I took a break between proofs and manuscript reviews this afternoon to flick idly through Twitter…..
…..and discovered that I have been shortlisted for the Women in Publishing Pandora Award ‘for significant and sustained contribution to the publishing industry’.
My fellow shortlisted candidates are Kate Wilson, the force of nature behind the amazing independent children’s publisher Nosy Crow, and Justine Solomon, who runs the industry networking group Byte the Book. They are both titans of the publishing scene. I feel incredibly honoured to be named alongside them.
And on a personal note, it’s a significant moment too: a few years ago I was on the brink of leaving publishing and moving into business consultancy, but I had a vision of a way of doing publishing differently, and that’s what I’ve been focused on for the last three years – the book as part of the bigger business, an author-centric way of working with fair and transparent terms and a real passion for partnership.
Whatever happens at the awards ceremony on Wednesday evening, it’s an exhilarating shot in the arm and an incentive to do even more, even better.