A University Press

The publishing house seemed to go from strength to strength. We even began to branch out and start publishing a journal about cinema and books about animation. This was due to the fact that one of each had been rejected by BFI Publishing (where I was then working full-time having become merely an advisor to the Publisher) and I offered them to the Publisher who, by this time, was keenly interested in investing financially in the area.

However by 1995 he had decided to emigrate to Australia and wanted to sell the media list (the medical operation could easily be sold to his French partner in Paris). He approached all the appropriate publishers part of whose list included media books and none were interested. It was at this point I offered to sell the list for him via a different route (I had left the BFI in 1993 to return to the university sector part-time and was back working, also part-time, for him).

It occurred to me that some of the new universities (all of whom had media departments) might be interested in creating their own university press. They add prestige to the university and also increase the possibility of publishing success for their academic staff. I approached the university with the then best Media departments - and one of the largest - in the country and sure enough they were fascinated by the idea. To cut a long story short a successful deal was struck and I maintained continuity by becoming the Editorial Director of the new Press (and, quite independently, the first Professor in the Department).

In my view a mono-subject university press is a very good idea. Apart from the very largest university presses such as the Oxford University Press (OUP) most university presses suffer from the breadth of their publishing profile. It is all very well publishing books from nuclear physics, through ancient civilizations to contemporary poetry but a catalogue of such a list makes no marketing sense whatsoever. This makes it impossible to draw up marketing lists and makes it a nightmare list for sales representatives to take round bookshops. On the other hand a single, albeit broad, subject list offers serious marketing possibilities.

As a result of this move the press was, for the first time, significantly supported financially and, again for the first time, employed dedicated support staff in the areas of production and marketing (albeit only one person in each area). The Press grew and attended all the major national and international conferences such that by 2002 it had published over 300 books plus ran three journals. However this was the point at which the University decided to downsize its most successful department – in both Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA) terms and Research Assessment (RAE) terms – and to simultaneously close down the Press. It was this point I decided to take voluntary redundancy and, as I thought at the time, take leave of my publishing experiences for the last time. Little was I to know at the time that Intellect lay ahead.