25 Jul First stop King’s Cross, Second Stop Heaven
Tucked away down a little street a few minutes’ walk from King’s Cross Station, is an unassuming white building. Behind an extremely heavy glass front door lies my company. To most it would seem strange for a publishing company to be hidden in such a small building away. To me it seems the perfect place for 12 passionate bookworms and a million books to reside. I’m joking about the million books, there are a lot though in dozens of languages. But there are only 12 of us in the building, I have already gained the nickname of Chloe the Cat; I walk quietly and have scared half the office. I sit down stairs with our very sweary production manager Sara, which considering the current heatwave has been amazing. The other floors get hotter the higher you go. My favourite thing about the office is that the first floor is a sort of balcony. Meaning that when Sales needs anything from Production or vice versa, they are more than happy to shout the information. Meaning I get to hear both sides of the conversation and learn a lot more.
My company has been around since the 80’s. It’s currently undergoing major rebranding, reconfiguration and regeneration after being purchased by Leduc Books; a French publisher. My current task is working off an enormous spreadsheet that is an A-Z of every book ever published. Using the hundreds of contracts that need to be scanned into the new CRM. I make sure that the document has all the right information. This is the first part, shortly I’ll start chasing publishers whose contracts have technically expired and getting the rights back so they can be sold to other publishers. Occasionally my supervisor will send me Royalty statements so I can input when they arrived. So in future there is a rough idea of when royalties should be coming in. Sara commented a few days ago that this summer’s interns will go down in history as we are laying the foundation that the company will build from. So no pressure there right.
It’s great to see this side of the publishing world as at university it isn’t explored at all. It really highlights how diverse the industry and how many different areas there are. Even though I still want to be an editor, it’s great to have a better understanding of how all the different roles come together to create. When it comes to publishing as I am learning from my colleagues; the most important thing you need is an insatiable love of books.
No Comments