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/ This is a really important book that I am certain will be read for years to come by anyone who has any interest in books and publishing. This means Charkin has closer relationships with his authors than he had in posts at Bloomsbury and Oxford University Press, for example, and is always at the end of the phone when needed. “Because there isn’t anyone else to talk to,” he says, laughing. “Which is why I restrict the number of titles that I publish. So, I have a one-on-one relationship with every author.” Is it at all accurate? How embarrassing to be wrong about key issues. Somebody has, for instance, written to me that I’d named the wrong print union at one point—forgivable given the acronyms (ASTMS, NGA, SOGAT) and the tedium of long pointless negotiations with them at the time. Fortunately I had the good fortune to identify a dozen “referees” to read the manuscript from their points of view and with their critical eyes. They were brilliant and saved me from any number of errors. 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.

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

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. Editorial tastes differed across countries, as did sometimes spelling and grammar. Thus a separate edition was deemed important. Join us monthly for Richard Charkin’s latest column. More coverage of his work from Publishing Perspectives is here and more from us on industry statistics is here. And then there’s the marketing. Scientific and academic publishing has always viewed its marketplace as global. The very idea of territorial separation is alien. Trade books do have separate markets with different tastes but those differences are diminishing. In today’s world this would, of course, be utterly unacceptable, but then it was the norm in many British institutions, particularly those close to establishments such as Oxford University.At George Richardson’s funeral service, St. John’s Oxford. Richardson’s contemporaries from Oxford University Press. Image: Nigel Portwood 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 Two intentions but not contractual rules are (1) to pay royalties quarterly on the same day I receive quarterly cash from sales, and (2) we try to avoid withholding a percentage of money owing against potential future negative sales from returned copies. Sometimes the latter is implemented if we’ve sold, or more accurately lent, materially more copies to bookshops than they’ve sold, but we’re normally able to ignore this. Wastage and Its Costs 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.”

My back pages - Marble Hill Publishers

What will the book look like? The book was printed and distributed by the brilliant team at IngramSpark, but until you hold a book in your hands, you simply don’t know. Phew, I said to myself, as the first copy arrived. It was beautifully designed and manufactured, better even than I’d anticipated. How did I come to publish my old friend and rival, Richard Charkin? Despite our longevity, he and I continue to publish with our own small presses because it is what we know and love. We were having lunch one day when Richard asked if I would look at his memoir. We’ve published 14 titles, the bulk of them having been supported admirably by Bloomsbury’s sales, rights, and production teams and MDL’s distribution. Four have been published using IngramSpark’s self-publishing platform. I’ve managed to run the business with no full-time staff but a wonderful freelance team of editors, designers, and publicists. 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 The publishing world will continue and thrive, as it always has, by creatively pushing water uphill.

Agents discovered the joy of selling the same book to two different publishers simultaneously, thus increasing the chances of achieving a double unearnable advance. All this activity is overdue, important, and commendable. One lesson that may have been learned from this—and indeed from the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic—is the importance of collecting and analyzing data, and then interpreting that data in a meaningful way. I think we should start applying this skill to other areas of concern in publishing. There’s also quite a lot of that undiscovered because it’s not high enough profile . . . I saw a rejection letter, of a really good writer, a novelist, just last week, which said, ‘We find that books by white men of a certain age are difficult to sell.’ That’s not true. But it is a default reaction.”

Title Detail: My Back Pages by Richard Charkin

But I think probably everyone would have gulped today at just that title. It probably would have got through anyway, but maybe by the skin of its teeth. I’m sure there are other ones that we would think twice or three times or 20 times before doing.” 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. Absolutely,” he says emphatically. “I think it is really dangerous.” There could have been “a little bit of that” in the Smith book saga, he says. So my resolutions this year relate to improving publishing by measuring things other than those I’ve mentioned above. The 2022 Audit Wish ListIn publishing terms, the opening of offices across Europe, Asia, and Latin America laid the foundations for Oxford dominance in English Language Teaching (ELP). The prioritization of scholarly journals made Oxford a legitimate competitor to the massive scientific publishers. The computerization of the Oxford English Dictionary not only preserved a great scholarly work but also furnished OUP with digital skills ahead of its competitors. It’s a truism, but helping authors create their books and find their markets and share a common set of goals is immensely rewarding–when it works A riveting account of the last fifty years of publishing by one of the industry’s most successful - and boisterous - characters." Alexandra Pringle My challenge began some years ago when a handful of people asked me if I was ever going to write my memoirs. I said no for many reasons.