Careers in Publishing for Medievalists – Simon Forde, November 2009
1. My background and entry into publishing
I did a PhD at Birmingham on late medieval sermons in 1985, and then a one-year post-doc
at the Pontifical Institute in Toronto. Then – and this was the time of Mrs Thatcher when for
about 5 years there were literally no medieval lecturing positions available – I got a job as a
half-time editorial assistant at Leeds, editing the International Medieval Biblography. When
the editor changed careers, I became the editor of it.
In the meantime I was doing part-time teaching in English and History at Leeds, and
administering the postgraduate Centre for Medieval Studies. And, as we established the
International Medieval Congress as a sideline to the IMB, the small entity of 4 staff jumped
to 15 and we established an Institute for Medieval Studies there. This period covered 1987
to 1996.
With the IMB we had been keen to stay ahead of the competition and have the whole data
(back to 1967) digitally available. In this task we needed to go into partnership with a
commercial partner, to provide technical expertise and financial support. After a tendering
process we selected Brepols Publishers in Belgium who, at that stage, were one of perhaps
only two or three companies with expertise in CD-ROMs.
By 1996 we had been working with Brepols for 3-4 years and the Medieval Congress had
been established for 3 years and I was in need of a change of scenery. And Brepols
approached me because they realised that they were strong in Latin and French-language
publishing but needed someone who could start an English-language list, since they realised
that was going to be the dominant world language. They wanted someone with extensive
contacts around the world, a broad knowledge of medieval subjects and some affinity with
the type of publications that Brepols produce. I started with them in late 1996 and am still
there.
2. What does the job entail?
In my situation it meant starting a publishing list from scratch. Because Brepols works with
almost all books being part of series, my first job was to create series – that is, to find an
Editorial Board of 5-6 scholars prepared to vet all submissions, and an academic host
(normally a university) who would be the home for the Editorial Board and to serve as
contractual party with Brepols.
Using my existing contacts I was able to establish about a dozen such series within the first
year. Since then, the number of series has typically grown incrementally, one or two per
year. Each series produces 1-2 books a year.
In recent years we have agreed to expand much further, but to broaden out from medieval
and early-modern studies. We are now developing new series in Bible Studies.
Having got the series established, between the Boards and me we had to find suitable
volumes. But it also meant that I had to establish whole procedures, since the systems
employed by my Belgian colleagues were not appropriate to the English-speaking world –
they tended to expect the Editorial Boards or authors to provide “camera-ready copy” (i.e.
text ready for printing), and independent peer-reviewing was not really understood on the
continent.
Therefore I had to find a cover-designer to design various looks to the books, to give them
some sort of brand-image. I had to establish a Style-Sheet, and find copyeditors who could
undertake the copyediting. Then I had to make standard design for the pages.
My work does not involved reading the books. But it does involve meeting prospective
authors at conferences, listening to papers at conferences and scouting for suitable material,
and being able to assess proposals. It involves establishing procedures to ensure that we
identify good volumes, and that we have proper systems to ensure that they are produced
to the standard we expect. This involves the vetting by the Editorial Boards, employing
independent peer-reviewers, having a member of the Editorial Boards liaise with the authors
as they write the volumes, and then having several stages (pre-editing, copyediting, postediting) where the text is checked and brought up to standard, and to confirm to the needs
of the Style Sheet.
3. What sorts of jobs exist in a Publishing House?
Taking Brepols as an example of a medium-sized independent publisher, we have about 30
staff. 10% (three) work in accounts, 10% (three) in processing orders (“fulfilment”), 20% (six)
in marketing, two in the warehouse despatching orders, two in IT (mainly developing new
electronic products), one as production manager (overseeing the actual printing, which is
done digitally in the Netherlands and US), and one boss. There are five who work in-house
on Corpus Christianorum editions. Then there are eight “publishing managers” of which I am
one – responsible for commissioning and overseeing the whole process. So we are about
30% of the total staffing. Put crudely we are the acquisitions staff who find and create the
products that the rest of the company sells and requires to keep going – though there is
often tension between the “administrative types” within companies who want to impose
structures which are not realistic for an academic world.
We publish about 200 books a year. For most of my colleagues it is still a very cottageindustry, individual approach where each book is treated differently.
But I alone publish over 50 books a year, so it is a highly streamlined process in my area. And
it relies on very large input from:
** Editorial Boards – who do this as part of their own research responsibilities or interests.
** copyeditors – who are freelancers; I have two main copyeditors who each do a dozen or
so books a year. They earn about $1650 per book, so about £1000. Which means that it is
hardly a living wage in the UK, though that is not unreasonable in North America and
Australia. So that is where my copyeditors are based. And they appreciate the flexibility of
the work.
** cover-designer – someone based in West Yorkshire who works to agreed templates.
** an assistant and paid interns who can manage the administration.
4. What not to expect
a) That we spend time reading the books, wondering about the placements of commas.
Given that I have 50-60 books to publish a year, and have over 240 contracted (i.e. 4-5
years’ worth of future books), plus another 240 prospective titles, I can probably only
spend 1 day per book during its final year of production and 1 hour per book per year in
the previous years.
b) That we live in a cultural world. The reality is that we have to be highly cultured people
to deal with our authors, but the day-to-day work involves putting boring data into a
boring computing system, dealing with bureaucratic forms and legal and auditing
requirements of companies.
5. What it takes to be a good Commissioning Editor in academic publishing
You have two communities that you have to tread between:
(a) The academics who are your authors, peer-reviewers and Editorial Board members. My
strong view is that the more knowledgeable you are about the subject-matter the more
you will be respected by the academics. That means at least having a doctorate, but
even that may be too narrow, because you will need to be dealing in such a broad
number of fields, disciplines and chronological periods.
(b) Your business colleagues in the company, most of whom will know zero about the books
themselves. They will simply want the marketing information in the computer in some
agreed format, to some arbitrary timetable. And the fulfilment people will want to have
all the boring data kept up-to-date for customers. And you will need to understand the
financial needs of the business and work around that – if you want your projects to be
funded and not get chopped.
The best Commissioning Editors I know are people who are extremely knowledgeable and
would be quite capable of being academics in their own right; indeed academics treat them
as their equal. Those who can’t are often treated rather dismissively by the academics and
authors.
However, it is perhaps true to say that such people tend to be less well regarded by the
bosses of the companies – they are certainly not academics, but businessmen, and are
unlikely to be on the same wavelength as academic-style Commissioning Editors.
6. What types of careers might be open?

Major publishing houses (OUP, Taylor & Francis) – but presumably here the range of
publications is so vast that you may work in a narrowly-defined field.

Small independent houses, or small university presses – the number of the former
which are active in medieval studies is limited (Brepols, Brill, Boydell & Brewer) and
so the openings are almost nil; the number of university presses in the UK are also
very small and they cover a huge range of disciplines, so a medieval book would be a
great rarity.

Freelance copyediting – is possible, but there are vast numbers of people trying to
get such freelance work. You probably have to find a very clear niche. But it will not
be remunerative, particularly in academic publishing in the humanities.
Perhaps try a paid internship (e.g. at Brepols) and see if it is a palatable option?