Richard Charkins experience as a publisher is unique among his generation. Over the past half century he has been (at different times) a scientific and medical publisher, a journal publisher, a digital publisher and a general publisher. He has worked for family-owned, publicly-owned, university-owned companies and start-ups. In this memoir he uses his unrivalled experience to illustrate the profound changes that have affected the identity and practices but not the purpose of publishing.
Of course there are stories about well-known personalities he has encountered in his career - Madonna, Jeffrey Archer, Robert Maxwell, Paul Hamlyn, Mohammed Al-Fayed and many more. But his primary purpose is to provide an insiders account of the social, technological, commercial and geographical developments as seen through the eyes of a gifted all-round publisher who has made a very significant contribution to the profession.
This is an insiders account of the last fifty years of the publishing industry: the essential guide for writers, readers, students of publishing, and book industry professionals including librarians, booksellers, literary agents, printers, copyright lawyers, digital experts.
Preamble;
1. Starting Out; Working Life of a Young Editor; Family
Ownership and Management; Fast Forward Fifty Years: Last Day at the
Bloomsbury Office.
2. The Brave New World of Scientific Publishing;
Publishing and the Life Sciences; Leaving Pergamon in Abrupt Circumstances;
The Not so Brave New World of Oxford University Press; Decision-Making at
Oxford University Press: A Beginners Guide.
3. A Time of Crisis;
Cost-cutting, Upheavals and Outsourcing; First Encounters with Computers; The
Transformation of Printing ; The Oxford English Dictionary Second Edition;
Trying to Leave Oxford University Press.
4. Things Speed Up; The World of
Trade Publishing; Bad Behaviour in the Roaring 80s; Academic vs Trade
Publishing; The Perils of Literary Publishing; Distinctly Non-Literary
Bestsellers.
5. Consolidation, Change and Controversies; The Big Bang of
Trade Publishing; The Changing Retail Landscape; The Demise of Book Clubs;
The Decline of Theological Publishing; The End of the Net Book Agreement;
Reed Elsevier: The Anti-Book Publisher.
6. The Start-up Years; The Art of the
Publishing Deal; Multimedia CD-ROMs; Innovation and Adding Value;The Rise and
Rise of Journal Publishing.
7. A Global Family Business; Nurturing Nature;
Open Access takes on Journal Publishing; Do No Evil: Going to Battle against
a Tech Giant; Macmillan India: an Imperial Legacy; Childrens Publishing
Grows Up; Accidental Successes; Managerial Diversions.
8. Making Bloomsbury
Less Magical; Wisden a Long-running Love Affair; Becoming a Digital
Publisher in a Digital World; Public Library Online: Trying to Modernise
Library Services; The Culture of Bloomsbury and Industry Progress; Design,
Marketing and Sales.
9. British Publishing: An International Bestseller; The
Growth of ELT Publishing; The Dominance of the English Language; Adventures
in the Gulf; International Diplomacy.
10. Being a Mensch; Publicity and Sales
in a Digital World; Publishing by Numbers; Coming to Terms with Agents; Print
on Demand and the Curse of Book Returns; How Do you Value a Publishing
Company?; The Ever-Changing Geography of London Publishing; An International
Publisher in a Post-Brexit World. Afterword; Reasons to be Cheerful, or Why
2022 might be Better than 1972; Publishing People; Companies; Technology;
Marketplace; Authors. And FinallyPost-amble
Richard Charkin
Since becoming a publisher in 1972, Richard Charkin has held many senior posts at major publishing houses, including Oxford University Press, Reed Elsevier, Current Science Group, Macmillan, and Bloomsbury Publishing. He is former President of The Book Society, the International Publishers Association and the UK Publishers Association. He is a non-executive director of the International Advisory Board of the Frankfurt Book Fair, Liverpool University Press, and Cricket Properties Ltd as well as advising nkoda.com and running Mensch Publishing. He lectures on the publishing courses at London College of Communications, City University, and University College London.
Tom Campbell
Tom Campbell is an independent consultant and writer. He has worked with the Greater London Authority to produce the Mayors Cultural Strategy and was Head of Creative Industries at the London Development Agency. He co-chaired the Creative Industries Councils Working Group on Regions and Clusters and is on the editorial board of the academic journal Cultural Trends. His most recent novel, The Planner, is published by Bloomsbury.
