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…

• More than 320,000 visitors have now viewed The Great Tapestry of Scotland in 61 weeks of touring exhibition. The public tour for The Great Tapestry of Scotland has been programmed, publicised, funded and delivered working with fantastic partners such as Ayr Council, Historic Scotland, Kirkcaldy Galleries and the Scottish Government
• Events for more than 20 authors at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2015 including no less than FOUR sell out events for Alexander McCall Smith, a sell out event for acclaimed new writer Malachy Tallack and another for historical fiction writer Rosemary Goring along with the first events in the UK for international star Jan Philipp Sendker
• A one-day Alexander McCall Smith take over of The Good Housekeeping Magazine twitter account
• Creation of a new micro-site for Alexander McCall Smith within the Birlinn Ltd website (project led by Edward Crossan)
• BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week slot for Malachy Tallack’s 60 Degrees North for week beginning 13 July 2015 plus stunning reviews across the UK print, online and broadcast media
• Participation on the advisory panel for the Literature Sector Review, commissioned by Creative Scotland (Report now published)
• Preparation of a new, cross publisher website for Alexander McCall Smith – taking in the work of Random House in America, Little,Brown in London and Polygon in Edinburgh
• Celebrations online, through events and in print for the 10th anniversary of 44 Scotland Street – the longest running serial novel in the world – ever!
• Working with Birlinn to secure serialisation of a new book on Nicola Sturgeon by David Torrance in the Sunday Post
• Securing an interview on Mark Lawson Talks for Alexander McCall Smith and a high profile campaign for four Autumn books, published across four publishers, in four months
• Securing events for authors at all of the major literary festivals in the UK and many beyond
• Setting up launch events in settings from the Hebrides to the South West of England
• Proudly publishing Scottish Review of Books every quarter with Alan Taylor at the editorial helm
• Working with Scottish Book Trust to provide mentors for writers at every stage of their career
• Working with 1000+ stitchers across Scotland to create The Great Tapestry of Scotland and making a stitch or two on the great work ourselves
• Bringing Nick Major to the Scottish Review of Books as an intern and watching him grow
• Securing BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week for Scott-land by Stuart Kelly, BBC Radio 4 drama for Alexander McCall Smith and many BBC interviews for authors of all genres
• Overseeing the introduction of eBooks to Birlinn and Polygon
• Active membership of the steering group for Creative Scotland’s Literature Sector Review
• Securing serialisation across the Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday for Salmond: A biography by David Torrance
• Securing features for key Polygon and Birlinn writers
• Placement of seasonal short stories by Alexander McCall Smith in Reader’s Digest, Big Issue (UK), Wall Street Journal, Good Housekeeping magazine, the Scotsman etc
• Working with author Neil Forsyth on the placement of his book ‘Delete This At Your Peril: The Bob servant Emails’ with the Guardian and on BBC TV
• Preparation (with outside agency) of the 44 Scotland Street app
• Italian press tours for Monaldi & Sorti’s Imprimatur (Rome) and Alistair Moffat’s Tuscany (Pitigliano, Florence and Siena)
• Securing Sky television features for Alexander McCall Smith.
• Placement of the Corduroy Mansions serial novel by Alexander McCall Smith with the Telegraph newspaper group (winner of two high profile cross-media awards)

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.