Join the celebration of the Society of Young Publishers’ 75th anniversary at the London Book Fair! Our panel, consisting of both past and current SYP members, will delve into diverse career paths within publishing and strategies to contribute value to the industry. Explore topics like professional growth, successful career navigation, and key steps to becoming future industry leaders. With a mix of previous SYP members who are now publishing leaders and members currently developing within the industry, this panel will offer valuable insight to those looking to get ahead in publishing.
Suzanne Collier
Suzanne Collier is known as THE person to see if you want to get ahead in book publishing. She is the founder of bookcareers.com, the independent Careers Service for book publishing, a fully qualified Careers Advisor (RCDP) and has been shortlisted twice by the Career Development Institute for Career Coach of the Year and four times by the Independent Publishers Guild for Services to Publishing. She has over 40 years’ experience of working in book publishing for both trade and academic publishers.
Suzanne provides all-level career support and coaching for both companies and individuals, especially those undergoing career changes, and helps with anything from CVs, covering letters, through to pushing for promotion, redundancy support and issues such as work-related stress. She also runs a periodic Salary Survey for the industry. Her book HOW TO JOB SEARCH IN BOOK PUBLISHING will be published in 2024. She was also the youngest person ever to become an SYP chair and held the role over 5 years!).Â
Patrick Janson-Smith
Patrick Janson-Smith’s first job in publishing was in 1967 as assistant to the Export Publicity Manager at the University of London Press (Hodder & Stoughton). Following spells at Granada Publishing (working for the legendary Dame Carmen Callil), Octopus Books, Corgi Books, the Nationwide Book Service, he was Publisher of Transworld from 1981-2005, founding the Black Swan imprint in 1983. After a brief stint at the Christopher Little Agency, he set up the Blue Door imprint at HarperCollins in 2008 which closed firmly behind him when he retired in 2014. He is now Chairman of Greyhound Literary. He was on the SYP committee over fifty years ago and helped organise its 21st Birthday party at Madam Tussaud’s.
Nia Jones
Nia is the inaugural chair of the newest branch of the Society of Young Publishers, SYP Wales. She has spent 2023 raising the profile of the branch in the Welsh industry, including presenting to Publishing Wales at one of their speaker sessions. Alongside her role at the SYP, she is a Library Account Developer at IOP Publishing working across the EMEA region, providing marketing support to her regional managers and ensuring that her customers get the most out of their subscriptions. Â
In whatever spare time she has left she writes for her own blog reviewing books and providing industry insight, including keeping the Publishing Work Experience Master Post up to date for all the publishing hopefuls!
Polly Silk
Polly has over a decade of experience in international rights sales and children’s and educational publishing, most recently working as Acting Head of Rights at Oxford University Press. She is now the course leader for the MA in Publishing Media at Oxford Brookes University and lectures on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, focussing on international publishing and licensing. Polly was Chair of Oxford SYP 2011 and 2012, having started out with the Society as a Student Liaison Officer.
SYP Members benefit from a 30% discount off LBF tickets. Get in touch with sypchair@thesyp.org.uk for the discount code if you are already a member or sign up to become a member here.
Please RSVP below!
Location:
Focus Theatre, London Olympia
London Book Fair
10:45am-11:30am
Accessibility notice:Â
Please see the London Book Fair page on accessibility here and the visitor’s guide here.