How to get into publishing

The Festival of Humanities is an annual event open to all students at the University of Derby, but is usually most popular amongst our English and Creative and Professional Writing students.

During the Festival, Senior Lecturers in Publishing Cat Mitchell and David Barker were joined by a panel of our Publishing graduates to host the talk 'How to get into Publishing'.

Outlining their job roles and sharing their experiences, our Publishing Alumni answered common questions like "how did you get into the industry?", "what's your day-to-day role like?" and "what advice can you offer someone like me who is still unsure what career they would like to go for?"

Graduates included Sofia Saghir, Press Officer at HarperCollins, Leanne Nulty, Key Account Manager at Simon & Schuster YA, Chelsea Graham, Audio Editor at Bonnier Books, Dominic Gilmour, Senior Marketing Designer and Copywriter at CGP Books, and Kouthar Hagi, Editorial Assistant at Penguin Random House. 

Our Alumni and Lecturers offered valuable insight to help students figure out what kind of career they wanted and how to get noticed in a creative and competitive market.

The world needs writers and publishers. In a society and industry where everyone is adapting to an evolving digital marketplace, our students learn to be both resilient and creative with commercial awareness.

Creative Writing and Publishing degrees, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, offer students a blend of the creative and the commercial.

Our graduates have gone on to lead successful careers in the Publishing industry, and events like the Festival of Humanities aim to share that knowledge and success with the next generation of writers.

Chelsea

Editor, Audio – Fiction. Bonnier Books UK

"During my day to day role, I manage multiple audio lists across the business, working on fiction and non-fiction audiobooks across a range of genres including memoir, romance, literary fiction, crime and thriller, celebrity fiction and mystery. I work on the whole publishing process from acquisitions through to acquisition and budgeting, to casting and booking talent, all the way through to distribution and promotion. I also manage international audiobook sales across the lists to increase profitability and viability of projects, and mentor our audio assistant.
 
"Studying the MA course gave me not only a holistic view of the industry as a whole, getting to deep dive into everything from the editorial process to the skills of typesetting, publishing law to market analysis, the course also provided access to the publishing network. For an industry built on who and what you know, this was key in setting me up for success in my search for an entry level role and forward as I have progressed in my career."