Introducing Daniel Culver, Editorial Project Manager
In today’s blog post, we have a Q&A to introduce our newest team member, Editorial Project Manager, Daniel Culver!
How did you get into the publishing industry?
Like everyone else in this industry, I was obsessed with reading as a kid. But books for me were an escape from the place where I grew up, which was grim and uninspiring.
However, I did have a major publisher (Longman, and later, Pearson) just around the corner from my house, so once I graduated from university (with a BA in Publishing with Creative Writing), I applied for a temporary job over the summer.
My first role was as an editorial assistant in the Schools department at Pearson where I helped make CD ROMs (this should give you a sense of how long I’ve worked in publishing). In my final week, I saw a Senior Editor role advertised in the Trade-Professional department, and being both very naïve and over-confident I applied for the job. Of course, I was told I did not have the experience for the role, but the Editorial Manager took pity on me and offered me a maternity cover which then led to a permanent role.
What has your career been like so far?’
Varied, with lots of ups and downs.
I’ve worked for several publishers – majors, indies, and institutions too – and on hundreds of books. I’ve worked on fiction and non-fiction, and everything in between. I’ve produced audio, digital, analogue, educational and architectural resources, and have been involved in the set-up of new imprints as well.
Every day is different, as is every book, every author, and every team I’ve worked in.
What has been your career highlight to date?
Aside from joining Mushens Entertainment, of course, I think just getting to work with books is amazing.
I’m from a poor working-class town in Essex. I don’t encounter many people in the publishing industry who come from a similar background, so I’m just grateful to be able to get to work as an editor full time. Publishing is a notoriously difficult industry to break in to – even more so if you look (and sound) like Peggy Mitchell’s long-lost third son.
To begin with, I had to mask and assimilate to fit in, but now I’m often the most experienced editor in the room. And that’s largely down to working class perseverance, I think. Or at the very least, it’s down to working-class stubbornness.
What do you like about working at an agency so far?
I’m not easily impressed, but the company Juliet has created is really impressive. I’m honoured to work with her and her amazing list of clients.
Aside from my new colleagues who are so friendly and supportive, I love reading submissions, partials and early drafts, and then helping to shape a book – this is the most rewarding thing an editor can do.
Do you find agenting life very different to working at a publisher and why?
Mushens is such a dynamic place to work. I loved working as an editor in house, but there is always something exciting happening at the agency, whether that’s a big book deal, or a new manuscript. Or an exciting submission that everyone is talking about.
At a publishing house, books are often viewed as products (which of course they are), but this can sometimes feel akin to stacking tins of beans (or some other inanimate object), often forgetting that so much work and emotion goes into a book before it lands on an editor’s desk.
I realise now that agents have to be so selective with the books and clients they take on, because they have to not only love the book they’ve signed, but they also need to believe in an author’s ability to write and keep writing. Agents champion and support author’s entire careers – often without getting paid. This is not always the case at a publisher, where authors are mostly considered on a book-by-book basis, and can then be savagely dropped if their most recent book doesn’t do as well as the publisher had hoped.
What's one book you could read over and over?
I’ve probably read the entire Tintin series a hundred times over growing up, and I still love to read those books now. (I’d love to find an adult book series in the same vein – or perhaps I’ll have to write one.)
In terms of novels, I read and re-read The Beach by Alex Garland maybe once a year. I first read it while backpacking across South-East Asia in the late nineties-early 00s. At the time it was a word-of-mouth phenomenon among backpackers. It represents this exciting time and place which has now largely been lost (and ruined) by the internet and influencer culture.
What type of books do you most enjoy reading for fun?
Aside from Tintin, I’m largely drawn to crime- and horror-adjacent literary fiction, or fiction that feels like it could be true crime. My favourite book of all time is The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, with The Silence of the Lambs a close second, and Shutter Island is up there too. I also love Killers of the Flower Moon by David Gran, The Girls by Emma Cline, and True Story by Kate Reed Petty.
More recently, standouts for me have been The Shards, Everything the Darkness Eats, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Project Hail Mary, and the Slow Horses series – all brilliant books. I’m currently reading The Survivor by Andrew Reid – a thriller set on the New York Subway which is fantastic. I love anything set on a train.
What do you like to do outside of work for fun?
I play tennis and squash regularly, which I enjoy (though my knees do not). I also enjoy gardening and DIY, feeding stray animals, (placing things in parenthesis), and I write a bit in my spare time, too.