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 