For our sixth Espresso with…, we are delighted to have interviewed Seonaid MacLeod, Senior Contracts Manager at Hachette Children’s and a speaker on BBPlus’ ‘Call Your Agent: How to Become a Successful Literary Agent’ that takes place annually at the fair.
Take a look at the questions he chose to answer and his interesting replies.
A Hunger by Ross Raisin. A really beautiful bookheaven.
Seeing people face-to-face after 11 months of Teams meetings with them!
For me, print is king and will always be. I can’t get into audio as I then get distracted so goodness knows how people listen to them when they’re out and about, and I’m not a massive fan of eBooks, even more so when you consider I spend most of my day in front of a screen. I do see how both have their uses and can understand their popularity, but for me nothing beats having an actual book in your hands. Plus, I do love getting to nosey whenever someone posts a picture of their bookshelf online.
Working in a smaller publisher, so I had many job titles – Sales Assistant, Rights Assistant, PA to the Directors, Contracts Assistant, Office Manager – which I’d have to change depending on who I was e-mailing.
All of the above! Physical for evenings on the sofa, ebooks for travelling, and audiobooks for doing really boring things like ironing.
Being able to teleport – seeing friends and family immediately – and going to Bologna whenever I want!
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. I loved it so much, and have been reading The Books of Jacob as a follow-up, translated by Jennifer Croft, but at 900 pages, it’s taking me a bit longer…
MacLeod is Senior Contracts Manager at Hachette Children’s Group in the UK, with a focus on contracts with Agents, Authors and Illustrators. She has been in publishing for 10 years, working in Contracts and IP and Licensing for Mainstream Publishing (commercial non-fiction), Pearson English (Education), and Hachette since early 2021 . She also worked for 3 years at the Publishers Association, leading industry campaigns and publisher relations. She recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Law, following on from a PGDip in UK, EU and US Copyright Law.
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