A Chat with Up North Books Podcast | Big Green Experts

This weeks Big Green Experts are Beth and Kate, from Up North Books Podcast, sharing their inspirations behind their podcast and takes on the North-South divide in Publishing.

1. Has working remotely affected the production of the podcast as well as your work lives elsewhere?

Interestingly enough, the podcast was actually born out of lockdown, so we’ve been remote from the start. We both live in different parts of the North and so Zoom has been a great means of closing this geographical gap, allowing us to schedule, discuss and record our episodes with ease. It probably would have been the same even if we weren’t all locked inside of our houses!

Kate: In terms of elsewhere in our lives, I’m not working remotely at the moment, I’ve recently started a job in a supermarket since graduating from university. It’s so nice to have a routine after a long few months and a reason to get out of the house while Lancashire is still trapped in Tier 3.

Beth: I have been working remotely both before and throughout the pandemic, so it wasn’t too much of an adjustment, although I did graduate and move house during that time too.

Apart from a small interlude with no furniture and only a pile of cardboard boxes as a desk, it hasn’t been too bad for me logistically! My events job in the bookshop I usually work at is still sadly on hold, but I’m looking forward to returning to my favourite shelves one day in the near future.

2. We understand you have jobs elsewhere; is podcast producing something you would want to take on as a full-time commitment particularly in the publishing space?

Neither of us ever considered the possibility of podcasting as a career but we’re both really eager to work in publishing eventually, and it would be cool to incorporate that into our future roles! The podcast has already connected us with lots of great people in the industry and if an opportunity ever arose, we’d love to take on that challenge. For now though we both love podcasting as a hobby and we’re excited to see where it takes us!

3. What effect would you like to have on the publishing industry as well as its trends?

We know we’re only a tiny bookish fish in a very large bookish pond, but we’d love to make an impact on how the industry views the North and it’s importance within the publishing landscape. Our focus is to invite Northern writers onto the podcast to talk about their experiences in the publishing world, as well as platforming and shouting about books from the North. We’re two Northern girls who love to read and love to talk about books, but we’ve also found it really hard to find books about where we’re from or that capture our own life experiences. There’s a wealth of diverse writing talent and publishers working in the North and we hope to showcase that on the podcast, ideally with the hopes of proving that you don’t have to live in London to be part of the industry.

4. Bookstagram, booktubers, and even TikTok has found a space for the discussions surrounding publishing - what is it about the podcast format that you think lends itself to books and/or publishing?

Kate: I think the reason that Bookstagram, BookTubers, and BookTok are so popular is because they are different mediums through which books can be engaged with. Reading is quite an insular activity, reading the words on a page, but by visually watching something, or listening to a podcast, there’s more of a community experience to reading. What we love about our podcast is that it creates almost a book club for anyone, anywhere, who wants to engage with Northern books.

Beth: The medium of podcasting has certainly blown up in recent years and it's no surprise that the publishing industry has embraced it. I think one of the key selling points of podcasting is the accessibility of it from a financial perspective. A lot of smaller indie presses don’t have huge marketing budgets and the great thing about podcasting is that it’s completely free. As a marketing person I find this really interesting and I think we will continue to see more and more presses and book lovers embracing the form in years to come!

5. Who would be your dream guest for the podcast?

Kate: The Brontë sisters of course! We can dream.... We’ve spoken about the diversity of the North so I’d personally love to hear from any authors who reflect that, whoever that might be.

Beth: That is a tough question! I’d love to interview one of my Northern writing heroes like Pat Barker or Simon Armitage. That would be really cool. I’d also love to have a brew and a Zoom with Andrew McMillan. I love his poetry and his Yorkshire accent is beautiful!

6. What inspired the beginning of Up North Books?

Despite both being from in and around Blackpool, we never actually met whilst growing up. A couple of years ago we ended up meeting at a publishing event run by Penguin and after finding each other on Bookstagram, we’ve been great friends since. One day the idea just came to us and the Up North Books pod was born! Our inspiration was very much our shared passion for the North, our interest in finding more books by Northern authors and a collective anger about how far publishing feels from us.

7. From the Brontes to other traditional works, northern literature stands as a unique setting for stories to be told. How do you think this has changed over the years?

Beth: This is a really difficult question to answer, and I’m not entirely sure of what that answer might be! I think there’s definitely a sociopolitical reasoning behind it, at least partially anyway. The decline of industry had a big impact on the North which was once seen as the heart of the industrial revolution. Pairing that with current and past governments’ growing contempt for the North is probably a good place to start. We get less funding, less support, less investment and this all has a cultural impact on the people growing up here or aspiring to be writers. And even when there are stories to be told, how can we expect them to be published when the publishing industry is so London-centric? Editors have told people to erase their accents in the past or to set books in more interesting places which is entirely unacceptable. It’s a tough problem to solve but I think change is coming and I’m feeling more hopeful than ever, despite the current situation.

8. There has always been a debate around the north / south divide in all industries; how do you think it differs (or is similar) for publishing?

It’s hard to say for sure as we don’t have too much direct experience with any other industries other than publishing! However, it seems to be a more notable issue within our space than some others. As we’ve mentioned, the London-centric structure of publishing makes it quite inaccessible to both Northern publishing hopefuls and writers alike, nevermind those from underprivileged backgrounds. If you want to be an accountant or a doctor or a web developer, you can pretty much do that in any major city, if not remotely. Publishing seems quite old-fashioned in that sense. Most publishers have only started offering remote working now they’ve been forced to, but we’re hoping to see this continue as an option to allow people to live elsewhere and break into the industry. The important thing for us is seeing a continuation of the push to publish more diverse voices, and we ultimately don’t think that’s achievable without a more diverse workforce. The indie presses across the country and especially in the North have always been the innovators and disruptors in this sense; we hope the big 5 can join them in their pursuit!

9. What more opportunities would you like to see for the North?

Work experience! Internships! Funded writing programmes! We know that the brilliant indies in the North often don’t have the finances, time or space to take on lots of interns, so to see a robust effort to do so by the bigger publishers would be a step in the right direction. We’re already seeing great things in terms of encouraging diversity but we still think more can be done. This would give Northern publishing hopefuls the opportunity to gain experience without shedding out for London living costs, as well as showing Northern writers that they are valuable, important and powerful. The pandemic has certainly taught the industry a lot about accessibility and flexible working and we hope to see this put into action in the near future!

You can listen to Up North Books on Anchor, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Follow Beth, Kate, and Up North Books on Twitter.