During lockdown, I embarked on getting to know the wonderful people who work tirelessly behind the scenes at publishing houses across the UK. I titled the blog page, Meet the Gatekeepers. I thought, after nearly four years, it was time to revamp this and meet familiar friends and introduce new ones. Today is the second in a lengthy series of guests featuring on My Shelves Are Full!
Meet Bethan Blake-Abed-Ali, Marketing Executive at Graffeg Publishing
How did you get your start working in publishing?
I started working at Graffeg straight out of university as a temporary Sales and Marketing Assistant. I was so pleased to be working within the creative industries and learned so much within the first few months about how books were created and the publishing industry in general.
After working at Graffeg for six months, I was so grateful to be given the chance to stay at the company as Marketing Executive. Working at Graffeg has given me such a great insight into the publishing industry, as a small independent publisher you see all aspects of the process from contracting authors and illustrator to editing, design, production, marketing and more. It is truly a fascinating industry to be a part of, with no one day the same.
What are the highlights of your job?
There are many highlights to my job from seeing the joy of an author when they get the first reviews of a new title to receiving emails from national media who are interested in featuring one of our titles. One of the biggest thrills is opening an awards email, seeing titles we’ve worked so hard on getting national recognition is such a great feeling and being able to pass this onto the authors and illustrator is a lovely moment.
I love the personal aspect of my job, speaking to authors, illustrators, festival organisers, journalists etc and when we get success out of the conversations it really does make my day.
But the number one highlight has to be whenever we get to see children reading and enjoying our books and even dressing up as one of our characters for World Book Day.
What are the challenges of your job?
The biggest challenge has to be the workload. Working on several important campaigns a month can be tricky and very time consuming, alongside doing other tasks and admin but the highlights definitely make all the hard work worth it!
Describe a typical day- or are no two days alike?
No two days are the same! One day could be talking to authors about their titles and marketing aims, another could involve presenting titles to a festival organiser, writing press releases and then other days can simply be admin.
Any tips for book bloggers?
Please get in touch with us if you see a book you’re interested in reviewing or have an idea for a blog post. I love working with book bloggers and reading your reviews. Book blogger reviews are often some of the first reviews we receive for our titles, so they are so valuable to us and our authors.
What book are you most excited about for 2025?
We are continuing to grow our new middle-grade and YA imprint, Cadno, and have our fourth title with the imprint, The Bird Thief by Rachel Keating, coming out in March 2025.
In terms of our picture book list, we are working with some amazing debut authors and illustrators next year and I can’t wait to see how their books progress. We also have new additions to some of our popular picture book series including Hugg ‘n’ Bugg, Fletcher,
My Shelves Are Full 