Got a passion for popular culture and licensing? In the latest instalment in our series providing an insight into life and careers in the publishing industry, Nick Oliver spills the beans on his role as senior editor within the Igloo Books Licensing Team.
I’m in charge of…
As a senior editor on the Igloo Books Licensing Team, I’m in charge of managing the scheduling for live projects, offering support to the junior editors in the team, as well as helping with urgent requests from the Sales team to make sure these can be managed without impacting titles already planned in.
On the Igloo Licensing Team, we’re largely working with the Disney license – covering Disney, Marvel and different franchises – and often creating colouring and activity books. Editorial tasks range from sourcing the artwork from the licensor, creating excel and indesign plans, and deciding what we want the activities to be and communicating this with the designers. And then there’s the proofreading before rounds of licensor approval and final editorial sign off.
I love licensing – in fact I’m wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt as we speak! It’s cool to work with stuff that you see in the mainstream. It’s the department I’ve been on the most since I’ve been at Igloo. There are challenges, but it’s a really rewarding job.
My first task of the day…
My first task of the day is to log onto the Disney Publishing Worldwide site and check to see if any of the projects I’ve sent them have been approved. As soon as that approval is received, I can crack on with prepping the files for editorial sign-off. Sometimes they’ll require a resubmit, so if that’s the case the next step is to take in their amends and reupload. After that I get started on my “To Do” list for the rest of the day.
The thing I look forward to the most…
Receiving advance copies of the books I’ve worked on is always a massive highlight of the job. Each and every book we work on is very much a labour of love, so when we get to see the final physical products, it’s nice to show them off to each other.
What nobody else knows about my job…
This is a tough one to answer as I don’t think there’s anything about my job that only I know. If there was, I’d look to share it with others in the department, much like the editors did for me when I first joined. One of the things I love about my job is how we’re all looking to help each other improve our skillsets, be that editorial or design. It’s a very welcoming and enjoyable place to work and a big part of that is down to the collaborative nature of the job.
When I say to people that I’m an editor, they often say ‘oh did you write that?’. An outward perception is that people think there’s a lot of story writing involved. But editing, especially on Licensing, is different. The text is there – it’s about chisseling it down like a bit of marble until you’ve got this beautiful finished piece.
How I got the job…
I went to uni at 18 but it wasn’t the right time for me – I dropped out not long into the course, and went back to working in Tesco. I’d been back there for about 6 years and was happy, but I wanted to try something else, so I started an Open University degree in English Literature.
For a while, I was juggling working full time at Tesco with my modules. I eventually dropped down to 30 hours a week and put the extra time into the course. By the end of it, I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to work with books.
I started searching for a job in Publishing that wasn’t London-based and saw the role for an Assistant Editor advertised at Igloo Books – just a half hour commute from me. Ideal! At first I didn’t apply as I thought I wouldn’t be what they were looking for, but thankfully I changed my mind and haven’t looked back since! My CV at the time was minimal, but I played on the fact that I’d done the Open University degree and that to complete the work required you need a lot of self-drive.
I’m super proud of the choices I made. The Open University course was similar to what I’m doing now – sourcing information, writing essays, and crafting something that answers a question (The question here being: can you make an awesome book?). So I found the skills I gained there really useful.
My advice for anyone breaking in…
Don’t ever doubt your own abilities or think that a career in Publishing isn’t for you. It’s an extremely rewarding job, and as an industry it needs people from all walks of life to be a part of it so that we can make sure the books being developed and released are as relatable as possible to society as a whole.
The path I might have chosen…
I’m a big fan of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe books, so if I wasn’t working in Publishing maybe I’d have a go at being a Private Investigator in a seedy LA noir setting, but instead of whisky on the rocks I’d have a Dr Pepper with a straw.
