2 September 2022

Member news:

Witherby Publishing's CEO, Iain Macneil, has completed a world first sailing circumnavigation with his crew, setting a new world record! The Gaelic Books Council announced the shortlists for the Gaelic Literature Awards 2022. Prizes are to be awarded in six categories, and include members Luath Press and Acair; 

Canongate is reporting record-breaking turnover of £28M, and pre-tax profits of £5.7M, for the 15 month period from January 2021 to March 2022 and many congratulations to Jenny Brown Associates for celebrating 20 years in the business.

It was wonderful to see so many of our members, colleagues and friends (pic above) at our recent summer drinks reception as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Thank you for coming and sharing the evening with us.

• International Publishing Fellows in Scotland
• Frankfurt Book Fair International Rights Catalogue - submit titles by 9 September
• Go-Digital fund awarded
• Frankfurt Book Fair 2022 and bursaries
• Tik-Tok as a marketing tool for publishers - sign up 7 & 14 September
• Open Book: Scottish Book Trust and Bookbug, sign up for 6 September
• Small Publisher’s Publicity Circle, meet the editors event, sign up for 12 September
• How to sell more on Amazon, sign up for a free Amazon Masterclass, 15 September
• Open Book: the non-traditional market with Bookspeed, sign up for 29 September
• Open Book: pitching to Spring book festivals 2023, sign up for Monday 3rd October
• Year of Stories events programme continues
• Gardners Promotions, submit for their October Select promotions
• Top 20 bestselling Scottish books in Scotland chart
• Training news
• BooksfromScotland - In the Summertime and submit for the next issues
• Schools publishing project – Hyndland Secondary School, Glasgow
• Events & Opportunities
• Jobs

Best wishes,

Lucy

Lucy Feather

Membership Services Manager

International Publishing Fellows in Scotland

Photo: from left to right: Jean Mattern; Dr. Cordelia Borchardt; Andrea Stratilova; Sarah Cantin; Esther Hendriks; Talia Marcos; Nicolás Rodriguez Galvis; Mark Tauber; and Peter Joseph. Photograph by Chris Scott.

The group spent a week in Scotland at the end of August 2022 meeting Scotland-based publishers, agents and writers in a varied programme of events across the country. 

Beginning in Edinburgh, they attended the Edinburgh International Book Festival and visited local publishing offices. They met authors, agents and publishers at organised one-to-one sessions as well as at Publishing Scotland’s annual summer drinks reception at the book festival. Other highlights included a curated tour of the National Portrait Gallery and a dinner at Robert Louis Stevenson’s childhood home.

In Glasgow, they enjoyed Our Stories, Your Stories, a special memoir-themed Creative Conversations Author Showcase hosted by the University of Glasgow Creative Writing team, before rounding off the week with a visit to the Highlands and meeting local publishers in Inverness.

More.

Submit your titles for the Frankfurt Book Fair International Rights Catalogue by 9 September 2022

Publishing Scotland will be producing another interactive digital catalogue package in time for this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair in October. We will be printing postcards with a QR code that will take viewers to our interactive package to distribute at the fair as well as hard copies.

Please use this Submission Form to submit books that have been or will be published between June 2022 to March 2023. If you don't have a finished cover by the deadline date, we will add our own 'coming soon' illustration. 

This is a key marketing tool in promoting Scottish books around the world, and an opportunity to present your key titles to an international marketplace. Please select up to FIVE of your KEY frontlist titles for inclusion in the catalogue. Please keep the UK-Wide and International markets in mind with your book submissions.

We are also asking for audio and/or video content, as well as spreads for illustrated titles.

NB. We have audio and video editing facilities, if you would like help in tidying up any audio/video content you create.

Send your completed forms, cover images and audio/visual files or links or spreads to Vikki Reilly. The deadline for submitting your titles is Friday 9 September 2022.

Go-Digital fund awarded

Nine publishers were awarded Go Digital Awards totalling just over £10K in round 1 of the Go-Digital Fund 2022–23. The successful recipients and their projects are:

• Barrington Stoke / Rocket Bird – Marketing and ecommerce
• Bright Red Publishing – Further work on existing digital project
• Cranachan Publishing – Audiobook narration
• Little Door Books – Online conference ticket
• The Wee Book Co – B2B marketing, consultancy
• Sainted Media – Animated audiobook project
• Scotland Street – Web sales, social media, customer engagement
• Scottish Society for the History of Photography – Web sales and PR strategy
• White Horse Press – Marketing promo video

There will be a second round of the fund later in the year.

Tik-Tok as a marketing tool for publishers - sign up 7 & 14 September

We are delighted to offer Publishing Scotland members this BookMachine CAMPUS course with Rach Quin at a special low fee of £30+VAT. Tik-Tok is increasingly important when it comes to book promotion.

There are 2 sessions on Wednesday 7 and Wednesday 14 September

Time: 11:00am – 12.30pm BST (1.5 hours each session) via Zoom.

Session outline:

This course will present an overview of the TikTok platform’s core audience and demographics, an in-depth exploration into creating content and best practices, as well as a deep dive into BookTok and the emerging influencers that can amplify your titles.

It will feature Q&A segments, interactive breakouts and a range of practical examples and case studies from a variety of publishing and non-publishing brands, to offer inspiration for creating your own organic and ads campaigns on the platform.

More.

Frankfurt Book Fair 2022 and bursaries

Publishing Scotland and members will be exhibiting on the Scotland at Frankfurt stand in October 2022. We are in Hall 6.0, Stand D79 with the following:

Brownlee Donald Associates

Canongate Books

DC Thomson

Floris Books

Andrea Joyce Rights

Leamington Books (bursary)

Moonlight Publishing

Muddy Pearl

Portobello Literary

Saraband (bursary)

Scotland Street Press (bursary)

Studies in Photography (bursary)

Swan & Horn (bursary)

Some of the attendees are the recipients of a Frankfurt Bursary. This bursary was open to publishers who had not previously attended Frankfurt. This included individual employees who had not been to Frankfurt even if someone else at the company had been.

Open Book Session: Scottish Book Trust and Bookbug

Publishing Scotland will be hosting an online series of Open Book sessions with Scottish Book Trust (SBT) specialising in promoting the different opportunities member publishers can collaborate with the organisation.

The first of these sessions on Tuesday 6th September at 11.30am will focus on the Bookbug, SBT’s programme for early readers.

To find out more about how to get involved with Bookbug bags and Bookbug sessions, members can sign up for the session by contacting Heather McDaid.

Meet the magazine editors – sign up for Small Publisher's Publicity Circle event on 12 September

Publishing Scotland is teaming up with the Small Publisher’s Publicity Circle for publicists to meet key media personnel to expand their contacts and to discover best practice in collaboration in promotion. This free online session will give you the opportunity to meet with editors from specialist book magazines, Ed Needham from Strong Words magazine, Ruth Hunter from Book Time magazine and a representative from NB magazine.

Each of them will tell us more about their magazines, particularly their regular features, and will share how they like to receive pitches for features and reviews. There will be time for questions from attendees.

We will be hosting this session on Monday 12 September at 2pm. If you would like to sign up to attend this event, get in touch with Heather McDaid.

How to sell more on Amazon – sign up for our free Amazon Masterclass on 15 September

Simon Pollard is the founder and director of the Publishing Consultancy Group, a publishing consultancy service. He specialises in sales enablement, and we will be hosting an online Amazon Masterclass with him on Thursday 15 September at 11.30am. In the Masterclass Simon will discuss:

• How to make the best use of your Advantage account through analytics, page layout, merchandising and advertising offers
• Best practice for metadata to make your Amazon product pages as enticing to readers as possible
• Marketing of content for online retail channels
• More top tips for optimising your sales through Amazon

We will also use the time to tell you more about the Publishing Consultancy Group; following the Masterclass Simon will be offering bespoke Amazon consultancy.

You can sign up for the Amazon Masterclass by contacting Heather McDaid

Open Book Session: the non-traditional market with Bookspeed, sign up for 29 September

The non-traditional book market is becoming increasingly important for publishers as more retail outlets curate book offers for their customers. Bookspeed is one of the leading wholesalers for the non-traditional book market.

Publishing Scotland, will host Jonny Gallant, Publisher Relations Director of Bookspeed, for a hybrid Open Book session on Thursday 29 September at 11.30am at the Publishing Scotland office and online to tell us more about the trends in the non-traditional market as well as sharing tips on the best way to work with Bookspeed.

Booking: email Heather McDaid.

Open Book Session: pitching to Spring book festivals 2023, sign up for Monday 3 October

Book festivals around the country are opening up again after two years of the pandemic. We will be hosting a pitching day on Monday 3 October with three of Scotland’s festival programmers: Catriona Cox from Granite Noir (crime writing festival), Paula Ogilvie from Borders Book Festival (all genres and both children’s and adult events), and Heather McDaid and Sha Nazir, the new programmers for the Paisley Book Festival (all genres and both children’s and adult events)

The pitching sessions will be held on Zoom and Vikki Reilly will be there to facilitate the movement between each programmer’s break out rooms. If you would like to take part, please get in touch with Vikki Reilly and let her know who you would like to pitch to – if you want to pitch to them all, that’s fine too.

Please keep in mind your lists for Autumn 2022 and Spring 2023, and each festival’s audience when you’re putting together your pitches.

Year of Stories events programme

Our programme of events to celebrate this Year of Stories continues with the following. Any enquiries please contact Heather McDaid.

24-25 Sep: Publishers showcase at ACME Comic Con

A number of Publishing Scotland members will be present at ACME Comic Con, with events including Nikky Smedley, Ely Percy, Thom James Carter and Gray Crosbie, with many more.

More.

1 Oct: Lari Don at Wigtown Book Festival

Award-winning author Lari Don presents The Tall Tale of the Giant’s Causeway. Discover the traditional Celtic folklore that inspired Lari’s witty story about two bickering giants, imagine your own magical adventures, and marvel at Emilie Gill’s playful and humorous illustrations which bring the story to life! (Ages 4-7) 

More.

8 Oct: Neil McIntyre at BookMark Festival

The red deer, majestic monarch of the glen, is Britain's largest land mammal and undisputed king of wood lands and glens. Common across the Scottish Highlands and resident elsewhere, the animal is emblematic of our wild country and a beloved icon. 

More.

Gardners Promotions

Gardners are looking for submissions for their October Select promotions.

The themes for the month will be Fiction in Translation, TV & Film Companions, and Cookbooks. As ever, they are also interested in talking to you about any themed backlist promotions you would like to submit.

Please submit your Promotional Grid to Emma Hylands at [email protected] by Friday 16 September 2022. The promotional period for selected titles will be 1st October - 14th November.

NB. They advise not submitting lines that have already been submitted to other Gardners promotions (with the exception of pre-pub) this avoids any confusion with reclaims at the end of the promotional period.

Terms and Conditions:

Minimum discount for inclusions is +5% on top of base terms

All promotion discounts will be claimed retrospectively at the end of promotional period.

If your title already featured in another promotion, or is included in a Pre-Pub promotion, they ask that you arrange for the discount to be fixed at the distributor for the duration of the promotion.

For re-ordering purposes, they ask that the extra terms are effective +15 days before the start of the offer

All stock will be reviewed and ordered up if required, prior to the promotion.

If you do not already have the Gardners Promotional Grid, please get in touch with Vikki Reilly.

Top 20 Bestselling Scottish Books in Scotland Chart

Welcome to the Scottish bestseller chart news, covering the last two weeks of book sales. And we have a new number one, Sophia Gravia’s What Happens in Dubai. Sophia’s first novel Glasgow Kiss has been in and out of the chart all year – she’s a real rising star in romance, local to Glasgow, and has had a lot of support from Waterstones this year.

More new entries in the charts are Kevin Bridges’ debut novel The Black Dog, Val McDermid’s 1989, and Irvine Welsh’s The Long Knives. Interesting too to see books from authors with big events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival appearing, including the paperback edition of Alan Cumming’s Baggage, and chart reappearances of the paperback edition of Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Case Study and Michael Pedersen’s Boy Friends.

NB. At the moment, these stats are for Publishing Scotland members only, and will only be shared via this bulletin. Please do not circulate.

See the chart 17/08/22 – 23/08/22

See the chart 24/08/22 - 30/08/22

Training news

We still have places – only £30+VAT ­– on the TikTok course (7 and 14 September) that BookMachine has set up for Publishing Scotland.

Booking is also open for BookMachine’s Social Media Advertising for Beginners (in October and also £30+VAT).

Our September Introduction to Proofreading course is now full but you can book for the next one (and Introduction to Copy-editing) in November/December.

Information on the new series of Harper Macleod talks coming soon.

For details of all our courses, see the Publishing Scotland website. See also Events.

BooksfromScotland In the Summertime and submit for the next issues

BooksfromScotland are enjoying the summer sunshine, and the latest summer book releases. Thank you for your submissions; all these titles are included on the BFS website and in regular newsletters to subscribers.

Read the issue.

Submit for future Issues:

 We are now closed for submissions for the September issue.

• October – Beyond borders: Books that have an international outlook
• November/December – Festive Reading and Gifts

To submit or for any enquiries please contact Vikki Reilly.

Schools Publishing Project – Hyndland Secondary School, Glasgow

This week, Vikki Reilly from Publishing Scotland and Davinder Bedi from Booksource visited Hyndland Secondary School to launch their book publishing project spearheaded by the school’s English teacher, Gavin Tulloch.

The launch session included presentations on publishing roles and a discussion on the many kinds of audiences for books. In the coming weeks, the pupils taking part will decide on what kind of book they would like to publish, decide their roles within the project, and execute the production of the book and plan its sales, marketing and publicity campaign. Vikki and Davinder will be on hand to guide this process, and the project will include visits to the Booksource warehouse and Bell and Bain printers. The pupils will aim to publish the book in February 2023.

News

The Inklusion Guide

Launched at an event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on 25 August the Guide is an accessible and comprehensive access guide for UK literary sector organisations to use when planning events to make them accessible for disabled people. It summarises best-practice accessibility across hybrid, online and in-person events and is currently available as webpages on the Inklusion website. A free limited-run A4 printed booklet and downloadable PDF are scheduled for September. BSL video and audio recording, Easy Read, and Braille versions will follow.

More.

Promoting Scotland Internationally inquiry

The Scottish Affairs Committee of the UK Parliament is currently accepting evidence for their Promoting Scotland Internationally inquiry. The committee is interested in evidence relating to how effectively Scotland’s cultural offer is promoted overseas by the UK Government and its associated bodies. You can submit evidence until 22 September.

More.

Opportunities

RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards for Non-Fiction

Closing date: 14th September, 2022.

The RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards is for first-time writers of non-fiction through a generous bequest from author and RSL Fellow Giles St Aubyn. This year’s judges are Homi K. Bhahba, Fiona Boyle and Violet Moller. For full eligibility criteria and guidelines visit the Royal Society of Literature website.

The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2023 open for submissions

Closing date: 30 September, 2022.

The submissions must be submitted by publishers and must have been published during the calendar year 2022. For the purposes of this prize, ‘historical’ means that the majority of the book, ie more than 50%, must be set at least 60 years before its publication date. You can find the rules and criteria and the submission form on the Walter Scott Prize website.

International Booker Prize 2023 open for submissions

Closing date: 30th September, 2022.

The International Booker Prize 2023 is open to publishers for submissions. Please note, only publishers can submit entries to the prizes; authors and agents are not permitted to enter the prizes directly. For the rules and entry form, see the Booker Prizes website.

Visit our opportunities page for more.

Events

Bloody Scotland, September 15 - 18

Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival returns to Stirling for another year.

More.

Wigtown Book Festival 2022, 23 September - 2 October

Another fantastic line-up from this small town in the south-west of Scotland. With more than 200 events for adults and children. Publishing Scotland are supporting our member publishers 404 Ink with Arun Sood's event, New Skin For The Old Ceremony: A Kirtan.

More.

The Bookseller Children’s Conference

The Bookseller Children's Conference will take place in London and online on Monday 26 September 2022.

More.

Visit our events page for more.

Jobs

Edinburgh University Press: Regional Sales Manager (Maternity Cover)

Apply for this full-time, fixed-term (maternity cover) position by 5pm on Thursday 8 September 2022.

Arvon at Home: Administrator (maternity cover)

Apply for this part-time, fixed term position (remote) by 5pm on Friday 9 September 2022.

Twig Education: Digital Delivery Editor

Apply by Friday 9 September 2022 for this full-time, permanent position based in Glasgow.

StAnza poetry festival - part-time Communications Officer

Apply by Monday 26 September 2022.

HarperCollins: The Traineeship 2023

Individuals from Black, Asian and ethnic minority background are invited to apply by Sunday 25 September 2022 for this publishing traineeship. 

Visit our jobs page for more.