Books are my business: Gill Books commissioning editor Sarah Liddy

I’ve always been a big reader. Like lots of people, I started out with ‘The Famous Five’ and all the Enid Blyton books. 

Then I moved on to Agatha Christie; my granny had all the books in her house, and I used to read them when I was on holidays with her. 

I have all the old editions of the Agatha Christie books in my attic, I need to take them down and put them on display.

I did a degree in sociology and Italian in Trinity, and then the Masters in English literature and publishing in Galway. 

I got an internship at Lilliput Press afterwards, that was the lucky break that got me in the door of a publishing house. I’ve built my career from that. 

I was at Columba Press before I took up the commissioning editor role at Gill. 

A couple of years ago, we split the list into the Gill Life list and the Gill Books list. 

I’m the publisher for the Gill Life list, I still commission across all the lists and I oversee the publishing for the cookery and the lifestyle books in particular.

What does your role involve?

Finding new authors and new books, considering what’s popular, what people might be looking for in 12 months time, what are people interested in, the trends in social media, all of that. 

Who are the people who might have the potential to do something with us? That’s the beginning. 

Then it’s about taking those books through the process, coming up with a vision for them, thinking about the format, the title, how we’re going to publish them, and guiding the author through all of that; making sure everything is running smoothly throughout.

What do you like most about it?

The variety, because I work across all the different genres, everything from cookery to memoir. 

Every year I have a whole new batch of authors, a new batch of books. 

I could be working on something really moving that has been difficult for the author to write and then I could also be working on a beautiful children’s book.

What do you like least about it?

When something doesn’t work — when the author and the team have put a huge amount of effort into producing a book, and then, for whatever reason, the sales don’t meet expectations. 

It’s so disappointing for everybody because you put as much work into the books that don’t succeed as the ones that do. 

Sometimes it’s very hard to know why a particular book just hasn’t caught people’s attention or done as well as you’d like.

Three desert island books?

I would bring one of the Winnie the Pooh books (AA Milne). My dad used to read them to me when I was younger and I just find them really comforting. 

I think I would choose The House at Pooh Corner. It is a beautiful book, and it’s timeless. 

There is also something really reassuring about it, and I think if I was stuck on a desert island, I’d need something like that to keep me sane.

Next, I would bring a book that I go back to again and again, which, for me, is Tender is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald. 

I just love that book, and it is so complex; you can find something else in it each time you read it. It depends where you’re at in your own life as well, what you take from it. 

It is quite slim though, as is The House at Pooh Corner, so I would need probably need something chunkier to keep me going.

I would need light relief as well, so I would go for a Jilly Cooper book. I adored the Disney Plus adaptation of Rivals. 

Her books are so much fun, even though they probably wouldn’t pass sensitivity tests. I remember reading them in my 20s and just loving them. 

I would go back to the beginning and take Riders. I remember I brought one of her books on a journey to Australia, and it got me through all those hours on the plane. 

It was the best book to bring on a journey like that.