Overview
I primarily offer a publicity service, but, given my trade experience, am also uniquely placed to help with editorial and design requests too.
Services
Non-Fiction
Fiction
Works with
Work experience
Self-employed
I launched my own PR, publishing and events company, Bookshaped, in 2012 and have since worked with a wide range of authors, most notably Eleanor Catton, author of The Luminaries - winner of the MAN Booker prize in 2013 - and Gloria Steinem for her memoir My Life on the Road. I am also Associate Director of the Port Eliot Festival, a multi-arts festival held in South East Cornwall each summer.
Simon & Schuster
In 2010 I joined Simon and Schuster as an editor on the non-fiction list, commissioning books from Jeremy Vine to Billy Idol, as well as the CWA Gold Dagger Award-winning Killer of Little Shepherds, by Douglas Starr, and Tom Fort's bestselling travel title, The A303, Highway to the Sun.
Bloomsbury
Having started out as an assistant in the Bloomsbury publicity department just as the Harry Potter books started to gain traction, I was lucky enough to have been at the publisher for the next eleven years, during which time they published an extraordinary list. Over the years I progressed to the role of Publicity Director and, along the way represented novelists such as Khaled Hosseini, John Irving, Nadine Gordimer, and William Boyd, and non-fiction authors covering a wide range of genres - from Kate Summerscale, to Heston Blumenthal, Buzz Aldrin, AC Grayling and William Dalrymple.
Projects
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
This was a real privilege. I was brought in to to work on Eleanor Catton's book in August 2013 just as it was long-listed for the Booker Prize. Over the course of the next 2 months set off on a nationwide tour, taking in Edinburgh Festival, Cheltenham, London - even Berlin - with a wall-to-wall interview schedule for broadcast and print media. The night of the Booker Prize giving was an extraordinary culmination of a lot of work. She returned for the paperback the following summer and we continued at fever pitch.
The A303 - Highway to the Sun
This was a real pleasure and a rare experience - overseeing a publishing project from start to the very finish. In my capacity as a commissioning editor at Simon & Schuster I brought the idea of a book about the 303 to the editorial table and swiftly found Tom Fort, an author at a loose end. I oversaw the editorial process - working with Tom on the text, commissioning the jacket design, writing cover copy, and even drawing the maps - before leaving S&S to set up Bookshaped. I then publicised the book, securing blanket review coverage and features across the national press, broadcast interviews on Chris Evans Breakfast Show, and on Radio 4 and across the West Country. Plus, of course, the BBC commissioned a one off documentary on the back of the book...
My Life on the Road, by Gloria Steinem
Another great opportunity planning the tour and chaperoning Gloria Steinem as we promoted the hardback of her memoir. This involved the scheduling of a comprehensive UK book tour taking in events at the the Emmanuel Centre for the How To Academy in London, at the Cambridge Book Festival, Oxford Union, Bath Festival, Port Eliot Festival and West Cork. Interviews were secured across the media but most notably on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, BBC Newsnight, BBC Breakfast, the Guardian, and Daily Mail.
Ordinary Thunderstorms
UK Trade campaign for first publication of William Boyd's 2009 novel.
Interviews in broadsheet and weekly media including The New Statesman and Sunday Times.
Broadcast interviews on BBC Radio 4 Open Book. BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime. Reviews across longlead publications and broadsheet and tabloid media.
William Boyd said of the campaign: "Colin Midson did a sensational job on Ordinary Thunderstorms. It was the most impressive trans-media publicity blitz I've ever experienced in the UK"
