By Niels Peter Thomas, Chief Book Strategist, Springer Nature Monday 23 January 2017. Commercial publishers handle the majority of all published academic books. And while we continue to work like companies, while we are part of the interplay between supply and demand, at the same time we view ourselves as part of the academic community,…
Ben Denne, Editorial Director, Humanities, Media & Arts Books, Taylor & Francis I am currently the Editorial director for Humanities, Media and Arts Books at Taylor & Francis. I manage a team of commissioning editors who are signing books across all of the subjects within these fields. The breadth of the subjects and markets my…
By Sarah Stanton, Shakespeare Publisher, Cambridge University Press When people ask me what my job is, and I reply that I publish the Shakespeare list at Cambridge University Press, they often look puzzled, ‘Don’t we know all the plays already?’ or ‘What is there new to say about Shakespeare?’ Sometimes people assume that the only…
By Brendan George, Publisher and Global Head of Philosophy, Palgrave Macmillan What makes someone want to be an academic publisher? Is it possible for academic publishing to be a vocation? Or is always ‘just a job’ or at best a career? There is no single answer to this question; different editors have different motivations, no doubt. But…
By Max Porter, Author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers It is hard not to feel conflicted about publishing. Feeling conflicted is healthy. In this current global crisis some thoughts of futility are inevitable. What’s the point of publishing books now? What does any of this mean, these novels, these picture books, these text…
Judge Pierre Leval of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, has been a major architect of the Fair Use doctrine in the United States, most recently as the author of the Google Books decisions. Intellectual property lawyer and former General Counsel for the US Copyright Office Jon Baumgarten has litigated precedent…
Four outstanding book adaptations from the past two years have been honoured at a special ceremony tonight at Soho House for the inaugural Creativity Across Media: Entertainment & Originality Awards (CAMEO). Deliberated by a cross-section of creative industry professionals including digital film makers, literary editors and theatre programmers, the judging panel chose 45 Years,…
The Charles Clark Memorial Lecture is the annual Copyright Keynote Lecture at The London Book Fair, Olympia. This year it took place at 16.00–17.30 on Wednesday 15th March 2017. The lecture addressed the compromise between exclusive rights and reasonable “fair uses” in the digital age, by two experts on the Fair Use doctrine. Judge Pierre…
By Emma House, Deputy CEO, The Publishers Association 25.08.2017 Over the past years we’ve seen much talk in the trade press about special sales, so we’re taking this opportunity to run through the benefits of special sales, both to the publisher and also to the author. What are special sales? Special sales is a different…
The Publishers Association held a seminar on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its implications for publishers sponsored by the Publishing Licensing Society on Friday 8 September 2017. The presentation from this seminar is available to PA members only from the link below. To view the link members need to login to the PA…
By Paddy Johnston, Group Communications Manager, Hachette Wednesday 13 September 2017. The Avid Readers Book Club is a reading scheme for primary schools. It was set up by a sub-group of our Changing the Story Diversity and Inclusion group, as part of our broader Changing the Story programme to promote diversity and inclusion at Hachette…
By Egmont Publishing Wednesday 20 September 2017. Exactly a year ago, staff started doing volunteer reading at our closest primary school, Avondale Park. For our editors, whose role it is to create books for this age group, it was a wonderful opportunity to spend a quiet hour sitting and reading with the children we want to…
By Faber & Faber. Thursday 21 September 2017. Faber & Faber today pledged a commitment to inclusivity across the organisation by announcing a raft of initiatives. Inclusivity is a vital agenda in Faber’s plans for the future. These measures have been designed by a team from across the company, and will begin to address in…
Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to speak at this important and timely conference. The UK publishing industry is unequivocally world-beating. Of the 9 books to have ever sold more than 100 million copies, 6 are by British authors. To top it off, the Nobel Prize for Literature this year was won by…
Hybrid journals play an important role in extending author choice, a report by the Publishing Research Consortium, Research Consulting and Pleiade Management & Consultancy has shown. The report, which aims to understand authors’ motivations when selecting to publish in Hybrid Open Access journals, found the most important factor for researchers when deciding where to publish…
By Stephen Lotinga, CEO of the Publishers Association The unmanageable increase in teacher workload has been well documented over the past few years, leading to reports that schools are struggling to both attract and retain new teachers. With more than 20 per cent of teachers reporting that that they routinely work more than 60 hours…
The Publishers Association, as ever, had a busy Fair—from social mobility to copyright, from rights fairs to award ceremonies — we could be found in all corners of Olympia supporting members, speaking for the industry and building relationships with visiting officials. This year, we hosted a number of high-profile attendees to the Fair, including Baroness…
Written by Gloria Bailey (International Book Fairs Manager). It has been a busy start to the year for book fairs—we took publishers to Taipai in February, Bologna in March and, finally, to London in April. If you are thinking about venturing into international markets, there are plenty of opportunities coming up, from fellowship programmes in…