Kate Blackadder

Kate Blackadder has worked for a number of publishers, Paul Harris included. She worked for Scottish Academic Press before becoming a freelance editor. In 2002 she edited the Instant Book, Mirror Widow by Gavin Inglis which was the winning entry in the SPA's Edinburgh International Book Festival competition. The aim of the competition was to attract new work from writers in any genre by noon 15/8/02; to have the winning work selected, edited and designed by 19/8/02, and to have 50 copies of the winning book delivered to Charlotte Square five days later. The CPI (UK) group, who sponsored the event, also printed and delivered to schedule. Kate's husband Mark is a book designer, and also worked on the Instant Book.

After sitting in the same chair in Hutchinson's production department in London for almost seven years, followed by two years with Churchill Livingstone as a sales promotion executive, I embarked unsuspectingly on a year of living dangerously. At the beginning of 1985 I got a new job after answering an advertisement headed 'Publishing Manager required to replace myself'. 'Myself' was Paul Harris who had been publishing in his eponymous company for eleven years. He was diversifying into wildlife videos and magazine publishing. I was to look after the book side. He wanted to float this combined business on the OTC market.

When the flotation proposal was in place five of us went to London to meet the financial press. Goldfish in a piranha bowl have friendlier company. One journalist wrote a scathing report in an influential investment journal and, although he later apologised, the damage was done. Paul Harris Communications for Leisure went into receivership, strangled at birth.

Back in Edinburgh there came news from the bank. Two businessmen would take over the book publishing side and the videos, with Paul as manager. We would move to an office in Leith and have a fresh start.

We adjourned to the Osborne to brainstorm a name for the new company. Rowan Publishing or Bracken Books were my contributions. These cosy ideas reminded Paul of a friend who had had a dog, now deceased, called Rowan. What about Dead Dog Press? he suggested. Eventually someone, thinking of our office location, suggested On the Waterfront which fired Paul with great enthusiasm. We had to check to see if the name was already in use and, alas, a tiler on the Thames was found to have been similarly inspired, so instead we became Waterfront Communications. Paul swiftly put together an appropriately maritime list of both new and reissued titles, we wooed back some suppliers and, although the office was grotty and cold, the future looked promising.

Within weeks though, it became apparent that our new bosses knew nothing about publishing and cared less. Invoices either weren't paid at all, or cheques bounced. When they came to the office to see Paul voices were raised, while his secretary and I cowered in the next room (ears pressed against the adjoining wall). The staff left until there remained just Paul and myself. Paul became ill and was hospitalised. And then there was one. I tried to explain the situation to authors and suppliers without understanding it myself; answered the telephone and the door to angry creditors; tried to keep warm; had an interview with an academic publisher; kept Silk Cut shareholders happy; became expert at the Scotsman crossword – but although I managed even Peter Bee's cryptic clues, the puzzle of why this had all come about remained unsolved.

Whether Waterfront Communications lived long enough to join the SPA I cannot recall, but when it finally ceased communicating, I moved to the comparative sanity and security of Scottish Academic Press. But that's another story.