• Great exhibition, and fabulous copy about it, at the British Library
• Excellent advice for succeeding in academic publishing
• If Plan S is on your radar, you probably work with journals
• On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook
• Tip of the week: How to get tough with paragraphs of product copy

Great exhibition, and fabulous copy about it, at the British Library

The exhibition is on writing, featuring ‘100 objects spanning 5,000 years and seven continents’. Once again the British Library has made the most of the opportunity to use storytelling in their copy, homing in on examples such as Scott’s diary open on the final entry.

The description on the webpage is rich with intriguing examples, held together with upbeat verbs (marvel, dazzle), ending with a question and an invitation to engage with the future of writing. Cracking stuff.

Open until the end of August for anyone living in or visiting London.

Read more about the Writing: Making your Mark exhibition.

Your copywriting context may be very different from that of the British Library, but their techniques can be deployed just as effectively for any product or audience, as our Copywriting Workshops set out to prove.

Excellent advice for succeeding in academic publishing

Earlier this month the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP) held an event at OUP called Building your Career in Scholarly Communication. Charlie Rapple of Kudos (and eBulletin reader) was a panellist at the event and has written up an excellent account of it for SSP’s Scholarly Kitchen.

There’s so much good practical advice from Charlie and the other speakers here that I had to share it. Here are a few examples to give you a sense of why you should click through to read it:

“Relationships are key. It’s not ambition that moves you from job to job – it’s people.” (Andy Sandland, OUP)

“Having a large pool of colleagues can be fantastic. They’re the people you’re going to learn from.” (Franca Driessen, Elsevier)

“You don’t have to be in a leadership role to show leadership. Come up with ideas and solutions.” (Suzy Astbury, Inspired Selection)

“Don’t let your anxieties hold you back. By confronting the things you fear you can take control of them. This seems to apply equally to spiders, public speaking or difficult conversations with colleagues.” (Charlie Rapple, Kudos)

Read Charlie’s write up on The Scholarly Kitchen blog.

One of the often unsung benefits of attending a training course is the chance to meet other people in similar roles and with shared challenges. As well as returning to the office with new ideas there’s an extra spring in your step from the confidence boost.

Our Academic Marketing Workshop is specifically for marketers in scholarly publishing, designed to help you to consolidate what you know already, fill some gaps – and gather loads of practical tips.

If Plan S is on your radar, you probably work with journals

Plan S is a European initiative to speed up full open access for funded research, putting pressure on publishers currently operating a hybrid model where some content is made available on subscription.

After resisting the pressure, Springer Nature has now proposed a new model to accelerate its own shift towards open access across the board, which could see research from Nature journals made freely available.

Updated guidelines for Plan S are expected at the end of this month and it’s due to come into force in January 2020.

The journals’ marketplace is volatile and it can be challenging keeping up and considering the impact of the changes on our marketing. If you relate to this, why not consider joining me and a group of like-minded marketers from a range of publishers at the ALPSP Introduction to Journals Marketing course in central London on 22 May?

Read the Springer Nature and Plan S article in THE.

On The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook

• Wise words from our friend Jesus Anaya of CANIEM in Mexico who has been recognised for his services to Latin American publishing.
• Read something that hit the spot in this eBulletin? Click through and like the item or add a comment on Facebook.
• Watch the Wall for postings of new jobs, or feel free to add to them.

Visit The Marketability Grapevine on Facebook.

Tip of the week: How to get tough with paragraphs of product copy

Here’s one I use all the time. Rather than look for what you can cut, identify ONE strong point made in each paragraph and then elaborate on it (but don’t go mad). You’ll end up not just with shorter copy but it’ll be more focused too.

Our Copywriting Workshop is the place to be for more like this.