Ms Emma Tait

About

I am course leader for MA Publishing and joint course leader for MA Creative Writing and Publishing.

I am module leader for three MA modules:

• PU7001 Create: The Business of Publishing
• PU7002 Make: Content Development and Production
• PU7006 Practical Publishing Project

I am particularly interested in developing interdisciplinary projects and Knowledge Exchange opportunities from the local and wider community. I run Kingston University Press, publishing books globally as POD via Ingram. Content providers include colleagues, community groups, the Writers Centre Kingston and our global network of poets. I oversee all publications, which are managed, edited and designed by our MA students.

As a practitioner, I combine teaching with freelance editorial consultancy in consumer publishing, where I retain a strong network. I work with authors and content providers on non-fiction titles, predominantly celebrity and media titles for some of Britain's biggest trade publishers, including Bloomsbury and Hachette. Clients bring me on board at various stages: from researching opportunities, developing ideas, planning content and sourcing contributors, through to quality control of final files. I am skilled in ideation, structural and copy editing, resolving legal problems, managing complex illustrated books and working on tight turnarounds.

Recent freelance projects have included tie-ins to Downton Abbey, the BBC/Amazon series Good Omens and, for publication later in 2024, the BBC comedy Ghosts. I have also edited and managed official books with Judas Priest's Rob Halford and Oasis, and memoirs by reality stars Charlotte Crosby and Stephanie Pratt, journalist Bryony Gordon and TV forager, Alicia Vasey.

Previously I worked in-house in the UK for over twenty years in editorial departments at BBC Books, Pavilion and Pan Macmillan before joining Headline Book Publishing (now part of Hachette) in 2001 as commissioning editor and later publisher.