Uncovering Publishing – Details, episodes & analysis

• Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
• Vicious by LJ Shen
• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
• The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake
• This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
• and many more...

• Scholomance series by Naomi Novik (Series)
• Apollo Remastered (Book)
• Big Panda and Tiny Dragon (Book)
• Ori and the Blind Forest (Video Game)
• Hades (Video Game)
• Hollow Kight (Video Game)
• Fight Club (Film)
• Chicken Boy (Book)

This week, Polly Smith talks running events like the British Book Awards and FutureBook for The Bookseller, as well as her career from a young publishing hopeful to her place at the center of British publishing today.

Polly Smith is Events Executive at the Bookseller. After graduating from Newcastle University with a degree in English Literature, Polly interned for the Publisher’s Association before moving over to The Bookseller as an event coordinator. Clearly not busy enough, Polly also joined the Society of Young Publishers as a UK events officer before being promoted to her current role of Events Executive. She is currently in the midst of planning the British Book Awards, also called the Nibbies.

Important dates:

• 17th March - British Book Awards Shortlist

• 15th May - British Book Awards

Polly's icebreaker picks:

• The Bees by Laline Paull

• The Vore by Brian Catling

In this week's episode, Dr. Joe Cain talks the rise of open access, academic publishing with small and big presses, the relevance of data and online platforms, and authors as entrepreneurs.

Joe Cain is an expert in the history of evolutionary biology with a recent focus on the history of eugenics a host of other related subjects. He seems tireless and endlessly energetic, publishing with Penguin, Cambridge, University of Chicago Press, the American Philosophical Society, and several pieces through STS occasional papers. He is also a member of the UCL Press executive board and past editor for BSHS Monographs and associate editor for Archives of Natural History and the British Journal for the History of Science. Finally, he is the acting editor for Euston Grove Press and a member of the Independent book publishers association.

Don't forget to check out the UCL STS podcast We Are STS.

Joe's icebreaker picks: Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky

Plato's Gorgias

Not Just the Tudors podcast

Sydney and Emma talk sad and ambitious predictions for the publishing industry in 2023, plus the best advice we've gotten about entering the industry over the past few busy months.

This week's episode features Zain Mahmood, head of e-commerce at Waterstones and one of the Bookseller's rising stars for 2021. Zain has worked at Waterstones for over 13 years where he started out as a weekend bookseller while going to university. We discuss career progression in bookselling, Prince Harry's new memoir, and Waterstones through the years.

Zain's favorite book to give: Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

This week's episode features Dan Kieran, bestselling author and co-founder of Unbound, an award-winning crowdfunding publisher. We discuss how to get out of your comfort zone, deal with failure, and approach the publishing industry with an authentic, disruptive mindset.

This week’s episode features Kelli Fairbrother, Co-founder and CEO of xigxag, a new integrated audiobook platform. We discuss coming into publishing from the tech industry as a dissatisfied consumer, the inevitable success of audiobooks, and how understanding tech can help you in your publishing career.

Welcome to Uncovering Publishing! This welcome episode introduces hosts Emma Kiesling and Sydney Allen and their goals in the publishing industry.