My Talk to UCL Publishing Students

Some time ago I had agreed to speak to a group of MA students, a friend had asked me to, but as the day got closer and the nerves kicked in, I couldn’t quite remember why I had agreed. But on Thursday morning I loaded my suitcase on wheels with my treasure…books.

Meryl Halls from the Book Association spoke first and gave a brilliant over view of the industry. And then it was my turn- microphone in hand I started by telling them that as a child I hadn’t dreamt of being a bookseller- I was going to be the next Jacqueline du Pre! I took them through my journey from Uni to research assistant at Spitting Image to Uni to acting and all the other bits n bobs along the way to Ottie and the Bea.

I hope I managed to share my passion for books which is what makes Independent Book Sellers such an essential part of the publishing process. Just as I was leaving the shop to head to UCL a parcel arrived from Simon & Schuster Kids- the final book in Abi Elphinstone’s trilogy. It was wrapped in brown paper, tied with a tartan ribbon and attached were a mini bag of lavender, a feather and a luggage label with my name hand written on it. Perfect timing- I popped it in the suitcase. I urged them to be creative and showed Abi’s parcel for inspiration. Then the fun began as I set them some challenges- I had a selection of books to review, I took details of a competition we are going to be running and asked them to put together a social media campaign and I asked them to look at our website and feed back some ideas specifically about books. The initial feedback was great- what a lovely bunch of young people.

The final speaker was an alumni from the course who managed to land a job with Nosy Crow before her course had even finished thanks to help from her tutors and her own ingenuity.

I’ve received the first couple of book reviews and so watch this space…