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 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.
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 Assistant, manages our bibliographic system and all the metadata, expertly handling 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.
As the marketing manager for Practical Inspiration Publishing, Nim Moorthy will be your main contact for anything marketing or publicity related. He also liaises with our sales reps and partners around the world so they can start selling in your books to the major chains and bookshops, well ahead of publication.
In consultation with you, Nim will create a bespoke marketing plan for your book, drawing up a list of key publications to review the book, as well as pitching to secure guest articles, features and/or blog pieces, and speaking opportunities, and he will liaise on your behalf with journalists and reviewers.
Frances Staton is our Bibliographic Assistant, responsible for maintaining our bibliographic system and all the associated metadata. She has over 30 years’ experience in the publishing/bookselling industry, formerly working for a major international wholesaler. She can sometimes be found discussing particularly thorny data issues with her five chickens, but so far, they have not been of much help.
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.
We also have four Development Editors who work closely with our authors to give feedback on the first draft: Sonya Barker and Kate Llewellyn (both former colleague of Alison’s at Palgrave Macmillan), Jonathan Norman (previously at Gower Publishing and most recently Routledge), and Gèraldine Collard (formerly at Kogan Page).
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, file conversion and so on. They can also help with additional requirements such as sourcing illustrators or providing marketing materials.
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.
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, we are represented by Durnell Marketing, whose clients include Harvard University Press, Kogan Page and Harriman House.
In North America we are distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution (via Global Book Sales), 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 the Middle East, we are represented by Avicenna, whose clients include many well-known academic, professional, reference and scholarly publishers.
In Asia (outside India 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 other territories, our books are available via Ingram‘s global distribution programme.
We also work with The Book Publicist, Cameron Publicity, Bookswarm and other partners to bring in specific expertise for our authors in areas such as PR and website design.
They say it takes a village to raise a child. Same goes for a really successful book….