In the past few months, the Brascoe Publishing partnership has come to an end. What this means is that, while we still exist, the business is undergoing restructure and isn’t taking new clients for the foreseeable future.

The business will be shut down for a period of six weeks commencing Monday 8 March 2010, and current projects will continue after that time.

However, we are not taking new clients on until further notice.

For further information please contact Leticia on 0421 925 382.

I just got word yesterday that one of our clients, a PhD student with whom we have been working on and off over the past year, has had her thesis passed, and that she is to graduate in April this year.

It might not sound like a big deal, but it is! We were brought on board to copyedit and typeset our customer’s doctoral thesis in late 2008 (I think). The edits and typesetting took us from roughly Oct-Nov ’08 until through early ’09 to complete. It wasn’t just the work, though, there was collaboration and meetings with both the customer and her supervisor, to ensure that best practice in thesis editing was upheld, and that we were all on the same page with how it ought to read and look.

Imagine our collective disappointment when the first submission came back with the note that it would pass with changes. While this is not an uncommon situation, it was originally quite heartbreaking for all concerned. However, with our support and with her supervisor’s support, our customer rallied herself, did what she had to do, and got stuck back into the work.

And we just found out yesterday that the thesis was accepted, and that her graduation is coming up this April.

After such a long process, one tends to become good friends with customers like this, because it is an intensive task – and at the end of doctoral study it is also stressful and tense for the student. Bearing that in mind, it would probably come as no surprise to you that a big part of our work is also customer support. I could personally imagine nothing worse than coming to the end of such intensive, long-term study, and finding myself stuck with an unsympathetic and inflexible editor. It’s why with jobs like these, we’re in there for as long as it takes.

We would like to take this opportunity to send massive congratulations to our client! It’s been a long time coming, and you and your research both deserve all the acclaim you receive. Well done! We are proud to have been part of your journey.

It’s one thing that many people may not often think about, but editing a book – especially a diary or memoir – can be a really emotional, taxing task.

I was reminded of this just last night when I started to get my teeth into a new project. The project itself is a manuscript that we are assisting our customer to self-publish just for her family. It is not something that is going to be publicly available, because it’s far too personal, but we are editing it and preparing it into book form so that the story, and the experience, can be kept. What is the story? It’s about the author’s daughter’s major brain trauma.

After being deeply enmeshed in the first pass of edits on this manuscript for a full half hour, I had to put it down. Granted, it was late at night. Granted, it had been a long day. But the reason I put it down was because it is just such an emotional project to work on.

As an editor, I’m good at being able to work on a book without getting so ‘involved’ with it that I can’t see the errors for the words. When you are working on an engaging piece of writing – one that you would, if you were a reader, just devour – that is an absolutely vital skill. And yet, it’s easy to forget that once you are faced with a project like this one, you really have to watch out for yourself.

I don’t mean ‘watch out’ in case the errors aren’t discovered, or in case you get too wound up in the story. You have to watch out for your own emotional wellbeing.

Many of us (editors, I mean) work long and hard on manuscripts, because the vast majority of us are perfectionists by nature. Nobody ever wants to do a bad job. All of us want to produce a book with which we, and the author, and all the book’s readers, are proud and happy. That often means working longer hours, or ‘just doing a bit more’ when instead we ought to be relaxing. But when you work on an emotionally charged work, one that reaches into your soul and asks you lots of questions, then to some extent you have to determine what time of the day you can do it, and what mental and emotional state you need to be in when you do so.

It’s an interesting question, this one of ‘workplace wellbeing’ when you are faced with such an ethereal thing. How do you keep yourself from being so far affected by a manuscript that you can’t be sure of the quality of your work? Does the issue of emotional wellbeing seem faintly ridiculous in terms of workplace practice, when all you do is work with words, and mostly creative ones at that? Is the nexus between editing and emotional wellbeing something that you even think about?

I’d be interested in your take on this. Drop me a comment and let me know what you think.

This is just a quick update for you guys to let you know that the shop is temporarily out of action while we upgrade it.

If you are after any of our titles, please contact us, and we will deal with you directly until the shop is running again. Thanks for your patience!!

In the past three months, we here at Brascoe Publishing have had a lot of requests for work. A lot of really bad ones. So many, in fact, that we thought it was high time to post a blog about it. Here is how you avoid getting a job with a publisher.

1. Forget that emailing from a website means that the recipient can see that you emailed from the website

One of the quickest ways to ruin your chances of getting a job with a publisher is to forget that when you email them from their website that you have no control over the subject line (usually). By not doing the yards and becoming familiar with the target company by researching the remainder of its website, and writing your email accordingly, you’ve taken the first step towards remaining unemployed.

2. Assume things – preferably as many as you can

The second step is to make assumptions. There is no point in reading through pages and pages of company information – or even one page, an About page (most websites have them) – because if you’ve done a course in editing or publishing, then you know how these places work. There is an Editing or Editorial Department; the company is run by men, and those men prefer to be addressed ‘Sirs’; and if the company is online, active, and appears successful, then clearly there are jobs aplenty.

3. Talk about your qualifications as much as possible

Don’t forget to assume things about yourself too: your huge lists of qualifications are mightily impressive; if you find them that way, no doubt the person at the other end (who works in the field, and probably has done for quite some time) will find them so too. Go your hardest. By the way, if you have done a degree in publishing or editing – yes, a whole degree – remember to only talk about how useful just one subject was. It’s even better if that is the only subject in which you actually did any good. The context of a highly focused, vocational-style degree is all just fluff and should be left out.

4. Believe, wholeheartedly, that as a published writer you would make a good editor or proofreader

Even if you don’t have experience in the area, and cannot provide solid examples of your work that back up your claims, you can always rest on the knowledge that you are a published writer. After all, publishers know how hard it is to become published, and they are aware of how much hard work goes into writing a book, let alone scoring a publishing deal. This should automatically make you a preferred candidate, right?

5. If applying for proofreading or editing work, don’t bother to check your spelling. It’s bound to be perfect!

As a person who has done proofreading and editing work before, don’t bother to check your spelling. You’re an editor and a proofreader, so it is bound to be absolutely perfect all the time. If you work on computers a lot, then your typing accuracy is of course going to be ace as well. So – go forth and email! Remember to hit send before you check for errors.

6. Talk about how much knowledge you have, and get the title of your roles incorrect

All of your qualifications and experience are so fantastic – who could deny them – but to make sure you absolutely do not get the job, you might want to consider getting the title of your role incorrect. For example, substantive editors, commissioning editors, copyeditors, etc work in publishing; but subeditors work in newspapers. It’s a subtle difference, very small, but it will take you that extra step over the line to the trash. One can’t be too careful!

7. Don’t end your letter properly

The final step towards not getting a job is to have a poor ending on your letter. Don’t ask the recipient to get back to you, tell them you will call them, tell them you’d like to send a full resume (actually, it’s preferable if you don’t even have a resume), or anything. Just end your letter with ‘yours sincerely’ and your name. Remember, too, to leave out your phone number because if they can reach you then you just might – even after all your effort above – get a phone call.

And you’re done!

Whew! It’s a lot to remember, but these seven steps are the key elements in avoiding employment with a publisher. If you can do this, then it will free you up to move in another direction and find something else. Have fun!

— Adelaide, 19 October 2009

Metal as F–k, Australia’s biggest and most active online metal magazine, has been short-listed in the Australian Web Awards, presented by the Australian Web Industry Association. The site is one of just three finalists in the media category.

Brascoe Publishing is happy to announce that the house’s publication Metal as F–k has been short-listed in the 2009 Australian Web Awards. The online magazine (www.metalasf–k.net) is one of just three finalists in the media category. It is also the only music site in the running. The other two are Wotnews.com and West Australian TV History (watvhistory.com).

Launched in mid-March 2009, the site has gone from strength to strength, having last month reached the milestone of gaining more than 10,000 hits per day. Its team is also expanding, with the introduction of photographers in Norway and Canada, and a new columnist in the Philippines.

Said Brascoe Publishing principal, Foss McIntosh, of the short-listing:

‘We entered Metal as F–k in the Australian Web Awards, with one simple goal: to be long-listed. The fact that it has been short-listed is beyond awesome. Now we wait with baited breath to see if the incredible happens and we win in the media category for 2009.’

The publishing house attributes an enormous part of this most recent success to the fabulous team that worked on the online magazine in the twelve months prior to its launch.

The site’s visual design was by Sydney-based graphic artist Anthony Zoric, and the technical build was by Adelaide-based web developers Melchior Mazzone and Evan Sanders. The information architecture and site’s functionality were both established in-house at Brascoe Publishing.

The magazine’s editor, Leticia Supple, is equally enthusiastic.

‘For a metal site to be long-listed is itself fabulous; for one titled Metal as F–k to reach the finals is even more so. The entire team needs to be congratulated, because the whole is truly more than the sum of its parts.’

Winners of the Australian Web Awards 2009 will be announced at the Australian Web Industry Association dinner, at the Edge of the Web Conference, in Perth on 6 November 2009.

Media enquiries & further information:

Brascoe Publishing
Foss McIntosh (0402 585 675). info@brascoebooks.com.au

Metal as F–k
Leticia Supple (0421 925 382)info@metalasf–k.net

Well, we’re going to do something a bit different. We haven’t had a competition for a while, and given that it’s technically spring (despite how cold it still is!) we figured it would be nice to run a bit of a run-up-into-spring competition.

So – we want to hear from you (in the comments below), what errors annoy you most in workplace documents. These could be anything from company newsletters, to advertisements, to internal memos. We want you to tell us what annoys you most, and why.

The answer that we consider the best (most random, most amusing, best-spotted, with the best reason) will win. What you win is (if you’re in business yourself) 10% off any B2B service we offer; or, if you’re a writer, 10% off any writers’ service we offer.

And, with that, we leave the floor open to you!

Here is a sample from our latest direct marketing campaign. We’re rather proud of it, so we thought we’d share it.

It is much better viewed full-screen size. Feel free to leave us a comment!

If you like it, please tweet it, facebook it, email it, or otherwise share it with people you know.

We have finally had the lovely little craft title, Passionate Hookers, hit our offices. If you want a copy they are now available for purchase.

We only had a tiny run of these lovely books printed. The beautiful thing about short-run printers is that we didn’t have to get crates of them done – and the turn-around the printing is so short that if the first lot runs out the door, it won’t be long until they’re back in stock.

To get your copy, click here. They aren’t going to last long!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Metal as F-ck celebrates its six-month anniversary

In the past six months, our online metal music magazine, Metal as F-ck, named for a particular phrase common to metalheads when they hear music that hit just the right spot, has achieved some amazing things. Having launched in March 2009, we’ve cranked things up as fast as hell and aren’t looking to slow down any time soon.

We now have writers and photographers in nearly every state of Australia; we have columnists, music journalists and photographers in the USA, the UK, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and (soon) the Philippines too.

When we were just three months of age, we gained media accreditation for our Swedish photographer and one of our Australian journalists for Wacken Open Air’s massive 20th birthday bash. This was totally unprecedented, given Wacken’s stipulation that no new online metal media would be unlikely to gain photographic accreditations, and that for upcoming online media any other accreditations would be difficult to achieve.

When we were just four months of age, we gained media accreditation for one of our British journalists to Bloodstock Open Air.

In the past six months, we have delivered a huge array of content. We’ve had industry pieces about what it’s like to be a publicist – talking to Florian Fink of Nuclear Blast and Chris Maric of Riot Entertainment;  we’ve talked to photographers from around the world about what it takes to be a metal photographer. And we have just published an awesome interview with producer extraordinaire Fredrik Nordstrom.

At just four months of age, too, we pioneered the weekly ‘metal chat’ on Twitter, which has discussed such pertinent topics as the importance of album sales versus merchandise; the place that the music industry has, given the rise of internet metal music culture; online versus ‘real’ promotion; and much more. This is now such a staple among our followers that we just can’t miss even one week.

Commented editor Leticia Supple, ‘This has been an amazing year so far, and when we look at what we’ve already achieved, it’s just mind-blowing. We have big plans for the immediate and long-term future, but I think it’s important to celebrate the small milestones too. We’d like to send out a huge thanks to everyone in the industry who’s supported us so far in our endeavours, and who has believed in us. But, as well, here’s a big horns up! to our contributors, without whom our zine just would not exist.’

In the past six months, Metal as F-ck has reviewed more than 150 releases, and produced more than 50 features – most of which have been interviews with major bands.

And, just before our six-month anniversary, we sailed past 2000 followers on Twitter; we have hundreds of registered users; more than 300 fans on Facebook (with nearly the same amount at MySpace); and have maintained an average of 17,000 page views per month – a statistic that is steadily rising.

The next six months will see even more exciting run – with new columns, our online store becoming active, and much much more. Metal is alive and well, not just in Australia, but worldwide; and our success so far is living proof of that.

For further information

Including media kits, advertising, content requests etc,

please contact magazine editor Leticia Supple on +61 (0) 421 925 382