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PUBLISHING - JAMES BENSON OM'78
What is your profession and current position?
I own and run two related but distinct businesses providing Sales Agency services to book publishers across the UK.
How did Monkton get you ready for the world of work?
To be honest I cannot really remember! Like Colin Burrows (featured below) the rather wonderful late, lamented Mr Geoffrey Randall- one-time fellow horn player in the School orchestra- might have suggested I become a librarian. More generally, I do owe an enormous debt to the inspirational John Vickery , Tim Borton and Peta Hooper of the then English Department. I remember a trip to the RSC at Stratford to see Glenda Jackson and Alan Howard in the 1978 Peter Brook ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ -also featuring a hirsute Patrick Stewart and Alan Rickman. Sensational events such as this nurtured my lifetime's love of literature and the written word.
Competing at sport, for me that was on the river, and thereby learning to manage with both winning and losing was an invaluable lesson.
What is your biggest professional achievement?
Working with some of the most prestigious book publishers in the UK and abroad-this is truly satisfying when you are self-employed. If I may be permitted a couple of name drops, this has meant that I have been able to work on separate occasions with both Zippy and The Cookie Monster.
What has been your most challenging professional moment?
Oh gosh. Having to stand up to an unpleasant, incompetent bully in the workplace. Monkton had not really prepared me for this, and it ended with me claiming unemployment benefit while living in Oldham, a briefly humbling but in its way powerfully motivational experience. However, a couple of months later I was back on my feet, self-employed and in my first month earning more than I had in six months previous work for the bully and his lieutenants. He had his comeuppance shortly after-as these people usually do.
Coping with the frequent loss of clients due to predatory corporate acquisition is a constant challenge these days.
What inspires and motivates you at work?
Above all my family and my dog. Working with fantastic authors, editors, publishers and books. Great music, (thanks Irving Steggles), wonderful landscapes that I pass through on my travels (thanks Brian Nalder and Martyn Garrod).
Working for yourself is completely liberating, I have been doing it for thirty years - do not dismiss micro-businesses! You may need to work through a corporate environment to get there though.
What is one piece of advice you would like to share with pupils or OMs about getting into your profession?
Publishing is a notoriously challenging industry to get into, and you may end up like me starting at the very bottom. So be confident yet humble, sincere, adaptable, and resilient, and be prepared to laugh at yourself and with others; network like crazy and read lots and be open to new ideas. Is that nine or ten things?