SotA Anthology 2015-16
Toni Budden, who is going in to the third year of a BA in English in 2016-17,
spent her placement working with Liverpool University Press
Liverpool University Press
(LUP) is a small publishing
company based in Liverpool
with a total of 13 employees.
As a university press, LUP
is an academic publisher
that specialises in literature,
modern languages, history
and visual culture. Their
values are not commercial
and as such any profit that
they generate is reinvested
into local community writer
projects, new talent and
the University of Liverpool’s
School of the Arts. Other
university presses such
as Manchester University
Press
and
Edinburgh
University
Press
have
charitable status, however,
LUP is not a charity and so
revenue targets are crucial
for the business.
LUP is a cultural enterprise
that deals in knowledge,
which means that it can
measure its success in
terms of cultural value
enhancement, as well as
revenue. I have contributed
to the organisation in terms
of this measure of success
by publishing two poetry
books. Recently, LUP has
been especially successful,
as it was the winner of the
2015 Bookseller Industry
Award for Independent
Academic,
Educational
and Professional Publisher
of the Year, as well as the
winner of the 2015 IPG
(Independent
Publishing
Guild) Award for Academic
and Professional Publisher
of the Year. This made
them an extremely exciting
company to work with.
While at LUP, I was a
Publishing Assistant, and
my role was to bring a
publication to market and
to be involved in every step
of the process. My main
responsibilities were to work
as a member of a team to
publish two poetry books
within the Pavilion Poetry
series (see image, right). I
had specific responsibility
for ‘Every Little Sound’
by Ruby Robinson, in
communicating with the
poet and feeding back all
decisions. As part of my
placement, I received tuition
in copy-editing, proofreading
and typesetting, and in
specific software such as
Adobe InDesign.
In our first session with Alison
Welsby, Editorial Director, I
was given a copy of both of
the poetry manuscripts and
after tuition I made editorial
notes on the manuscripts.
These notes became crucial
in editorial meetings and
querying Ruby with editorial
decisions, and the meetings
taught me to be confident
in group discussions and
to analyse the impact of
different decisions. I am
particularly proud of the
first proofs of ‘Every Little
Sound’ as not only did I fulfil
editorial duties in relation
to them, but I also typeset
them, gaining a new skill.
Typesetting also required
excellent
communication
skills, as it was essential
that any changes were
made known to all involved
and that I dealt with the
typesetting queries from the
poet. I was the first point of
contact for the poet, and as
part of this I was responsible
for pushing for the poet’s
wishes while maintaining
commercial viability.
During the sessions with
Alison Welsby, I learnt
a huge amount about
the
various
publishing
departments, in particular
‘Commissioning’
and
‘Production’, but we also
explored broader subjects
such as the ‘Future of
Publishing’ and ‘Publishing
Careers’, broadening my
knowledge of the industry.
As part of my tuition from
Alistair Hodge, Managing
Director
of
Carnegie
Publishing, I was introduced
to page proof notations
and completed a copyediting and proofreading
assignment, which included
drafting a faux-letter to
the author, outlining my
enthusiasm for their work
and my suggestions for
improvement. From the
proofreading
activity
I
received positive feedback
that I did not over-edit
the piece of work and the
editorial grammar task
was particularly useful in
practising
grammatical
precision.
One particular achievement
that I am proud of is when
the marketing department
at LUP required an excerpt
from ‘Every Little Sound’ by
Ruby Robinson to include
in promotional material. I
suggested to the poet which