Books are my business: Founder of Cuala Creative Katie Meegan

How did you get into publishing?

I have always loved books — I was always that kid with her nose stuck in a book. I did English in Trinity, and then I took a year out, and worked for a social media company.

I went on to do a masters in publishing studies in University College London in 2018 and I got an internship as part of that. 

From there, I started working in foreign rights, selling books to be published in other languages, which was really exciting. 

I pivoted in-house to an editorial role in non-fiction, and then I got a job in Bonnier Books UK, where I worked until last year, when I took some time out to travel. That’s where I came across the concept of virtual assistants.

Can you tell more more about what your work involves?

One of the great thing about virtual assistants is that they work for small and medium businesses, which publishing has lots of, so I thought there was someone out there already doing this. 

But there wasn’t, so that’s when I decided to set up Cuala Creative. 

The name comes from Cuala Press, which was set up by Elizabeth and Lily, the sisters of WB Yeats. 

I launched officially in February, and by July, I was booked out. That really goes to show that there is a demand for this within the industry. 

I work directly with publishers, so for a set amount of hours a week, I’ll help them out with admin, sales, distribution, all those behind the scenes operations that you need someone experienced for, but that you can pass off to someone else to give you more space to do creative work. 

I also do a lot of writing, working on intellectual property creation for Hachette in the UK. Then I work with authors to build their brand and social media.

I’m currently working with Buy the Book [an Irish independent online book marketplace]. I’m giving a course with them at the moment on how to build your brand as a self-published author. 

I will also launch my own course in the new year. I work one-to-one with authors to curate their online presence because so many authors don’t have a clue where to start and it can be quite daunting.

What do you like most about what you do?

The people, everyone who works in publishing is just so passionate. 

You also can’t beat that feeling when you actually hold a book in your hand that you’ve had some sort of involvement in, whether that’s working with the author, putting it together yourself, or editing it. 

There’s always that rush when you see it on a bookshelf.

What do you like least about it?

The structure — the way the publishing industry is set up hasn’t changed fundamentally in a hundred years, which is bananas. 

Realistically, how an editorial department was run in the 1910s versus the 2010s, all they’ve done is add computers. 

The way that you’re expected to learn and to climb the ladder is completely outdated, and I think it’s a big factor in the lack of diversity in publishing. 

They’re taking steps in the right direction, but unless you fundamentally change the structure of how publishing is run, these issues aren’t going to go away.

You need to rethink things, which is where I see virtual assistants coming in as part of the structure. Because people still want books — the love of literature isn’t going anywhere.

Three desert island books

East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which is a brilliant book — they’ve actually just commissioned a Netflix series starring Florence Pugh as Cathy and I’m hoping they do a good job.

Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes is absolutely fantastic — it’s the best example of an unreliable narrator that I’ve read anywhere.

For the third book, I was thinking I would be really smart and go for something like Shelter Building for Dummies but if I wasn’t allowed that, then Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen — everyone always goes for Pride and Prejudice but don’t overlook Northanger Abbey.