About Us...

Publicity and the Printed Word is based in the beautiful, vibrant city of Edinburgh and offers services to publishers and writers in Scotland, throughout the UK and beyond.

Recent highlights…

Jan Rutherford
An experienced book publicist (25 years), Jan travels to London at least once a month. She works across the media, new and traditional, promoting books, their authors, reading and writing. Heightened visibility for authors and their books, increased sales for publishers and accessibility for readers is the core of the business and a large part of this involves securing events for authors at festivals and with booksellers across the UK, Ireland and beyond. She is also keen to help authors to make the most of the opportunities available to make a living from their writing and to this end has worked with Scottish Book Trust for the last ten years on mentoring and professional development for writers including establishing performance and presentation training sessions for writers, BBC Radio writing labs, screen writing labs and one-to-one PDP sessions. For the last four years she has been a board member of the Scottish Review of Books, offering a valuable platform for the review and promotion of books in a world where books pages in newspapers are shrinking fast. And, as part of the changes ongoing in publishing, the team are constantly exploring opportunities created by social media, ebooks, enhanced ebooks, apps and microsites as well as creating new web-based opportunities.

Jan is the UK publicist and event organiser for international best-selling author, Alexander McCall Smith who has now sold more than 20 million copies of his No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books in English-language alone. They are also translated into 46 languages around the globe.

Anna Marshall
Jan works closely with colleague Anna Marshall who supports all the above activities with great humour and good cheer (when not pulling out her hair!). Anna and Jan have worked side-by-side on The Great Tapestry of Scotland project for the last three years and have fund-raised, promoted, programmed and delivered EIGHT major exhibitions of this great work of art (so far) which have attracted more than 320,000 visitors in almost two years. The tapestry is explained in greater detail elsewhere on this site but it is the work of more than 1000+ stitchers who have created the longest stitched tapestry in the world, celebrating the history of the Scottish people. Jan and Anna have been ably assisted in this work by Kristian Kerr.

Anna Marshall is an arts administrator second to none, an events organiser, fund raiser and book publicist. She started working at Birlinn as an intern and then left to sail the world. On her return she came to work with Jan at PPW for 2.5 days a week and for Birlinn for the remainder of the week.
As you know, we see over 40 publishers and imprints, large and small, every year and our meeting with you was by far one of the most engaging, informative and enjoyable – thank you.” – Cheltenham Literary Festival

Caleb Rutherford
Caleb is a leading graphic designer with more than 20 years experience in book publishing, magazine, exhibition, advertising (from print to taxi-sides, travel point and 48-sheets and of course digital) and retail design. His work is much sought after by publishers in London and Scotland.

The Great Tapestry of Scotland is on the Move (but there's still time to make your Mark!)

Members of the public are to be given a chance to make a stitch on new welcome panels for the Great Tapestry of Scotland before it moves to its new, purpose built home in Galashiels.

Writing Scotland's Future – July 1999

In 1999 the winner of a national writing competition, Writing Scotland’s Future, was only 11 years old. But her winning entry was strong and on 1 July that year, her poem was read out at the Official Opening of Scotland’s new Parliament. Jan Rutherford was present.

Shortlisted for Major Award

PPW’s Jan Rutherford has been shortlist for the UK’s Publishers’ Publicity Circle Annual Award.