes a long time for a tree to grow and there are almost not enough of them to keep up. Publishing relies on paper so the more expensive it becomes, the less careful we're going to be about where we're getting it. Depressing.

Books are a necessity but so is nature. I promise I'll be as eco-conscious a publisher as I can. Publishing isn't the whole guilty party though, paper is much more important to us than to many other industries. If they would please lower their consumption of it, maybe there'll be more of it (and the good kind) for the rest of us?

And we're off!

Wooooo...

Today was Induction/Enrolment day. I was a little worried that something would go wrong at the last minute (as it usually does) but everything went super smoothly. I met up with people I had met at a pub outing and then again on monday when we had a Chinese buffet dinner (we owned that restaurant that night!).

I have to say, I'm very happy with my classmates! I've never been very comfortable talking to people but today, I was a perfect socialite. I talked to everyone! I was really comfortable with all these people. It felt perfectly natural to start chatting with someone I had never seen as if we were old friends.

The day started in the Buckley Building which houses the publishing center. It's a very modern building, all glass and white painted metal on Headington Road. I got there very early so I helped Ros Ockwell, the Senior Tutor, set up the cookies and booklets. Good cookies.

The room was fairly packed with all the Publishing programs students as well as art students (not that many of them really). They dissappeared after a while to go do their own things. Claire (with an "i") talked a while. She's really quite funny and...she quoted some silly things I'd said on the facebook group, which goes to show you really do have to be careful what you say online. It was the best thread ever, I was in tears reading it.

We laughed a lot during the prof's presentations. One of the more important things we learned today was that there is Claire and then there is Clare. Or the i-less Clare, if you will. This is crucial to our success at Brookes.

I won't bore you with a detailed retelling of what we're going to do because it wouldn't mean much to you in one dose. It'll come up anyway. We already have a little project to complete for next week but tomorrow it's IT workshops and such. We've recieved our schedule for the semester and it looks like it's going to be fairly intense. We have one day free (monday) so that'll be work experience day. Somehow, I'll have to find time and space for a part-time job AND homework in all of that. I might even have to actually work to get this degree (*le gasp*).

We finished the day with pictures and a social. We had wine and chips (and the cookies). We mingled, talked, laughed a lot. I got to talk to all the people I hadn't talked to before as well as the professors all of whom were great and not intimidating at all. Well, maybe Leander is a little scary...

I'm the kind who sticks close to the wall during social events and leaves as quickly as is polite. Today was the first time in my life when I didn't want to leave but I was starting to feel the effects of the wine and, regardless of what Leander says, I didn't want to make a fool of myself (not yet, anyway). I mean, these were all relative strangers!

If things keep going this way, I think I'm going to have one of the best years of my life. No exageration. Well, I might be a little giddy from the booze but I don't think so. I can tell classes are going to be hard but I'm feeling so motivated and eager to start. A very strange feeling indeed.

Mandatory Intro Post

Oh hai! I want to be an editor.

I'm a wannabe fiction writer (by which I mean I have never been published and have a hard time applying BIC-HOK). I write mainly YA fantasy lately. I also write short-stories for adults (not that kind of adult stuff - SFF and Horror mainly - mind out of the gutter!).

My writing is very important to me though and I am determined to be published some day. In the mean time, I need a job that will keep me clothed and fed. In fact, writing kind of takes second place to survival although some of my writer friends may disagree.

Why, why, why would I want to go to the Dark Side? My fellow writers might ask.

A: I can't imagine doing anything else (not quite true, if they offered me a job on the International Space Station, I'd drop everything and go). I'm sure you other authors out there as well as those of you who come here because you are contemplating going to university to do the same thing understand implicitly why I am attracted to the business. I'm not romantic about it. Being paid breadcrumbs is...well...hard on my Atkins. I've always been crazy about books, I can't walk past a bookstore without stopping in even for just a quick look. What better job than one that allows you to make books? I know, I know... as an editor you don't really have time to read for pleasure... but it's better than nothing and certainly better than most other jobs I'm qualified to do.

There are loads of blogs by writers, editors and agents out there with a huge amount of very good advice. This blog though is mainly about the things I learn that the pros already in the business don't even think about anymore. It is about my ascent into the Mountains of Madness* and subsequent Descent into Evil. It is also for those who like me, had a hard time making their final decision because there isn't as much info about studying publishing as there is for say Medicine. Is it worth it? Will it land you the job you want? Will it make you sexy and help you score with the men (or women)?

I'll find out for you.

* That's from Lovecraft, btw.