Being huge fans of Fairlight Books here at LoveReading (see our rave reviews of Voting Day, The Driveway Has Two Sides, Relative Secrets, Bottled Goods, and The Piano Room), we’re delighted to welcome Daniela Ferrante to our regular Industry Insights series. With a role that spans marketing, publicity and editing for this innovative independent publisher, Daniela is primely placed to share an all-encompassing perspective on the world of publishing, along with passion for a host of exceptional books.

If you’ve yet to discover Fairlight, you’re in for a huge treat. Dedicated to publishing original literary and non-fiction gems from around the globe, and with something of a focus on novellas and short stories, their elegantly-designed books are beautiful inside and out. One thing’s for sure, this article is guaranteed to get you adding a host of brilliant books to your teetering to-be-read pile. Over to Daniela…

What was your route into the world of publishing? 

It was during my BA in English and Creative Writing that I realised I wanted to work with books and writers. I really enjoyed providing feedback on my peer’s work on the creative writing side of the course and it was around this time that I started to think about a career in publishing.

It took me a few years to get into the industry and I worked in comms and publicity roles for a couple of years after graduating, during which time I was sporadically applying to roles in publishing. I had a couple of interviews but no luck in securing a position so I decided to do a masters in Publishing. It’s the best decision I made! I started at Fairlight Books as an intern (which was advertised to my MA course) before being offered a full-time role and I’ve recently celebrated one year at the company.

What’s the editorial ethos of Fairlight Books? What sets Fairlight Books apart?

Fairlight Books was founded in 2017 to publish and promote writers of highly original literary and quality fiction. Supporting authors early in their writing careers is something very important to us and it’s been really great to see it pay off with many of our authors receiving recognition from literary prizes, such as the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the Paul Torday Prize.

We adore the Fairlight Modern series. It has such a great global scope, and gives readers a gateway into undiscovered worlds of truly exceptional international writing. How does the editorial team go about discovering these gems?

We have an open submissions programme here at Fairlight Books and encourage English language submissions from around the world. We get an enormous number of submissions and many of these come through word-of-mouth recommendations from other writers or writing groups. I think it also helps that we’ve now garnered a bit of a reputation for being the go-to home for writers of literary novellas.

Fairlight Books also champion shorter-form fiction like novellas and short stories, which often don’t get the attention they deserve. What do you love about short stories and novellas?

I love how the brevity of them means that everything is more potent. The plot unravels quicker and feels more intense, each line holds more weight because there are fewer of them. They really pack a punch! I also think they can be more accessible for people who still want a great read but don’t have time to delve into a longer form – and likewise for authors who have less time to write, a short story or novella is a more achievable goal.

Can you tell us about the beautiful (and practical) How to… Modern Living series? How did the series idea come about? 

We wanted a beautiful, topical non-fiction series to complement the Fairlight Moderns, and so our How To… Modern Living series was born! So far, all are by women writers, and have been acquired by a mix of approaching writers and them approaching us.

Describe a typical working day in the life of Daniela Ferrante.

There is no ‘typical’ day – the variety is part of why I love my job so much. Fairlight Books is a small press which often means picking up whatever needs to be done; being flexible is extremely important.

As my role spans editorial and marketing, I could be doing anything from pitching our books to literary editors, providing feedback for authors on their revised drafts, managing copyediting and proofreading stages, planning social media content or reading submissions.

As a general rule, I tend to check my emails and the social media accounts first thing (as well as throughout the day) before trying to ticking off at least a couple of things off my to-do list before lunch, usually things that require my most alert brain like drafting copy, creating marketing plans or checking through proof pages.

We’re still very much an office-based team so I try to step out of the office for half an hour or so at lunch and stretch my legs. We’re lucky to have Daunt Summertown just around the corner so sometimes I’ll stop by to get some inspiration for cover briefs and see what’s currently on the tables (no rest for the wicked), and often I’ll treat myself to a book there too. In the afternoons, I’ll send or chase up on pitches, write up feedback on manuscripts, we might have a cover/sales/marketing/commissioning meeting and I’ll try and squeeze in some submissions reading at the end of the day.

What’s the best aspect of your job?

I love working closely with authors on their novels, it’s such a privilege to help writers make their book the best it can be. Seeing readers enjoy and connect with our books is also incredibly rewarding.

What sets your editorial heart a-fluttering? 

A book which tells a story in a new and intelligent way (think Douglas Bruton’s Blue Postcards, Lanny by Max Porter or Little Scratch by Rebecca Watson) is a sure-fire way to raise my pulse. I also really appreciate writing which is beautiful at a sentence level.

What's your all-time favourite fiction — books you re-read and keep coming back to?

I don’t often re-read books and similarly picking an all-time favourite is far too difficult! But one book that caused me to break my rule of anally preserving the pristine condition of a book and turn pages down and underline passages was Saltwater by Jessica Andrews. It was just THAT good. It’s beautifully written and I found the protagonist incredibly relatable and certain paragraphs and phrases really moved me. It’s the only book I own which I won’t lend out to friends because I feel in reading my personal copy it would bear a little too much of my soul.

Which book/s or series are you most proud of working on?

The House of Marvellous Books is the first book I worked on editorially and I’m extremely proud of the work I did on it. The book went through quite a few iterations before it came to me for line editing so checking the storyline was consistent and flowed was a key part of the work I did. Fiona Vigo Marshall was a lovely first author to work with editorially too! It’s amazing to hold the finished book in my hands now – it’s absolutely stunning – and I’m so pleased that it’s connecting with readers!

Which books from Fairlight Books’ backlist should we definitely read?

All of them! But if I have to choose a few, our gorgeous non-fiction Bookshop Tours of Britain which is a photographed guide to Britain’s best bookshops is one I press into everyone’s hands – it’s truly a book lovers’ dream!

The Fairlight Moderns series is a really great way to get a flavour of Fairlight and we’ve got a couple of prize-recognised books in the collection: Blue Postcards by Douglas Bruton was recently longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and Bottled Goods by Sophie Van Llewyn was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019! There’s something for everyone in the series, so if you’re new to Fairlight I’d definitely recommend starting there.

Give us an elevator pitch for some of your upcoming books.

We have such an exciting list this year but I’ve picked some which show the variety of literary fiction we publish here at Fairlight.

Coming out in May, The House of Marvellous Books by Fiona Vigo Marshall is, as Sarra Manning says, “a must-read for anyone who loves books”. It’s a satire of the publishing industry about a struggling publishing house based in a crumbling library with a cast of hopeless yet loveable characters. 

In August we have Instructions for the Working Day by Joanna Campbell. It’s a compelling psychological novel set in past and present East Germany, exploring the effects of the cold war and I would HIGHLY recommend it – as does Clare Fuller who called it ‘captivating and enigmatic’.

Publishing in October, climate fiction The Fish by debut author Joanne Stubbs is a speculative novel where fish begin to crawl out of the polluted oceans and begin to adapt to live on land. The novel explores how ordinary people deal with all-consuming world events – some parallels with the pandemic there!

Which authors would you invite to your dream literary dinner party?

Toni Morrison, Virginia Woolf and Joan Didion are among those I wish I could resurrect for the occasion. I’d also love to invite some of my favourite writers of recent times because I think they’d just be LOVELY humans and I think we’d have a lot of fun: Ruth Gilligan (who actually taught me creative writing at university), Bernardine Evaristo, Kiley Reid, Ali Smith, Rebecca Watson, Sophie Mackintosh, Jessica Andrews, Zadie Smith, Candice Carty-Williams, Dolly Alderton, and Elena Ferrante (so I could discover who she is!). All brilliant and inspirational women who I would love to pick the brains of and I think we’d have a pretty interesting conversation.

Tell us a secret about books.

Although all books go through the same process towards publication, the story behind how each book is made is different which I think is pretty magic.

Discover more:

For more inspiration, check out the Fairlight Books website and follow them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. And, for more wisdom from the people who bring us all those books we love, read the rest of our Industry Insights articles.