So I've been off the radar for a while now because I was entering the stressful time that is the end of the year. With deadlines looming everywhere I barely had time to sleep let alone blog. But it's all over now.

So I had two major projects on the go at once and one smaller one bubbling away in the background. The big ones were NPD, a massive group report and presentation proposing a new project to a board of investors, and a day of pitching for journals where we had to take on the role of a publisher and a society. And the one in the background was adapting a fixed layout ebook frmo the reflowable one I had already handed in for my digital publishing module.

So let's start with the biggy - NPD (New Product Development). In a group of seven working as the Art Architecture and Design division of a publishing house we had to come up with a project, write a report about it and pitch it to a board of investors.... all in 12 weeks. Each person in the group took on roles such as head of editorial or finance but with only seven of us there was a lot of doubling up. I ended up as Managing Director of the group for reasons I'm not quite sure of and with the Project Manager we were in charge of overseeing the welfare of the project and of the group. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of stress but

So last week was a busy week for all of us on the journals module.

First we had a visit to Wiley Blackwell where we had a workshop on society journals. We learnt about how societies choose publishers to take over their journal publishing and the process of bidding for a journal. We learnt about how to put a bid together, some of the key things to take into account and how to make good on the things you promise. There were a lot of things I hadn't thought about before like securing jobs, trying to make the transition as smooth as possible and the challenges that complacency and habit pose when trying to propose changes. It was also interesting to hear that a lot of problems come from the fact that decisions to change publishers are often made high up in the hierarchy and that the people who are actually involved in the day to day running of a journal are often not given much or any input in the decision even though it is them that will have to deal directly with the changes.

It was a really interesting session where we heard from everyone involved including editorial, marketing, finance and the often forgotten production. All this was in preparation for our second assignment where we have to write a specification from the point of view of the society and present a bid as a publisher. It sounded scary when I first heard about it but now I feel a lot more ready for it.

The other big event this week was the deadline for assignment one which was a 2000 word article on an issue in journals publishing. I chose to do mine on peer review and particularly the role private peer review companies like Rubriq could play in the system. While these companies have good intentions, I argue that they do not solve any of the problems in traditional peer review, such as issues around bias and quality, and that they may in fact add new problems. It was particularly interesting reading around the debate over whether paying reviewers is a good idea or not. On the one hand it's a nice gesture that acknowledges the work put in by the reviewers but on the other hand many of them are reviewing not for profit but through a sense of duty to the academic community and to further their own careers in which case formal recognition they can put on their CV and use in funding applications would be better than cash. I didn't know there was so much debate around peer review and I really enjoyed learning more about the debates in this area and the alternatives being offered.

So while everyone else on our course is getting excited about children's books and digital breakthroughs I am spending my time learning about peer review and journal bids and really enjoying it.

So last Thursday the publishing department ran a Working in Publishing day where people from the industry, many who are alumni of the course, come in and we students were given a chance to ask them questions about getting jobs.

The day started with the usual housekeeping/welcome talk but then we got down to the job hunting skills. There were 4 workshops run in the morning of which you could attend two. I chose one on prospecting employers and then one on how to write a cover letter because I thought these would go pretty well together. It meant I missed out on interview techniques but a friend filled me in later. The workshops were helpful and gave me a few tips I hadn't thought of before as well as introducing me to publishing recruitment agencies. But basically it comes down to be proactive and get out there finding jobs and make sure you can spell. Pretty sound advice really.

After a quick lunchbreak we began the "speed dating" session where we each got 15 minute slots face to face with some of the professionals. It was chaos

So term has officially started and so have the guest speaker visits. I am taking a module on digital publishing and the department has set up weekly guest speakers on digital publishing, the first one was this week.

The speaker this week was Liz Marchant, Head of Science Publishing at Pearson. She told us about how they develop digital products and how this process is different to developing print products.

The main issues in digital educational publishing it seems are how to define and add value to a product when schools haven't adapted their budget to ongoing subscription models. Pricing is a key issue too, one that she admitted Pearson are still playing around with. Do you price per user or for groups and how do you make sure that people re-purchase your products.Publisher/customer relationships aren't just one off interactions anymore, they can go on and on and as such the user plays a much more important role in the development and especially the design of the product.

So there were a lot of issues that I hadn't really thought about before and while this was a talk about educational publishing, something I'm not interested in particularly, a lot of the issues are relevant to all digital publishing.

So yeah good start to the term and

I'm sorry this has taken so long but I have had a pretty busy week and between deadlines and Christmas shopping/baking I haven't had a chance to post anything.

So last Friday was my last day at Wiley-Blackwells. It started like any other with me reviewing new submissions and then moving onto compiling monthly stats reports for a few journals. But then after lunch it got very last-day-of-term-y. I had mentioned to my supervisor that I was interested in Open Access and she very kindly managed to find a load of presentations from an Open Access day they had had recently, to explain to the staff the details of OA and how Wiley was going to adapt to it. She printed the slides off for me and talked me through them which was incredibly kind of her as well as being very interesting.

As a big thank you for everything, which was definitely necessary because I have learnt so much on this placement, I brought everyone a box of chocolates and a Christmas card. This obviously meant that we needed to take an extra long tea break to eat the chocolates so I was late to the closing HR meeting because we had got chatting.

But I did make it, tea in hand, and I was glad I did because as well as the general thank-yous we also got a certificate! This is now up on my wall as my pride and joy.

So that's it. The end of a great 9 weeks at Wiley and a stressful first 12 weeks at uni. I'm going to go and take a well earned break so all that's l

Today was a good day as we finished and printed out one of the three big assignments we have to hand in before Christmas. That's two down and one to go as earlier this week we handed in our mock new title proposal and presented it to the class. So the last one to go is a marketing report due in next week and then we are free until next year, hooray!

But it was also a good day because we had our last guest speaker of the semester in the form of Ruth Killick, Publicity Director at Profile Books. She gave us an insight into the life of a publicist and some good hints and tips for a good publicity campaign. Basically it seems it all comes down to planning and timing and making sure your information is up to date. And despite all the exciting new publicity opportunities opening up with new technologies and new markets it doesn't mean a thing if you don't generate any sales.

So even though the semester is coming to an end, things aren't winding down yet and I'm looking forward to next year.

So this is the scene at my house today. We are all crammed round the table working hard on all the projects we have due in the next couple of weeks.

I think this specific moment was us working on marketing plans for hypothetical books.

We have been getting through the work pretty well but there have been a lot of Facebook breaks and yes that is half a cake, the other cake fueled the work.

So we are 20 cups of tea/coffee in and hopefully after another 20 we will all be finished.

Today I handed in my first assignment. I have had two tests already (marketing and proofreading) but this felt like a biggy because I was actually a bit more in charge.

As part of a three assignment set, my coursemate and I have been getting ourselves familiar with Jean Cazals' Tea Time. This is because we have to write a proposal for a digital app to tie in with the book, write a specification and finally do a complete redesign complete with sample chapters, blurb and cover. Scary stuff.

So today we handed in the first part - the app proposal. We decided to create a portable version of the (quite heavy and bulky) book that users can carry around with them to guide them to the best afternoon teas in London.

Not bragging but we feel pretty good about it and even if we didn't it's done now. One down, some to come.