My Back Pages

by Richard Charkin, Tom Campbell (With)

Overview

Richard Charkin's experience as a publisher is unique among his generation. Over the past half century he has been (at different times) a scientific and medical publisher, a journal publisher, a digital publisher and a general publisher. He has worked for family-owned, publicly-owned, university-owned companies and start-ups. In this memoir he uses his unrivalled experience to illustrate the profound changes that have affected the identity and practices but not the purpose of publishing.

Of course there are stories about well-known personalities he has encountered in his career - Madonna, Jeffrey Archer, Robert Maxwell, Paul Hamlyn, Mohammed Al-Fayed and many more. But his primary purpose is to provide an insider's account of the social, technological, commercial and geographical developments as seen through the eyes of a gifted all-round publisher who has made a very significant contribution to the profession.

This is an insider's account of the last fifty years of the publishing industry: the

essential guide for writers, readers, students of publishing, and book industry

professionals including librarians, booksellers, literary agents, printers,

copyright lawyers, digital experts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781739265731
Publisher:	Marble Hill Publishers
Publication date:	04/17/2023
Pages:	178
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.41(d)

About the Author

Richard Charkin Since becoming a publisher in 1972, Richard Charkin has held many senior posts at major publishing houses, including Oxford University Press, Reed Elsevier, Current Science Group, Macmillan, and Bloomsbury Publishing. He is former President of The Book Society, the International Publishers Association and the UK Publishers Association. He is a member of the International Advisory Board of the Frankfurt Book Fair; a non-executive director of Liverpool University Press and Cricket Properties Ltd as well as advising nkoda.com and running Mensch Publishing. He lectures on the publishing courses at London College of Communications, City University, and University College London.

Editorial Reviews

Richard Charkin's My Back Pages is an extraordinary exposition of his quite extraordinary career. There is surely no other trade book and academic journal publisher of the last half century so qualified and so competent to describe and evaluate the market's endless and astonishing twists and turns over that time. Charkin's opinionated anecdotes and reflections provide intriguing colour and pace, and are sometimes very funny, but It is his technical overview of the market over these five decades of constant technical revolution that is so absorbing, so clear minded, so wide flung, so instructive. My Back Pages should now become a compulsory text for new career entrants into the publishing world. It's that good.

Sir Tim Waterstone

A fascinating personal assessment of the rise and growth of publishing by someone whose lived through it and whose experience, knowledge and wisdom is second to none.

Delia Smith

I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is more than a memoir but a genuine history of publishing, of interest to anyone in the industry and furthermore anyone interested in publishing, especially authors and would-be authors

Bob Campbell. Former President, Blackwell Scientific

Richard Charkin changed UK publishing. He also, thankfully, made it more fun.

Charlotte Mendelson

I found it fascinating and full of interest....Your early years in the business are particularly riveting to somebody who joined much later on.

Antony Topping, Managing Director, Greene & Heaton Literary Agency

This book spans 50 years of British publishing, and makes them all interesting. Richard Charkin never minded stirring the pot, and clearly he is still at it. He offers a tour of the publishers where he worked, of the industry, and of the many colorful characters he came across. From Lord Archer to Harry Potter, all the stories are here, and they are told with flair in Richard's signature voice. I loved it!

John Sargent, former CEO of Macmillan USA

I thoroughly enjoyed this. You have a great eye for the telling details that illuminate the progress (or otherwise) of publishing from the Seventies to now, and you have so many good stories... it is an impressive achievement.

Nick Clee, Joint Editor and Founder, BookBrunch

A riveting account of the last fifty years of publishing by one of the industry's most successful - and boisterous - characters.

Alexandra Pringle

What an amazing career. I can't think of anyone else who has been active in such a wide range of sorts of publishing. I should think there will be a host of people who know you through the sector of publishing that they are in but will be interested in your experience of all the other sectors that they don't know about.

Andrew L Schuller, Publishing Consultant, Formerly Editorial Director Humanities and Social Sciences OUP

I can really hear your voice throughout, and it's wonderfully entertaining. Bravo. It really is a joy.

Patrick Brindle, Into Content (?)

Richard Charkin is a professional's professional, and no-one knows the book trade better.

Jeffrey Archer

From the Publisher