Northumbria University Press

Support Northumbria Conference2010

The Beginning

• NUP established as a publishing house in 2002• Aim of publishing regional, academic and

profile-raising titles• Based at Northumbria University in Newcastle• Looked at Manchester University Press

Early Titles

Regional

• In 2005 NUP started publishing the ‘Wor Language’ trilogy of books by Bill Griffiths – the celebrated poet and author

• These books looked at:• The culture and dialect of the North East of

England• Traced the origins of the words used in

conversation across the North East

Regional

• Also published was a Dictionary of North East Dialect

Limitations

• Subject matter• Size of the intended market, regional/UK only• Lack of coherent editorial direction regards

the publishing list• Lack of a distributor

Review

• During 2009 the publishing programme and strategy of NUP was reviewed

• Market/UK and overseas • Distribution/UK and overseas• Potential sales of titles

Northumbria Press

• A new dynamic imprint, Northumbria Press, was launched to appeal to a wider audience

• The new imprint to focus on popular culture with particular emphasis on biography, music, photography and travel

• The trade and academic titles were separated• New distribution methods were reviewed

Sales and Distribution

• Partnerships with a number of respected publishing UK and overseas trade organisations:

• Gardners – wholesaler• Littlehampton Book Services – respected UK/European

distributor (previously NUP self-distributed)• Independent Publishers Group – respected North

American distributor• Looking to appoint other overseas agents and

distributors to expand into many other English language speaking countries

Recent Titles

An A-Z of Franz Ferdinandby Helen Chase

• Released in 2007, this was the first popular culture trade title the Press launched.

• Based on extensive research and up-to-date exclusive interviews (including discussions about the third album) with Alex Kapranos, Bob Hardy, Nick McCarthy, Paul Thomson and others, this book is a celebration of Franz Ferdinand’s first five years.

• It is a comprehensive, highly illustrated and entertaining guide to the group

Reviews• “Helen Chases’s monster encyclopaedia of everything Franz, full of

unseen photos, interviews and lyrics, is Franz-tastic”. NME • “With interviews, plus extensive photos and illustrations…it gets to

grips with what fuels and infuses art rockers…” Q magazine• “...Imaginatively designed, and packed with plenty of quality band

photographs, it would surely pass any FF quality control...No quick cut and paste job (the author has actually managed to secure interviews with the band), this handsome book should keep fans happy until the third album arrives.” Book of the month, The Crack magazine

• “…so passionate about the Mercury-Prize winning group Franz Ferdinand that she spent 18 months researching and interviewing the four piece for her debut book.” The Journal

Northern Exposuresby Chris Steele-Perkins

• The first of two books by the internationally-acclaimed Magnum photographic Chris Steele-Perkins.

• It is a documentary on the Durham coalfield and rural life with photographs of “lamping” (for rabbits), ferreting, whippet racing, grouse shooting, pigeon fancying and the rearing of birds of prey.

• Northern Exposures, Highly Commended/ Runner-up in the Photography and Art Category,

• British Book Design and Production Awards, October 2008.

Reviews• “…his unique style pours from every page…one for the shelf of

photo fans…” Amateur Photographer.• “…these photographs may well turn out to be ‘an elegy’ for a way of

life that is slowly dying”. The Independent.• “A photographic diary of life in the North-East, humorously and

sympathetically shot by internationally renowned photographer Chris Steele-Perkins, has been launched by Northumbria University Press. Northern Exposures brings to life a way of living probably never encountered or considered by most- but which will be recognised with fondness by many.”The Northern Echo.

• “A realistic view of modern country living. Each image provides authentic, natural, and sometimes graphic snaps which celebrate northern life.” Evening Chronicle.

Magazine: The Biographyby Helen Chase

• Our second book by Helen Chase is about the post-punk band Magazine formed by Howard Devoto when he left the Buzzcocks just as the seminal EP Spiral Scratch was being released.

• With unique access to the band and interviews with the great and the good of the 1980’s and iconic musicians of today, Helen Chase presents a riveting insight into the world of punk and beyond.

• Magazine’s ‘Shot by Both Sides’ was the first single Helen Chase ever bought – she remains a devoted fan.

Reviews• “There were few more respected groups than Magazine...

provocative image-mongering, a sophisticated sense of what the future might look like, a thrilling metallic power... formidable. After songs like these, there really wasn’t anything left to prove.” Adam Sweeting, The Guardian.

• “Howard Devoto - the man who introduced a new literacy not just into punk but into rock as a whole. Remarkable lyrics, traditional, but poisonous to the usual pop-line clichés.” Paul Morley, NME.

• “Her prose is refreshingly unfussy for music writing, and she wisely steps back to allow those who were there to tell their own stories.” Daniel Gray, The Skinny.

• “Magazine’s influence is all over today’s music.” Paul Draper, Mansun.

England, My Englandby Chris Steele-Perkins

• Our second book by Magnum photographer Chris Steele-Perkins

• This book is a collection of 40 years of work as a photographer; with iconic images from through that time giving his insight on what he thinks is England.

• From Sunday cricket matches to snoozes in a deckchair; intimate family portraits to carefree children at play; circus shows with performing bears to the wilder performers of a street carnival; and from Saturday night dancing to race riots. Each picture tells a story of time and place and many of the images collected will strike a chord or a memory in the viewer.

Reviews• “These are wonderful images, showing just how revealing the lives of

ordinary people, doing day-to-day things can be. They are glimpses of a country in doubt, sometimes in pain, but full of an indomitable spirit.” Michael Palin, comedian, actor, writer and television presenter.

• “His unique style pours from every page.” Amateur Photographer.• “It captures the little triumphs and larger miseries of the lives of ordinary

people – the poor and the upwardly mobile, the idle and the abandoned.” New Statesman Magazine.

• ‘Documentary approach that shows the English at work and at play over the last four decades. By turns gritty and evocative, it is a book one imagines that Orwell would have liked very much.’ The Guardian’s Photobooks of the Year 2009.

• ‘Continuing a reputation for taking us on a journey through the countries that have shaped his life. A perspective that reflects our feelings of our own Englishness’ Foto8, The 2009 List.

Byker Revisitedby Sirrka-Liisa Konttinen

• Byker Revisited is Sirkka's return to Byker. Since 2003 she has been building a new portrait of the people and the estate – opening up the richly complex, often transient and fragile nature of contemporary urban lives and the architecture that is part of the story.

• Forty years ago Sirkka came to Byker and took pictures of working class families and the terraced streets around the time Byker was being demolished and work was beginning on the Byker Wall.

• Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen is a founder member of Amber, a film and photography collective that formed in London in 1968 and moved to Newcastle upon Tyne the following year.

Reviews• “The photos and humour, ugliness and beauty, the casual and the formal of

Byker Revisited, all conspire to reveal a world where we do not conform, where we do not have to simply be one thing, where life is complex and contradictory. That Sirkka has found this in this new book as clearly as she did in the old is why she is a brilliant artist”. Lee Hall, writer of “Billy Elliot” and “The Pitmen Painters”.

• “Byker Revisited is a collection of intimate portraits asking us to ‘imagine, if you were to put your life in just one picture, what would you have in it?’ The images tell colourful, moving and honest stories of lives, fully lived, hidden, inside an urban flux”. Narc Magazine.

• "She has succeeded in producing a remarkable series of photographs”. The Crack Magazine.

• “Most of the most successful photobooks about Englishness or Britishness are those that examine a community or locality, often though the close links that the photographer has with the area. Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen’s Byker Revisited is a fine example”. British Journal of Photography.

The Tin Ring by Zdenka Fantlová

• This remarkable memoir tells the story of a young Czech-Jewish woman who survived the hell of Nazi Germany’s extermination camps.

• The Tin Ring is an unforgettably moving tale of courage, love, tenacity, hope and humanity experienced by a girl who lived through the Holocaust – the most brutal and inhumane time in world history.

• It is hoped that the UK publication of The Tin Ring will help trace the officer or his family so that Zdenka can, at long last, personally express her gratitude. Meanwhile, of the man who gave her the mental strength to persevere, her Arno, she still keeps his ring made of tin close by.

Reviews

• “…(a) sweet, unforgettable memoir … deserves to be read for its unique story and for its shared message about the unrelentingly strong human spirit, of which Fantlová’s prose so clearly speaks.” Publishers Weekly.

• “… occupies an outstanding place among the memoirs of Jews who were fighting for their naked lives… and goes deep into the changes of a human psyche in contact with death… her writing is far removed from any sentimentality… she was inspired by an indestructible will to live through faith and endeavouring to remain a human being.” Petr Kucera, Prague Zeitung.

• We also expect The Tin Ring to appear in many forthcoming publications.

AVE

England My EnglandNorthern Exposures

Publication Outlet Pages/Time AVE Month TotalTimes Magazine Paper 6 Pages £99,240.00 October £481,382.20Flog It (BBC2) TV 6 Mins £270,000.00 NovemberAmateur Photographer Magazine 6 Pages £9,000.00 DecemberRoof Magazine Magazine 2 Pages £2,000.00 MarchFoto 8 Magazine 1 Page £1,200.00 DecemberThe Guardian Paper 1 Page £11,400.00 DecemberNew Statesman Magazine 1 Page £49,980.00 OctoberThe Gazette Paper 1 Page £2,118.88 OctoberThe British Journal of Photography Magazine 7 Pages £3,403.32 NovemberTime Out London Magazine 1 Page £16,540.00 NovemberAG Magazine Magazine 11 Pages £16,500.00 October

AVE

Month Totals Totals (£) Grand TotalAugust £0.00 £1,203,190.14September £6,146.17October £510,978.88November £293,346.64December £31,923.24January £358,795.21Febuary £0.00March £2,000.00

Future Releases

• The following slides include a handful of our future releases that are due out in 2010.

William Armstrong: Magician of the North by Henrietta Heald

• “A visionary and controversial Victorian master”• The only book documenting Armstrong’s life and

career.• Details the inventions and innovations Armstrong

made to fix the problems of manufacture.• Describes the contacts Armstrong had with some of

the most influential people of his time.• Henrietta Heald has worked as an editor on British

history and travel, interior design and architecture titles from a variety of publishers.

John Martin: Apocalypse Now!by Barbara Morden

• “Conquest, War, Famine and Death are part of the apocalyptic vision held by the Victorians and are captured by this talented and troubled artist”

• Describes the art styles that John Martin used and places his work in a social context

• Explores Martin’s career and the subjects he painted.• Examines how Martin’s paintings are relevant to the

21st century and how they continue to influence creative media.

• Published to coincide with touring exhibition.

Out of Italy: Our Italian Friends in the North by Hugh Shankland

• Contains unique and personal photographs and interviews.• Presents a rounded portrait of a group of people who

influenced the society they joined but maintained their cultural identity.

• The only book to present an in depth and personal reflection of the influence and assimilation of Italians in the North East of England.

• Hugh Shankland has spent many years researching the lives of Italian immigrants the North of England. He has had the fortune to spend many years in Italy soaking up their language and culture and developing a sense of what it means to be Italian.

Future

• NUP sales is growing both nationally and internationally

• There are around 10 titles scheduled for release in 2010 with more in the pipeline

• NUP is recognised as a leading non-fiction publisher – not just in the North East

• NUP and its books are receiving growing attention from regional, national and international Media

Questions ?