MY BACK PAGES (MY BACK PAGES: An undeniably personal history of publishing 1972-2022)

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This is the first lesson for a young publisher coming out of Charkin’s book. Look at who is running the business you work for. Some of them have been in more or less the same position for more than 30 years. Do you trust them with your career? If not you must agitate for change From Reed Charkin went on to the Current Science Group, Macmillan, then Bloomsbury, where he built hugely successful businesses largely on the academic side. He doesn’t present himself as a publishing genius however. Rather he comes across as someone with infectious enthusiasm, bundles of energy and most of all a love of the people he worked with. By Richard Charkin | @RCharkin ‘The Importance of Collecting and Analyzing Data’ I‘m writing this on January 1. It’s exactly 50 years since I turned up at the side entrance of George G.Harrap & Co., at 182-184 High Holborn, London, WC2, on January 1, 1972, having been interviewed and accepted for the job of a “Young Scientific Assistant Editor.” January 1 wouldn’t become a bank holiday in England until 1974. The meetings took place in various unprepossessing cafés and bars around Newington Green in North London, halfway between our homes—the beginning of an entirely 50-50 relationship. The process turned out to be enormous fun, with Tom guiding me and quietly cajoling me to dig out whatever interesting stuff might be hiding deep in the recesses of my faltering brain.

Richard Charkin, Author at Publishing Perspectives Richard Charkin, Author at Publishing Perspectives

Richard Charkin is a professional’s professional, and no-one knows the book trade better." Jeffrey Archer Charkin’s educational history is extensive – he acquired an MA in Natural Sciences from Trinity College at Cambridge, was a member of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School, and even earned the title of Supernumerary Fellow of Green College at Oxford. Career wise, Charkin has been active in the publishing field since 1972, notable for his 11-year-long run as Bloomsbury Press’ Executive Director as well as his presidency with the IPA and UK PA respectively. Apart from this, Charkin has had a number of senior executive positions at several publishing companies such as Reed International, Macmillan Publishers, and Oxford University Press. As of late, he resides as Bloomsbury China’s President, as well as the non-executive director of Liverpool University Press and the Institute of Physics Publishing. He is also a publishing professor at multiple university locations around London, England and has founded a publishing company of his own, called Mensch Publishing. [4] Contribution to the OED [ edit ] In spite of these rules, more than half the authors of the books are represented by literary agents and I’ve had no complaints about these terms (so far). I once published a book called The Genetics of the Jews, which was a very powerful scientific thing saying, ‘Actually, Jews aren’t that genetically different.’ My earlier mention of Netflix has triggered a thought. I’ve been loving their series called in English Call My Agent. So much of it reminds me of the trade book publishing industry, not least the jealousies and egos.Richard Charkin's 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. Charkin, R. (2023, January 27). Richard Charkin: "Remnants of Organs" in Medicine and Publishing . Publishing Perspectives. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://publishingperspectives.com/2022/07/richard-charkin-vestigial-organs-in-medicine-and-publishing/ One of the purposes of the business, apart from keeping me occupied and testing out some of my publishing theories, was for me to relearn the business at the micro level. So what have I learned and which of my prejudices have been confirmed or undermined? Complexity and Tight Margins

Richard Charkin: Notes From a Small London Publisher Richard Charkin: Notes From a Small London Publisher

I can’t claim to have proved definitively that you can do it. But we’re still in business. And there’s slightly more cash in the bank than when we started.” I found it fascinating and full of interest....Your early years in the business are particularly riveting to somebody who joined much later on." Antony Topping, Managing Director, Greene & Heaton Literary Agency A riveting account of the last fifty years of publishing by one of the industry’s most successful - and boisterous - characters." Alexandra Pringle

My Back Pages: an undeniably personal history of publishing 1972-2022

And what have I learned that I can share with fellow authors? Writing is hard. Editing is essential. Publishers add enormously but it is more important to find the right publisher than to chase the money. Try to write to one audience not several, as if talking to a single person. Take criticism in the spirit it’s made. Work hard at every aspect up to and beyond publication date. Enjoy the ride. Richardson died this month at the good age of 94. I attended his funeral at St John’s College, Oxford. Naturally there were many from his days at OUP who were there, and I was able to persuade Nigel Portwood, the current CEO, to take the photo above of nine survivors of those days. “We all worked in different roles in different divisions of Oxford University Press, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see some commonalities. All white. All male.” Richard Charkin

MY BACK PAGES: An undeniably personal history of publis…

Print in the new world is akin to the old French tradition of delivering the mail by postmen on stilts—charming but ridiculous. Charkin’s half century in publishing” (2018). Blogs: The Society of Authors. Blogs | The Society of Authors. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://www.societyofauthors.org/News/Blogs/SoA-Blog/December-2018/Charkin-s-half-century-in-publishing What an amazing career. I can’t think of anyone else who has been active in such a wide range of sorts of publishing. I should think there will be a host of people who know you through the sector of publishing that they are in but will be interested in your experience of all the other sectors that they don’t know about." Andrew L Schuller, Publishing Consultant, Formerly Editorial Director Humanities and Social Sciences OUP As you can see, I’ve resisted the temptation to grow a beard, although I must own up to laxity in the matter of daily shaving.

Farewell to those meetings with the cast of Ben Hur. Those gatherings’ only purpose was to have a meeting and be seen to be there. All this points to a sea change in trade book publishing, a change which has been signaled for decades but has been obstructed by squabbles such as EU exclusive rights and the short-term-ism of hunting the biggest possible advance as opposed to the best possible deal. Oxford University Press. (2023). History of the OED. Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved January 29, 2023, from https://public.oed.com/history/ However, perhaps there’s another question we should ask: What is the point of establishing separate territorial rights for English-language titles? Let’s ask why the system exists in the first place. ‘The World Has Changed and Will Change Even Faster’ Surely working from home will continue, with benefits to family life, avoidance of commuting stress, the economics of publishing, and the trust and empowerment of publishing employees.

Richard Charkin: Brexit Ushers British Publishing Into New Richard Charkin: Brexit Ushers British Publishing Into New

So they don’t want the rest. But, nonetheless, a huge number of extremely good books are being written by extremely good people, desperate to see the light of day.” Who is it for? Publishing recruits, students and researchers, authors, librarians, colleagues, friends, enemies? We probably should have decided at the outset but eventually plumped on the core market being people new to the industry. His experiences of phenomena such as Harry Potter will no doubt be of great interest, but his knowledge of the social and technological shifts in the industry also make this one for writers, insiders and anyone considering a career in publishing. Charkin told the Citizen: “We suddenly had 60,000 words. People say Tom has really captured my voice which is great. We ended up being very selective and tried to get into the social changes as well as the business changes.Just take a look at this range of covers to see how we have failed to establish a genre for Mensch. And the United Kingdom’s Publishers Association kindly lent me their offices for a place to thank friends and family for all their support.