Alex Hazle - Editor

This is a voluntary (elected) role I hold for my beloved car club. I took over the editorship and completely transformed the magazine from its traditional newsletter style of variously formatted, unedited submissions printed and stapled together to a fully designed, professional-looking magazine, typeset and laid out every quarter totally by myself using InDesign/Affinity Publisher, along with all of the copy-editing sub-editing and proofreading – not to mention some of the writing. It's a real labour of love, and it's always allowed me to keep a foot firmly planted in the printed media world.

I started back full-time at Red Bull as a web editor and worked my way up through a variety of roles, as Bike Channel manager, Senior Web Editor and finally Central Editorial Service Manager, running a team of editors I recruited and managed on a daily basis.

After a brief spell, Red Bull decided to close The Red Bulletin F1 magazine. I continued to freelance for Red Bull in print and online, and I also subbed for Autosport.

On the book side, I did some proofreading work and edited the sports listings for two editions of Whitaker's Almanack.

I fell backwards into a career in Formula 1 as a magazine sub and journalist for the Red Bull F1 team's offshoot the Red Bulletin, which was put together and printed right by the race paddock. I loved books, but the chance to travel the world with the F1 circus was too good to pass up. It was short-lived, but it was fun and I learned a lot.

My second job in publishing was totally new, working in the main on much more practical titles in A&C Black's Sport & Fitness list (now completely absorbed into Bloomsbury). As well as some commissioning, it was project management: I held authors' hands much more through the whole process, especially those who were experts first and writers second. This gave me much more copy-editing experience. I also proofread almost everything I published.

My first job in publishing, where I discovered I really could do editorial detail. As well as a grounding in the nitty-gritty of publishing, I met lots of famous people. I'd never had a desk job before where Sienna Miller might unexpectedly breeze past. I worked closely with George Best, was on hugging terms with Mel Giedroyc and put more money in Piers Morgan's car parking meter so he didn't get a fine (he never paid me back). I also made sure all my authors' final PDFs were perfect before they went off to the printers.