For as long as I’ve known how to read and write I’ve loved books and have especially loved pointing out typos and spelling mistakes and loudly tutting. A children’s book I loved as a child had on the page the typo “the the” and it still haunts me to this day. I want to go into publishing so that another young child does not need to go through that trauma. Also, because I love books of course!

I’ve wanted to be a publisher for as long as I actually knew what being a publisher entailed and my career trajectory has not shifted at all since then ( apart from a brief digression when I was ten and I wanted to be a pirate). Books always fascinated me and I was often caught reading a book under the table in school instead of doing maths work. Helping books be created and introducing them into the world is what I want to do. One gap year, a terrible call centre job and a dreadful bar job later I know I really would much rather do a job in publishing.

I did my MA in English Literature at the University of Glasgow and as much as I enjoyed the course, I was one of the very few students that didn’t want to be a teacher and I knew a future in publishing was still what I wanted to do and that the MLitt in Publishing Studies at Stirling would be an integral part of achieving this goal. At graduation while everyone was talking about their summer plans and their gap years I was talking about this publishing course. Even the social media aspect won’t scare me off; I hope. Over the summer, I even helped edit my friend’s self-published novel Melancholy Mind. I will completely acknowledge it as my first editing job even if the pay was in McDonald’s fries.

A few weeks into this course and I now know it was the right choice. Editing was my original career goal but now sales and marketing sounds rather interesting as well. The social media aspect of the course is scary though but I will persevere and become a social butterfly! Therefore, you can find me on Twitter . Let’s talk about books and the eternal struggle of getting up those stairs at Pathfoot.