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First Visitor Talk of 16-17: Nikki Simpson, PPA Scotland

October 13th, 2016 by morven_gow | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on First Visitor Talk of 16-17: Nikki Simpson, PPA Scotland
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ppa-scotAt 2.45pm on 6th October, with a retinue of publishing students bearing boxes of precious periodicals, Nikki Simpson (Business Manager at the PPA – Professional Publishers Association) strode through the seemingly endless corridors of the University of Stirling. She was a woman with a mission. Her aim, to convert Unbelievers – those students convinced that their future lies 100% in the world of book publishing rather than that of the magazine.

A passionate presenter, Nikki soon had many of the most hardened book career diehards rethinking their options and goals. The PPA represents over 700 magazines in Scotland, an industry valued at £154m which supports 1,300 full-time, 560 part-time and 4,400 freelancers. DC Thomson is the largest employer with around 600 employees, but the smallest publisher could have a couple of people working on a “passion project”. Annual events, the international Magfest (make a note in your diary, 15th Sep 17) and the Scottish Magazine Awards (The Beano won in 2015), provide the perfect platforms for the industry to celebrate the drive and passion of those working to produce regular magazines of the highest quality. The PPA is also planning to open a centre for magazine publishing in Edinburgh which would act as a hub for the industry and raise the profile of the sector. Exciting times!

magsThere are three areas of periodical publishing – Consumer, B2B and Contract. The boxes were soon opened and magazines representing each of these areas passed around. To appreciate magazines, it’s vital to get hands on and we certainly did. Delighted sounds filled the room as we were given a design lesson in the art of the mag. Everyone is familiar with the glossy mag, but what caught the imagination in Nikki’s presentation was the sheer variety of paper stock used and glorious typography and images. Smooth, matt, cut outs, glow in the dark, QR codes, VR – seemingly unlimited creative options. Titles like Modern Farmer, Delayed Gratification, Boat, Little White Lies, Oh Comely, ‘Sup, the Gentlewoman and Hot Rum Cow had many fans and turned the head of many a committed book careerist on the day.

It’s worth remembering that the big players are those with circulations audited every six months by ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations). The UK top five are: supermarket mags for Asda, then Tesco; TV Choice, What’s On TV, and Waitrose magazine. Their combined circulation figures, a mighty 6.8 million.

What makes a magazine successful? Nikki explained that in addition to the basic funding models of subscriptions, copy sales, advertising, and crowdfunding, brand extensions via websites, apps, award nights, supplements (even shops in the case of Tyler Brule’s Monocle) are all so important. The issue of ad blocking was discussed. Half of us in the room admitted to using these. After Nikki’s cri de coeur against their use for magazine sites, “Die! Die!” but “I love your content!” and the particularly vivid “ad blockers stab newspapers in the face”, those students using adblockers were swearing off using them again.

Nikki covered 16 possible career areas in magazine publishing from design to insight, through ad sales and procurement – and editorial, of course – as it’s always worth keeping an open mind regarding opportunity for experience.

She rounded off her rallying call for magazines with examples of cutting edge creativity – links below.
Marie Claire
Augmented Reality

Paper Tablets

Google Glass

Following questions from the audience, those magazines which had been objects of desire during the talk were handed over to some lucky recipients, and our first visitor talk in this semester came to an end. Nikki’s presentation had qualities essential for a career in magazine publishing – passion and creativity – and she succeeded in making many of us consider a career in magazines for the first time.

By Morven Gow

Elena Ferrante’s ‘Unmasking’: A Publicity Boost?

October 11th, 2016 by Otieno Owino | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Elena Ferrante’s ‘Unmasking’: A Publicity Boost?
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ferranteWhen, on Sunday 2nd October, news started trickling in about the Italian author Elena Ferrante’s ‘outing’ it was on Facebook that I first learnt about it. Soon the news spread on Twitter and went viral.

Following a trail of financial transactions by Ferrante’s publisher Edizione e/o, Italian journalist Claudio Gatti presents a strong case that translator Anita Raja has been the beneficiary of the success of Elena’s books, and that she is indeed the author of the critically acclaimed Neapolitan novels among other books. The publisher and Raja have not confirmed or denied this claim.

In this digital age, where writers and readers have become a community, and engagements between the two groups continue to become intimate, I was surprised by the reactions that followed. Deborah Orr commenting on the Guardian said the revelations violated her right to not know, while Aaron Bady, an American critic, questioned the logic of this ‘outing’. Most people in my reader circles were outraged at the sheer intrusion of privacy and the fact that whatever persona Ferrante had chosen to identify herself with was not important but the quality of her work, which many agree is among the best.

Could Ferrante have been an exception? That even in this age, a writer could stay out of social media, blogs, and only offer a few interviews on select mainstream media and still move books? The number of her books sold tell their own story. The success of the Neapolitan novels My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child have shifted a combined 372,760 copies in the UK according to an article in The Bookseller, which cites Nielsen Bookscan Data.

What a massive boost from a publicity point of view. Online literary magazines such as The New Yorker and LitHub, have picked up the story as well as other major news sites and magazines including the Guardian, New York Times, Independent and the Daily Mail, to name a few. Many readers who would not have heard about Elena Ferrante will by now have heard something about her.

But there could be good news from this after all. According to the Bookseller, retailers say that Ferrante’s ‘unmasking’ may lead to increased sales in books. And perhaps Claudio Gatti will have to find ways of looking into Anita Raja’s financial records again to verify if the figures correspond with increased sales.

By Otieno Owino

Welcome to the MLitt in Publishing Studies 2016-17

September 29th, 2016 by cs48@stir.ac.uk | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Welcome to the MLitt in Publishing Studies 2016-17
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mlitt1617_cohortThe new academic year has started up again, and we’re delighted to welcome the MLitt in Publishing Studies cohort of 2016-17.

This year’s students come from many different places in the world, representing the global diversity of the publishing industry. We have students from Scotland, Northern Ireland and England, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, France, Germany and Greece, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, China, Kenya, India, and the USA.

We look forward to working with them over the coming year!

Publishing Studies Showcase 2016

April 26th, 2016 by Frances_Sessford | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Publishing Studies Showcase 2016

Staff and students at Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication would be delighted to see you at our annual Publishing Showcase on Wednesday 11 May 2016. As ever, we will be joined by our Industry Advisory Board to celebrate this year’s publishing students’ achievements.

The venue is Pathfoot C1 and C2. The programme will begin at 3pm with a panel q&a session featuring members of our Industry Advisory Board (Marion Sinclair of Publishing Scotland; Katy Lockwood-Holmes of Floris Books; Adrian Searle of Freight Books; Simon Blacklock of Faber; Kelvin Smith, publisher and author; and Christoph Chesher of Taylor & Francis. At 4.15 we will move straight on to the Publishing Showcase, featuring work from our MLitt Publishing Studies students (below).

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Whether you’re a graduate of the programme, a possible future student, or part of our publishing network, please do join us. Please do drop us a line so we have a sense of numbers via our Contact page.

Spring Semester Bookends: Saraband & Innerpeffray

April 20th, 2016 by Johan Sheridan | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Spring Semester Bookends: Saraband & Innerpeffray
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On February 11, 2016, we welcomed Sara Hunt from Saraband Books as the first visiting speaker for the MLitt in Publishing studies in the spring semester.

During its 22 years in operation, Saraband has created popular, illustrated reference, history, and arts titles with a certain amount of mindful dispirit. The Scottish publisher created a niche and built its reputation while the internet increased user access to information regardless of geographical boundaries.

For modern book publishers, gone is the cushioned marketplace of a local bookshop or library with built-in profits and tight control over the retailer’s inventory. Digital expectations have terraformed the world of publishing, so Hunt strove to articulate what she called the three N’s for navigating the shifting sands: noise, narrative and niche.

Beware Noise

Noise represents today’s consumer fatigue, resulting from such a great wealth of choice—encompassing global online ordering; immediately available downloads; unlimited range of selections; and wide array of competing forms of entertainment or use of leisure time, such as television, smart phone, game, movie, and social media. Noise makes it difficult to select works, let alone turn someone into a reader. “In the battle against noise, curation is the single biggest contribution publishers make.”

Deep discounting is a fact of life, with multinational corporations controlling conditions. Against self-publishing authors and free info, free books, global entertainment, increased costs, and lower returns, every book has to fight for itself. This can be good for readers, but can also promote complacency from publishers who can’t hear over the static, Hunt says. Fewer newer authors appear save those exciting few debuts, author maintenance drops off, fewer risks are taken, and popular success tends to be converted from or intended for another format.

Remember Narrative

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The narrative keyword rephrases the old adage “content is king.” Hunt stresses the importance of appealing stories that offer more than just information. Saraband adheres to the gospel of narrative, exalting stories that are compelling, fresh, worthwhile, well-crafted, useful unusual, inspiring, well-told by a strong voice, or any combination thereof. Hunt highlighted two books that are characteristic of Saraband, Uuganaa Ramsay’s Mongol and Chitra Ramaswamy’s Expecting: The Inner Life of Pregnancy. Both books that can, with the right marketing, make their way to audiences who will value those stories.

Embrace Niche

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To embrace a niche is to identify what is unique and to highlight it. Hunt points out that for many publishers, their niche—or in the case of Saraband, niches—can work like an anchor amidst all the noise. Some niches that Saraband have embraced include nature writing, memoir, wildlife, sustainable living, and Scottish literary fiction (though it’s hard to call literary fiction a niche, since Scotland is small there endures a local yearning). Publishers even have the option of utilizing an imprint to exploit or explore a niche list, as Saraband has done with their 2014-launched Contraband, which mines the crime, thriller and mystery niche. While good marketing to build readership is key, playing to one’s strengths by embracing the niche as Saraband and other successful publishers have done can provide solutions to challenges through collaboration or new publishing areas offering unique voices, easy conversion to popular digital format, or focus on high production and design values.

A room without books is a body without a soul-Cicero

According to Hunt, traditional publishers need to respond, experiment, innovate, and change. Competition with other entertainment is a challenge, but not a threat in a bad way. There is room for everybody so long as we continue to cherish high-quality writing, design, and production. Conventional book producers have already learned much from the digital side of the market, like the importance of identifying and reaching targets through influencers, hashtags, and rich metadata. Saraband continues to soldier on because Sara Hunt is always reevaluating what to publish and reconsidering how to add value, connect with target markets, and rise to the challenge presented by discounts.

Innerpeffray Library

To close out the semester, on March 22, our Publishing, Literature and Society module took a field trip to Creiff. There, we visited Scotland’s first lending library, Innerpeffray Library. Included are images of its historic facilities, idyllic grounds, and sagacious resources. Let’s consult a very old, dusty dictionary to see whether or not “sagacious” is appropriate to use here.

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My journey to the London Book Fair 2016

April 20th, 2016 by Yuwen Tong | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on My journey to the London Book Fair 2016

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This is a really exciting experience in my publishing studies journey. I went to London Book Fair which held at Olympia Exhibition Center in April 12, 2016. It is my first time to go to this grand annual exhibition. I heard about this event before I came to the United Kingdom. This is a book fair which is attended by many publishers. I saw various exhibitors in London Book Fair. There are not only paper book publishers but also digital books publishers. E-book or printed book is always a big issue. I saw the e-book market developed rapidly, but at the same time, the printed book market cannot be replaced.

I was very proud when I found there are lots of Chinese publishers taking part in this activity.  I was so exciting to see so many discussions and seminars performing everywhere in this book fair. This is a good experience to see publishers who come from different companies to communicate their ideas with each other.  I hope that I will be one of them in the future. It was my great pleasure to see Professor Yu Dan talking about Shakesperience at the exhibition. She is a very famous scholar in China. I am very proud to be able to see my own country’s scholars in such a grand exhibition. The London Book Fair let me learn a lot. As a future publisher,  I love this area more. In this activity, I feel the rapid142222945727227001 development of the publishing market and our Chinese position in the publishing industry is an increasing trend. More and more exports and imports illustrate everything. As we all know, the United Kingdom is a great publishing power. I hope that in the future, China will have more trade with Britain on publishing industry. Let the people of these two countries see more excellent products.

My Publishing Journey

April 8th, 2016 by Gloria Addo-Safo | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on My Publishing Journey
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As publishers “in-training” we are taught to develop various publishing and workplace skills that will enhance our brand and careers. One such essential skill that we are encouraged to develop is our presentation skills. On May 23 2016, we delivered our first assignment for our workplace module. The task was to deliver a presentation on our work experience in our various publishing related organisations.

This assignment was peculiar in two ways. First, it was an individual presentation; unlike all our previous presentations where we had to work in groups.

Secondly, it was (kind of) the culmination of all the presentations we had had to deliver on the whole course. By now, I suppose, we were expected to deliver a nearly excellent presentation.

Reflecting on my past group presentations, like the very first one where we presented research on bookshop sales and marketing activities, I realise I have learnt a lot. My first ever presentation was a daunting task. When it was my turn to speak in the group, I was tensed and stuttered almost all through the exercise. Halfway through my speech though, I said something that got the class cracked up in laughter and this calmed me down a bit and helped me through my slide. Some groups delivered great presentations – or so I thought.

Between my first and last presentations, I have had to participate in three others, and each time, I went away thinking of a hundred things I could have done better. I recount one particular presentation where I totally lost track of what I was saying, went blank and simply had to apologise and excuse myself. I went away feeling terrible about how I had let my group down.

But today as I took to the lectern to deliver my presentation, I realized all these experiences had sharpened my presentation skills. I was poised to deliver the best presentation I would yet give on the MLitt course, and thank God I did my very best, I knew I did.

At the end of the class, our module coordinator extended congratulations to everyone for such quality presentations. I believe we were all well deserving of her praise, because we have improved over the months and become the best we can be – at least for now.

With this skill in hand, I keenly look forward to all the great presentations I hope to deliver in my publishing career, thanks to all my lecturers. This is one of the many reasons why I am glad I joined the MLitt Publishing Studies course in Stirling.

Pres

 

Publishing Scotland Conference 2016: Adapting Books for TV & Radio

February 29th, 2016 by Isobel Anderson | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Publishing Scotland Conference 2016: Adapting Books for TV & Radio
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TV & Radio panelOn 25th February Publishing Scotland and the Booksellers Association held their annual Scottish Book Trade Conference in Edinburgh. While all of the presentations were extremely interesting and informative, with one involving a number of amusing Star Wars references, the session I was most looking forward to was Adapting books for TV & Radio. Chaired by journalist Sheena McDonald with panelists Gaynor Holmes (Head of TV Drama at BBC Scotland) and Bruce Young (Head of Radio Drama at BBC Scotland), the session provided an informative insight into the work it takes to successfully adapt a novel for television or radio.

In the past decade eleven of BBC Scotland’s fifty eight television productions have been adaptations, such as Case Histories and Hamish Macbeth. It can take anywhere from eighteen months to three or four years to adapt a novel for television so those in charge look for known titles, award-winning or best-selling novels, to adapt in order to increase their chances of attracting the five to eight million viewers who regularly watch BBC One dramas. Gaynor explained that while it is inevitable changes will have to be made to the original content, producers must adapt the novel with a great deal of integrity and remain respectful of the original intent. When trying to get around obstacles in the adaptations, writers sometimes change element after element of the plot in order to suit television, but Gaynor stated that it is at this point a step back must be taken and the following question asked: should we just write an original drama? Sometimes the plot of a novel is simply used as inspiration to create original content, such as Monarch of the Glen.

While many of us wince when we hear that our favourite novel is being developed into a television show or film and instantly worry about the content that will be changed or simply ignored, Gaynor explained some of the challenges of adapting a novel. The majority of productions are bound by their budget and so merge characters and locations together, especially as there isn’t enough time to develop each individual character if they are not integral to the plot. Some novels simply do not lend themselves to adaptation at all, such as stories that involve a lot of internal monologue. One of the main rules of television is “show, not tell”, and this simply cannot be done in some cases.  While BBC Scotland try to remain as faithful to the text as possible, it must be accepted that the content will be different for different mediums. Perhaps these are points we should consider the next time we are about to despair that one of our favourite scenes didn’t make the final cut.

Though some books may not be suitable for television, they may be easily adapted into radio productions, and Gaynor light-heartedly bemoaned the fact that a number of books she has failed to adapt have been made into radio programmes by Bruce. Sixty hours of drama and readings are commissioned for Radio 4, Radio Scotland, Radio 3 and Radio 4 Extra each year, and Bruce said that Radio Scotland try to strike an even balance between producing readings of international books, such as the recent East of Eden, and Scottish books, such as 44 Scotland Street; this is in spite of a recent complaint asking why so many Scottish voices were being heard on the radio. The question was raised whether authors have a hand in adapting their material for radio and Bruce answered that most leave him to do the work, with one author stating something along the lines of: “If we take the money, we must accept the changes”. However there are some authors, such as Alexander McCall Smith, who write both the book and the adaptations; quite an amazing feat. Once radio adaptations are made they are enduring and can be enjoyed by generations for years to come.

The forty five minute session passed by extremely quickly and the panelists were fantastic to listen to. It certainly gave me an appreciation for all the work that goes into creating BBC Scotland’s wonderful productions and I look forward to seeing what they will adapt next.

Visit from Barrington Stoke

February 8th, 2016 by Marian Robb | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Visit from Barrington Stoke

Last semester Stirling University’s publishing students received a visit from Mairi Kidd and Kirstin Lamb of Barrington Stoke, a publishing house in Edinburgh that specialises in books for dyslexic children and reluctant readers. Mairi provided a very interesting talk, on how Barrington Stoke came into being, what its business model is and how it achieves this.

The company was set up in 1998 by a mother and daughter-in-law who recognised that children with dyslexia needed a more user friendly font for their needs than any that were available on the market and decided to commission their own. Their font is designed to reduce ambiguity between characters, making them more distinctive to the eye. Spacing between the characters is also increased, to provide further clarity and the publishers use tinted paper in their books which reduces glare and makes for more comfortable reading.

The books themselves are also shorter than many children’s books. Being faced with hundreds of pages can be daunting for any child and liable to turn reading into a chore rather than an enjoyable and engaging experience. As Mairi said, they produce “snacks not meals”. They also like to work closely with their readers, encouraging feedback on what they could improve to make the books even more readable. What is also very interesting is that Barrington Stoke only commission popular and well known authors to write their books. They have recognised that children who find reading challenging don’t want to be stigmatised by having books which are clearly different from their friends or siblings. Authors include Michael Morpurgo, Malorie Blackman, Jeremy Strong and Anne Fine. A full list of authors can be found on the Barrington Stoke website and it’s an impressive list.

It’s also not just printed books that Barrington Stoke publish. They have recently produced their own e-reading app called Tints which, as the name suggests provides a choice of tinted backgrounds to use with their reader friendly font. In addition, the app has a slide ruler to help with reading and parents can download free samples. Information can be found on their website along with a video of coverage by STV. The app is just one example of how progressive Barrington Stoke are. Mairi explained in her talk that they are now promoting their books as “super readable” other than “dyslexia friendly” which reaches out to a wider audience, particularly as children and adults can find reading challenging for a variety of reasons. As an example, the picture books they produce are just as important to adults. Most children under the age of 5 cannot read for themselves anyway which leaves a parent who finds reading a challenge left with the problem of how they read stories to their child. As Mairi explained to us, many picture books can cause difficulties, such as fonts against dark paper, or words floating across the pages against the normal order of left to right which we expect. Their picture books (Picture Squirrels), follow the normal sequence of left to right and top to bottom for text as well as the reader friendly font and tinted pages.

There is no doubt that the Barrington Stoke books help so many children to overcome the barriers to the enjoyment of reading. One look at their Facebook page confirms that from many happy parents. Mairi said that the founders of the company were given an award for the “stupidest idea in publishing: producing books for people who didn’t want to read!” As it turns out it wasn’t a stupid idea at all. In fact it has just highlighted the fact that they do want to read. They just find it that bit more challenging.

Barrington Stoke really are a team of enthusiastic and inspirational publishers. The talk Mairi gave was so interesting and at times poignant, such as the child who wrote to thank them as she/he could now read a whole book. It was just great to listen to and was really appreciated that they gave up the time to come and speak to the class. They left behind a group of very enthused students!

http://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/

Publishing Prizes 2014-15

November 13th, 2015 by cs48@stir.ac.uk | Posted in Blog | Comments Off on Publishing Prizes 2014-15
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The Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication at the University of Stirling is delighted to make the following awards to students who are graduating from the MLitt in Publishing Studies 2014-15.

  • The Freight Books Prize for Publishing Design – Kerry McShane
  • The Faber & Faber Prize for Digital Innovation – Sarah Boyd
  • The Publishing Scotland Prize for the Best Dissertation – Sarah Webster
  • The Routledge Prize for the most Distinguished Student on the MLitt in Publishing Studies – Heather McDaid

All the prizes are sponsored by our Industry Advisory Board.

Outlander

Kerry McShane is the recipient of the Freight Books Prize for Publishing Design. For this, she produced the design project The Outlander Kitchen, focusing on a set of recipes inspired by the books and TV series by Diana Gabaldon. For this, Kerry wins £100 of cash and £100 of books of her choice from Glasgow-based publisher Freight Books. Kerry is currently working as an associate editor at Gibbs Smith in Layton, Utah.

Sarah Webster’s prize-winning dissertation, for which she will receive £100 of books of her choice from Publishing Scotland, is titled ‘To what extent does book jacket and cover design influence sales?’. The dissertation, as its abstract explains, ‘concludes that cover design significantly influences book sales. It further supports the idea that the continued investment in quality, cutting-edge jacket design, coupled with a greater level of market research by publishers in what retailers and consumers want, will ensure that the print book continues to thrive, whilst forcing the design of the ebook as we currently know it to seek further improvement.’

VAMPSarah Boyd is the winner of the Faber & Faber Prize for Digital Innovation, for her work on an interactive poetry app, VAMP. Sarah’s award consists of a placement with Faber & Faber in London, during which she will have the opportunity to meet with staff from Faber Digital, Faber Factory, and the marketing team. A previous recipient of the award, Claire Jeffery, writes about her experience here.

Finally, the recipient of the Routledge Prize for the most Distinguished Student on the MLitt in Publishing Studies, thus winning £200 of books from Routledge, is Heather McDaid. Heather’s overall grade profile on the course was consistently high, as was her wider contribution to the life and environment of the MLitt in Publishing Studies. Heather is now publishing assistant at Bright Red, and social media officer for SYP Scotland, as well as freelancing.

Professor Claire Squires, Director of the Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication, commented that ‘Every year, we’re impressed and delighted by the quality of work produced by our students on the MLitt in Publishing Studies, and the commitment they show to the development of their careers in the publishing industry. It’s wonderful to be able to award some of the very best of the work with prizes from our Industry Advisory Board partners. We congratulate the individual students on their creativity, knowledge, skills and understanding of the publishing industry, and are particularly delighted to be able to have prize-winning work which celebrates digital savvy and entrepreneurialism – key attributes for the publishers of the future.’

 

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