Alison Jones is the founder and director of Practical Inspiration Publishing. A veteran of the publishing industry, she worked for over 23 years with companies such as Chambers Harrap, Oxford University Press and Macmillan as an editor, publisher and most recently Director of Innovation Strategy. She founded Practical Inspiration in 2014 as a pioneering new publishing brand for business and lifestyle books. A member of the Independent Publishing Guild board, she is a former Head Judge of the Business Book Awards and also hosts The Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast. She coaches every PI author on planning and writing their book, and making it work harder for their business. She has a sprollie/running buddy called Sorcha and lives in Cheshire.
Shell Cooper is the lynchpin of the operation, providing support to authors, managing finance and royalties, and keeping everything running smoothly. Before joining Practical Inspiration, Shell ran her own Virtual Assistant business and she’s an engineer by training: we think she might just be the most organized person on the planet. (She also has a PhD, so that’s Dr. Cooper to you… )
Michelle Charman, our Publishing Manager, expertly handles titles after handover through production in liaison with the project manager for each book. With over 25 years experience with publishers including Hamlyn, DK and Penguin, she’s a total publishing pro, and also a horse nut. You’ll find her out riding early mornings in mid Wales, tackling jumps, or just tackling tackle.
Our Operations Manager Ali Wyke works closely with Michelle taking books through production – she has particular responsibility for our 6-Minute Smarts series. Ali’s been in publishing for nearly 30 years specialising in operations, production and project management. In 2015 she achieved her personal dream of sailing across the Atlantic ocean and around the Caribbean. These days she can be found walking her dog in beautiful countryside or trying to write a children’s book.
Sales and Marketing Manager Rex Elston works closely with our global network of sales representatives and partners to deliver tailored book promotions to major chains, independent bookshops, and online retailers. He also collaborates directly with authors to help them develop and grow their own sales opportunities.
With over 20 years of experience in publishing, Rex brings a wealth of industry insight. He was most recently Sales and Business Development Director at Kogan Page, and has previously held senior roles at SAGE, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Pearson Education.
Rex is passionate about helping authors transform their expertise into commercially successful books that inform, inspire, and make an impact.
Our Campaigns ManagerSarah Hodgen will create a bespoke marketing plan for your book, drawing up a list of key publications to review it, as well as pitching to secure guest articles, features and/or blog pieces, and speaking opportunities, and she will liaise on your behalf with journalists and reviewers. Before moving into publishing she trained as a primary school teacher and also spent a decade promoting British food and drink overseas . Now she sells trade and academic books across the South of England and Wales and manages the academic calling team, alongside her two days a week helping Practical Inspiration authors reach the widest audience possible for their books. In her spare time she can be found out running in the Hampshire countryside or putting in the lengths at the local swimming pool. She lives with her husband, two sons, father-in-law and a naughty tortie called Clara Oswald.
Lauren Moseley is our Sales and Marketing Assistant, responsible for maintaining our bibliographic data and supporting all our sales and marketing activities. A former senior bookseller at Waterstones, Liverpool One, she was a Sales Assistant at Bloomsbury before joining Practical Inspiration. She lives in Liverpool.
Paula van Eenennaam Sánchez, our Digital Marketing Assistant, manages all things social media: from designing creative content and establishing contact with podcasts and influencers, to analysing our overall performance so that our titles reach a wider audience. A graduate of the Brookes MA Publishing programme, she has previous industry experience working with Blackwell’s and Peculiar Press.
Our Rights Manager is Clare Hodder, former Head of Rights at Palgrave Macmillan and Chair of the Publishing Association’s Copyright Committee. Clare is constantly looking for opportunities to sell translation and other rights to a range of international partners throughout the world. Well ahead of publication, she is talking to publishers about upcoming books and establishing which books are a good fit for which market. She compiles rights guides in Spring and Autumn each year to showcase all forthcoming titles and these are presented to prospective buyers at international bookfairs as well as being mailed out to hundreds of international publishers and agents for review. Clare manages the end-to-end process for our rights sales including sending out review copies, negotiating contracts, checking that the licensee’s edition is published correctly and chasing licensees for royalty statements.
In addition to this core team, we work closely with a fabulous range of partners through the editorial, design and production process:
Melody Dawes and her team of experienced publishing professionals at Just Content provide detailed Development Editor reviews of our authors’ beta drafts, which is a key factor in making a good manuscript into a great book.
Our production and design team is Newgen UK (formerly known as Out of House Publishing – we’re still a bit sad we can no longer call them OOH). Based in Stroud and led by Jo Bottrill, they’re a fabulous bunch who handle all the production essentials: project management, page and cover design, copy-editing, typesetting, proofreading, indexing, file conversion and so on, coordinating an army of freelance designers and editors . They can also help with additional requirements such as sourcing illustrators or providing marketing materials.
We also work with The Book Publicist, Ambition PR, Cameron Publicity, Smith Publicity, Bookswarm and other partners to bring in specific expertise for our authors in areas such as PR and website design.
Our sales representatives around the world are:
In the UK and Ireland our sales partners are Compass IPS, who represent a host of other superb business book publishers such as Emerald Group and Kogan Page. They take our books into key trade accounts, independent bookshops and libraries and they have a fabulous team of regional reps who are always happy to work with authors to support local events.
In Europe and the Middle East, we are represented by Durnell Marketing, whose clients include Harvard University Press, Kogan Page and Harriman House.
In North America we are distributed by Two Rivers, who also carry imprints such as Harvard Business Review Press, and who promote our titles to the US and Canada book trade and library systems.
In Australia and New Zealand we are distributed and represented by Booktopia, the leading book specialist in the region, who also represent Kogan Page, Oxford University Press, Sage and others.
In South-East Asia (except India, where we are represented by Maya Publishers, and China), our representatives are The White Partnership, founded by Andrew White and representing many other professional and academic publishers including Edinburgh University Press and Facet Publishing.
In South Africa, Namibia, Eswatini and Lesotho we are represented by Mike Brightmore at ACADEMIC MARKETINGS ERVICES(P ty) Ltd.
In the rest of Africa and the Caribbean, we are represented by Kelvin van Hasselt.
In China, we’re represented by Benjamin Pan.
In India, we’re represented by Capital Books.
In other territories, our books are available via Ingram‘s global distribution programme.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. Same goes for a really successful book….