Frank had been gone for days.I saw his smashed eReader sitting forlornly on his desk, on a pile of gently crushed A4 pages that resembled a carpet of fake snowballs.I had been forlorn for days myself, damaged in some soft way since Dorothy had handed in her notice.She was marrying her fiancé Mike Trilling.They’d gotten back together and were pressing ahead with their marriage.His stag do was taking place soon in some patently awf...

On 14 August members of the SYP gathered for the society’s annual picnic on Hampstead Heath. Those of you who thought better of trekking out to Hampstead in the rain, missed the following · A huge array of food · A dog that attacked afore mentioned food, and buried its nose in the cous cous salad. · A torrential downpour that finished off most of the other food. · An attempt t...

Thursday 22nd July saw the second in the @Phoenix series of networking events for publishing professionals, at the Phoenix Artist Club. A charismatic venue with book covers decorating the walls, it created the perfect setting for publishers to meet up with old friends, discuss the industry and make new connections in an informal environment over a glass of champagne. With publishers ranging from the large houses such as Headline, Orion and P...

For June book club, we read The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. For those of you who don’t already know, this is the book whose jacket blurb begins ‘we don’t want to tell you what happens in this book. It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it.’ And because the blurb asks readers also not to spoil the story by telling anyone what actually happens, I won’t go in to any storyline specifics through...

At the beginning of June, the SYP hosted another round of its famous pub quiz, as part of The Book Trade Charity's Action Week. Teams from the publishing world, including quizzers from Dorling Kindersley, Little, Brown, Waterstones, Inspired Selection, JFL, The Bookseller and Hodder Education, among others, met at Sway Bar in Holborn for an evening of literary competition. Imaginative entries to the ‘best team name’ competition includ...

This seminar, organised by Nielsen, covered how to go about setting up a publishing company; what you should do and, maybe more importantly, what you shouldn’t do. It also considered what is the best source of advice, as well as the sequence of events. The three speakers were: Ms Bridget Shine, Executive Director at the IPG, Mr Andrew Johnston, MD at Quiller Publishing (which was amongst the nominations for 'Independent Publisher of the Ye...

There can be no doubt that this year’s volcano stricken London Book Fair was a noticeably quieter affair. One thing there is never a shortage of though, are people hoping to get into publishing. Thus this years fair saw Earls Court’s Conference Room packed full on the Tuesday for the first of the SYP’s events, How to get into publishing. This year’s panel of speakers included Nick Canty, Lecturer in the MA publishing cours...

The SYP’s second event at London Book Fair was aimed at showing young publishers in their second and third jobs, how to ‘get ahead in publishing’. A distinguished panel of four successful young publishers outlined the milestones in their own career paths, plus the challenges faced along the way. Other important topics of discussion were how best to ‘stand out’ from the crowd, and how to decide whether to switch jobs....

May’s book club choice was The British Museum is Falling Down, by David Lodge, a comic novel set in the 60s, in which we spend a day with Adam, a struggling young academic, who is overwhelmed by his children, his thesis, and his Catholicism. Our first point of discussion was the element of literary pastiche in the novel. Most of us has an edition which included an afterword from the author, explaining that he had based sections of th...

Waterstone’s have recently unveiled their new branding. Appearing on their website and across their stores, the new logo – a rounded, lower-case ‘W’ – and slogan – ‘Feel Every Word’ – has attracted a barrage of comments on the Bookseller website, many of them negative. Several commenters have likened it to and upside-down version of the MacDonalds golden arches. Perhaps this just the in...