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Editor, Licensed
Properties at HarperCollins
People assume that
working in children's books must be a lot of fun... and for the most
part they're right! I work as an editor in the Licensed Properties division
of HarperCollins, which means we create books and booksplus products
for brands like Noddy, Mary-Kate and Ashley, Fifi and the Flowertots
and Dr Seuss as well as lots of other movies and TV shows. We worked
on both Spider-Man movies, The Lord of the Rings, and right now we're
finalising our The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe programme - look
out for it in shops in November!
The most important
part of my job is creating the right product for the right brand for
the right consumer. A Mary-Kate and Ashley fan is after a very different
book to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan after all! There's also a
lot of liaison between departments and the brand owners, who have to
approve every single thing that we do.
It's difficult to
describe a typical day. We are tied to strict publishing processes,
(my team works to a much shorter lead time than the children's fiction
or picture books teams - only 9 months compared to 18) as we have to
react to the popularity of a movie or TV show as well as spend a lot
of time looking at what new shows are coming up and could be a successful
book programme. We are a big company which generally means a lot of
meetings and processes that sap a lot of time, but they are essential
to making a book successful.
I'd say that an
average day would start at 9.15am with emails. We have sister companies
in New York and Australia as well as licensors (the owners of our brands)
worldwide, so we often have important emails come in over night. A lot
of our titles are bought in from the US, so if they're running late,
we're running late and we have to factor that into our schedules.
At the beginning of the week, we have a team catch up, where we discuss
every title in development - which can be as many as 200 at any one
time - and look at any problems. The design, production, sales and marketing
teams also attend, in case any late running titles affect them.
The job is very
creative and fun - for example, I spent a huge chunk of yesterday writing
a book called Fifi's Flowertot Rainbow (out September 06) - but then
most of today was spent in meetings. Self-scheduling is essential to
this job. We also get to attend quite a lot of parties and film screenings
- even the premieres sometimes, but only really for kids movies, so
you're not that likely to bump into Brad Pitt on the red carpet (shame)!
We also go to trade shows in New York, London, Germany and Italy so
we're not stuck in fluro lit offices all year round!
Before working here,
I spent a year with a brand owner and a year with a PR company, working
mostly as a copy writer. I also have a degree in English, with a major
in creative writing. It's really important to be in touch with kids
culture in this job - films, toys and TV, as well as the publishing
market which is basically just a great excuse to act like a child really!!
We're also generally considered to be more marketing/commercially minded
than the other children's departments who work on more literary titles.
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