We chat to Eva Mills, Publishing Director of Kids & YA to get the inside scoop on how our favourite books get put out into the world!
A&U: Hey Eva! Thanks so much for chatting with us. First up, can you please give us a little introduction to yourself and what you do at A&U?
EM: My fancy title is Publishing Director – Books for Children & Young Adults, and I’m based in our Melbourne office. Basically I am in charge of all of our local (Australian) children’s and YA publishing, which is everything from board books for babies through junior and middle fiction, graphic novels, non-fiction, all the way up to sophisticated young adult fiction. We publish around 80 new titles each year, and my primary job is to support the publishers to find great new projects, work with other departments to make decisions on which books we do and don’t publish, sign off on a hundred or so things each week like book covers and contracts, and do a little publishing of my own.
A&U: Can you tell us a little about the journey you went on to get your job in book publishing?
EM: I left school thinking I wanted to work in either astronomy (the physics was too hard!) or preventative health, so I did a science degree at university and ended up working in social research, before I woke up to the fact that books had always been my passion so maybe I should play to my strengths. I’d never stopped reading YA and fantasy, and I started a Professional Writing & Editing course at RMIT with the vague aim of writing a YA novel – but then I fell in love with editing. I was lucky enough to get a placement with A&U, and that eventually led to a job as an editorial assistant, then an editor, a stint at Random House in Sydney, some freelancing … and eventually back to A&U as a commissioning editor, then publisher and now publishing director.
A&U: How has the book publishing industry changed since you started?
EM: When I first started, we had only one computer with access to the internet, so it was my job as the editorial assistant to print out any emails and circulate them to the editors! That didn’t last long and soon email became the primary way we all communicated - but we were still doing other things that seem crazy now, like marking absolutely everything up on hard copy, and posting original artwork to the other side of the world, and spending all day on the phone. There were fewer Australian publishers with dedicated children’s lists back then, so it’s been great to see the huge increase in local children’s & YA publishing. Now we export our home-grown books back to the rest of the world.
A&U: What is your favourite part about working in book publishing?
EM: It’s still the day a new book arrives from the printer. It never gets old.
A&U: If you could switch roles for a day and work in a different department, what department would you pick?
EM: If it was only for a day, I’d love to go out on the road again with one of the account managers, selling to bookstores – but I hate driving so I could never do that full-time. Otherwise I’d probably choose to work with our design team, if I was talented enough, and patient enough to listen to everyone’s differing opinions.
A&U: And finally, if you could go back in time and give a younger version of yourself some advice regarding their career in the book publishing industry, what would it be?
EM: Take every chance that comes your way, and don’t be afraid of change – some of the best opportunities come from the biggest risks.
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