good publishers…are market-makers in a world where it is attention, not content, that is scarce (John Thompson, Merchants of Culture)

Nigel Newton, alumnus and founder of Bloomsbury Publishing, thinks English graduates are well equipped to thrive in any career, with the degree giving them the 'perfect skill set for leadership in the AI era with its cultivation of empathy, communication skills and data analysis'. 

At a more fundamental level, for those just beginning in publishing the one skill that the Society of Young Publishers advises is non-negotiable is having an exemplary command of written English. Happily, English students at Cambridge leave with a well-honed ability to write, evaluate and edit their own and others' writing. Exposure to the very best literature, and the close personal attention of the Cambridge supervision system combined with supervisors' feedback on many weekly essays create a strong sense of what makes for good writing that our graduates take into the world. This also makes our graduates excellent at communicating their ideas, which is at the heart of publishing. As the Publisher's Association puts it, publishing is 'about communicating ideas, making connections...getting those ideas out to the world and in a way that will have the most impact.'

That said, an alumna and Publisher of Virago, Sarah Savitt, comments wryly in an interview with Flip: 'when I started editing, I think I approached editorial notes as a kind of academic exercise, where I was trying to impress the author intellectually. I did also give constructive feedback on the text and how to shape it, of course, and I’ve always taken editing really seriously, and loved that part of my job. But I’ve learned over the years that editorial feedback is also about diplomacy and encouragement. It’s not about me trying to get an A+.'