I’ve been working in publishing for 21 years, almost exactly. I went to London in early 1989 and fairly soon managed to get a job as an editorial assistant with The Institute of Metals (now The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining), at 1 Carlton House Terrace … a wonderful and historic location near all the sights of the West End. I liked that.
I shared an office with two very agreeable people from whom I learned much, and between us we produced the quarterly journals Surface Engineering, Powder Metallurgy and British Corrosion Journal … not very glamorous, but perfectly good in their way.
After a year or so I got a better-paid job as production editor with Thomas Telford (the publishing arm of The Institution of Civil Engineers), working on exciting journals such as Steel Construction Today, Advances in Cement Research and Magazine of Concrete Research, and also on books – I produced the book that the ICE published to mark the centenary of the Forth Bridge, for example.
Again I had some great colleagues; we had plenty of fun and quite a lot of beer, though working under pressure to deadlines. That was on the Isle of Dogs – a world and a Docklands Light Railway trip away from the West End.
When my wife was pregnant we decided to move back to Ireland. I worked for a couple of years as a production editor with an educational publisher, while doing some freelance work for Thomas Telford. Eventually I decided to go fully freelance and work from home … I’ve been doing this for 17 years now.
It has had pros and cons, like most jobs. Of course there’s no commuting, and one can live anywhere; but there is also no sociability … which is perhaps why blogsites are tempting. I’ve always had plenty of work, from the likes of Elsevier, Routledge, Psychology Press, McGraw-Hill, Johns Hopkins University Press, The Royal Society of Chemistry, Longman, and numerous others, including some Irish publishers.
These days I work mainly on psychology books and journals. I do copy-editing, proofreading and indexing, and also some writing, rewriting and substantive editing.
It’s not a bad life, really. I don’t think I fancy doing it for another 21 years, though.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Thank you for sharing Brendan.
Thanks, Levent.
Nice post Brendano. I have always fancied working on Caravan Weekly or similar. I’ve done some freelance work on more glamorous publications and found the offices pretty pretentious places, whereas Big Truck Weekly (not its real name) was great fun. A friend used to work for a stamp collectors magazine and said it was the friendliest place.
I know Carlton Terrace too. Nice spot.
The big advantage of working from home is being able to spend the whole day in your pyjamas.
What are you going to do next?
Interesting Brendano: I think being self employed or working from home requires a tremendous amount of discipline. There are disadvantages, certainly: lack of buzz for want of a better word, meetings (a mixed blessing), meeting people in the flesh, all the inter-reaction is missing.
What do you think you might do next?
But I don’t have pyjamas, Isobel. 🙂 Thanks for the kind comments.
I don’t know. I’ve done some writing and a publisher is interested in a novel I wrote, but I need to do some rewriting first. I’d like to be able to make a living from that kind of thing.
TMI Brendano! About the pyjamas I mean.
Aha, so you have a novel. That’s very exciting. Keep us posted won’t you.
Thanks, Araminta. I’m actually quite disciplined and do a proper day’s work each day … when I’m blogging I’m generally working too. I did a full day’s work yesterday, for example … that’s the problem; work can spill into weekends when there are deadlines.
I’ve too much work at present, and I’ve never really been short of it, thank God.
Yes I will, Isobel. 🙂
Publishing Isobel, can be very pretentious indeed, but I’ve worked in publishing, advertising and the television industry. Advertising is truly pretentious, in my opinion. I loved the publishing industry, though. I was paid to read books!
So I did have to do some other things occasionally, but I thought this was pretty OK really.
I worked for a few years in public libraries before I worked in publishing. I always liked books.
Yes, well Brendano; it does have its drawbacks. I worked in publishing for five years and had a copy of every book they published, so er I do have lot of books! Everyone else used to throw them in the bin, but I couldn’t do it; it’s against my religion, so I took them home!
I have a strange and motley collection too, Araminta. I don’t usually get a copy of books I’ve worked on, but sometimes I ask for one if it’s been interesting.
And sometimes I’m given ones that I certainly will never read.
Hey Brendano; just spoken to you on t’other side! Good blog though. I think it does require huge discipline to work from home. I could never do it. I’m part time as a teacher, and end up spending way too much time on here and MyT on days off when I should be marking/cleaning.
Cleaning is over rated
Oh Pseu; that’s exactly what my husband says…before leaving the mess that I have to clear up! 😉
Cleaning is a waste of time, although I do have the occasional blitz 😉 I do make an exception for kitchen and bathrooms though, so all is not lost! 🙂
Yes, as soon as you’ve finished, you’ve to start all over. Sigh! But if I didn’t do it, I swear our place would turn into the set of Shameless, or what was it my mum said…something about Stepto’s back yard…
Ara, exactly! Kitchen and bathroom priority…
I must admit that cleaning can be a bone of contention in our house. I do most of the cooking, but not enough of the other stuff.
Interesting stuff, Brendano. Those journals sound exactly the kind of thing they feature on ‘Have I Got News For You.’ 🙂
Good luck with the novel!
Thanks, Janh. Yes, they do … in fact I seem to remember that a similar show asked our permission to use one of our titles once. 🙂
I’ve worked on 50 or more ‘learned journals’, all quite dull. One whose title impressed me greatly (on which I didn’t work) was simply called Gut.
A good blog Brendano, I too have worked on my own since 1992, I chose to go freelance because being a night owl I found it very hard to keep regular hours, also I hate having a boss.
I’ve given it all up now, no more contracts, no more late nights, although I’m still in the habit of staying up late (till 4:00am). Hope to get out of it soon 🙂
I do have a question though, what is this green stuff growing all over my yard, one never sees these things at night. Should I mow it? 😦
Hi Brendano. Yes. “Gut” is visceral and macho in a way that Magazine of Concrete Research could never be. I can see how one might aspire to Gut. 🙂
Hi Jan. Yes … I think it also has a pleasingly explosive, staccato quality that Journal of Otorhinolaryngology (which I did work on) doesn’t manage to achieve. 🙂 Pity it doesn’t have an exclamation mark, though.
http://gut.bmj.com/
LOL Yes an exclamation would create a nice emphasis! Oooh so many ears, noses and throats? The Journal of Sexual Medicine is always a good jaw-dropping read.
Jan, at the weekend I was compiling an index for a book on clinical criminology … lots of stuff on unusual sexual preferences, shall we say. Urolagnia, zoophilia, necrophagy, mysophilia … my jaw may have dropped once or twice.
Not in quite the same league Brendano, but I clicked on the cat tag and opened a few of the pages that came up. One was by a prostitute in Edinburgh who describes herself as rubenesque, talking about her life and work.I don’t recall anything like that on MyT.