Alumni - Louise Swannell, BA Publishing and English

Louise Swannell works at HarperCollins as a Publicity Director having spent thirteen years in the industry.

I started my career in Publishing straight out of university. The BA Publishing course provided great insight in to the industry, and I was lucky enough to be offered a job as a sales assistant on the day my degree results came in.

Having spent a year working at Mitchell Beazley I quickly realized I favoured marketing and publicity; and my career really took off from there. I've worked on high profile non-fiction and fiction campaigns to launching debut authors - this is a job where no day is the same, and the experiences are second to none. Highlights for me are being on tour with an author, achieving a Sunday Times Bestseller and widespread media coverage on publication after months of pitching. No book or campaign is the same and this enables you to keep learning, challenging yourself and keep motivated, pushing yourself to achieve the best results possible every time. Having taken a brief sabbatical to try my hand agency side, I can honestly say that once you’ve worked in-house for a publisher there is very little else that will give you equal enjoyment and career satisfaction.

Posted on 05 Sep 2013 around 11am