Katherine Marshall sat down with her law department colleague to discuss life in the Oxford office, what’s on the bookshelf, and becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer.
What is your typical day like at Oxford University Press?
I normally start by planning each day in relation to the week and months ahead, prioritizing what needs to be done. Then I run through emails. After, the day can vary quite a lot depending on what needs doing for the various titles in production. I try to tackle the more complicated or sensitive items in the morning, such as going through complicated e-proof corrections, resolving complex issues (for example in terms of typesetting layout or corrections), checking covers, collating copy-edited files or proof corrections, or speaking to authors about queries or issues.
Later in the day, I might turn my attention to things such as reviewing schedules, booking freelancers, chasing up late corrections or responses, e-book checking, passing on files to the typesetters, sending titles to the printers, writing briefs to freelancers and suppliers or letters to authors, quality checking typescript PDF files, or dealing with invoices. These are all typical things a production editor might do in a day, indeed most of this list would be things I would turn my attention to in any given day. Everything is dealt with digitally these days, so a production editor is really glued to the computer screen.
What was your first job in publishing?
As the production editor of the Philosophy Press (sadly now defunct). It was an unusual role in a very small publishing company which involved running the company administratively, and helping to produce The Philosophers’ Magazine (print and digital) and a couple of titles about philosophy.
What are you reading right now?
One of the several books I’m reading at the moment (for the third time) is The Black Swan: the Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which is about the impact of highly improbable events on life, particularly in terms of economics. One of the key subjects is about the widespread lack of understanding within economics about risk and probability, particularly in terms of the fractal nature of economic data which dictates that data cannot be predicted into the future from past events with any certainty. It covers a number of related psychological and epistemological subjects.
What’s the first thing you do when you get to work in the morning?
Have a cafetière of the strongest coffee I can find.
Open the book you’re currently reading and turn to page 75. Tell us the title of the book, and the third sentence on that page.
Cicero, “Discussions at Tusculum (V)” in On the Good Life (Penguin, 1971): “A man who lacks the absolute certainty that everything depends on himself and himself alone is in no condition to hold his head high and distain whatever hazards the chances of human life may inflict.”
If you could trade places with any one person for a week, who would it be and why?
Probably the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as I strongly disagree with the dominant contemporary approach to economics, which involves so much platonifying of ideas and then thrusting them upon a world which they bear so little relation to. I would do everything I could to switch the outlook to a much more Keynesian approach which is about being compatible and adaptable to the way people behave and aims at a full employment equilibrium. I appreciate I wouldn’t be able to achieve much in one week!
If you were stranded on a desert island, what three items would you take with you?
A copy of Edgar Alan Poe’s poetry and prose, some good coffee, and my iPod.
What is the most important lesson you learned during your first year on the job?
How to be efficient. I thought I was before, but I really wasn’t.
If you didn’t work in publishing, what would you be doing?
I would probably still be working as a pipe organ builder, which was my role before I made the move to publishing. Now, I keep my hand in by tuning instruments in my holidays.
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