The pitfalls of owning a long-established publishing house outside London

Now that is quite long for a title.

In my life before The Publishing Cupboard I worked for HarperCollins. Or to be more precise, Collins. I was fortunate enough to be offered a good editorial job outside London (Glasgow) and ended up staying 15 years (until they shoe-horned me out).

I was surrounded by people who had worked there for practically all their lives. HC has its head office in London and while I was still at Collins, it transpired that the average workspan for someone in London was 18 months. In Glasgow it was 11 years.

11 years is good for stability, but imagine what it means in terms of pensions. Collins was established by the Collins family and they really took care of their employees. There were after- work clubs, tennis and squash courts, a football pitch and even a 9-hole golf course. Who wouldn't want to stay. Publishing (when not pressurized) must be one of the most pleasant environments to work in.

The pension fund is a massive beast. It represents probably thousands of years of staff loyalty. Whoever runs HC has to take responsibility for this beast. When the stock market falters it can wreak havoc with the beast's food source. And the beast must be fed.

This is when the sacrificial period kicks in. And it looks like they're entering one now with the announcement of a potential 5% cut in the workforce. This puts huge pressure on an already depleted workforce (the result of previous sacrificial periods).

Perhaps it is time to avoid the knee-jerk approach. Why not look at the positive side of Collins' legacy. There's a century of titles stretching from Collins English Dictionary to the Bible and Shakespeare. Those are the obvious ones. Mining Collins' archives and valuing (rather than discounting) the brand could prove a much more creative response to the problem.

My fifteen years at Collins were some of the most happy. It was certainly a brilliant apprenticeship to allow me to set up The Cupboard.