On a rainy Wednesday last week, Transworld designer Lisa Horton headed up a photo shoot in Bethnal Green for the cover of Stop the Clock Alison Mercer, due to be published in paperback by Black Swan in August this year.

Lisa and photographer, Jonny Ring, worked tirelessly to get just the right shot for the jacket image and we all enjoyed a fun but tiring day of trying on hundreds of combinations of outfits and doing our best to make sure we accurately represented our respective characters.

Lynsey (Publicity) played Natalie, Elizabeth (Publicity) played Tina and Lucy (Digital Marketing) played Lucy!

Lucy knows exactly what she wants: her marriage to be a success, her children to be perfect, and to be the ultimate home-maker herself. Tina knows what she wants too: her journalism career to take off and to see her name on a national paper’s byline… and the illicit affair she’s started leaves her free enough to follow her dreams. Natalie just wants to be happy – happy with the boyfriend she’s dated since college, happy with the job she’s drifted into, happy with a life she thinks is enough – but is it really?

Ten years later, all three women have the lives they thought they wanted. But somehow, reality isn’t quite as neat and clean-cut as their dreams were…

Stop the Clock is a sharp, amusing and brilliantly observational novel about women’s lives and friendships.

Work Experience at Transworld – Publicity Department

Anyone trying to claw their way into the world of publishing knows how important it is to get good work experience. Luckily for me, I was given the opportunity to work in the Publicity Department at Transworld for two weeks, and experience first-hand how the department functions. As well as being excited by the big brand authors that Transworld boasts (Lee Child, Bill Bryson, Joanna Trollope), I was eager to gain valuable insight into how the Publicity Department operate on a daily basis. I definitely underestimated the amount of mind-juggling that accompanies the job, and having sat in on various inter-departmental meetings, I quickly began to grasp the variety of authors, genres and strategies that were being discussed (alongside all the other work being done).

I was given a variety of tasks, from creating show cards and reading reviews to researching key historical bloggers for an upcoming campaign. The different tasks were a taste of what it would be like to work in Publicity, where I’m told no two days are ever the same. The team were more than helpful and I was encouraged to ask questions; plus they were friendly, kind and they often bought treats into the office! My experience at Transworld has confirmed my interest in Publishing, and it’s no surprise that so many people want to be a part of this vibrant and intellectual industry.