Every year Edinburgh Napier University welcomes publishers from Zhejiang Publishing in China for a week’s insight into Scottish book and magazine publishing. They visit publishers, speak to senior representatives at Creative Scotland and the National Library, and connect with students and lecturers to take useful ideas back to their business.
This year, I was invited to speak about the Scottish magazine industry, the problems UK publishers face, and the innovative ideas that come from these. This was followed by a discussion on our plans for the International Magazine Centre.
We did the presentation in English, with a Chinese translator, which made me worry we could have Hugh Dennis’s translation treatment from Mock the Week… But their response was very positive with lots of pertinent questions on the Centre, and they even laughed at my jokes.
We’re connecting with them again at the end of the week to continue the conversation, and hope to welcome them as International Magazine Centre supporters soon.