Sam Jordison - Editor
Sam Jordison is an author and co-director at Galley Beggar Press, the award-winning indie press.
He has extensive editorial experience and knowledge of the book world – and has also been on the other side of the fence, having written several best-selling works of non-fiction, including the notorious Crap Towns series (Boxtree, Pan Macmillan), the best-selling I Spy for adults series, a book about Literary London (co-authored with Eloise Millar), political books like Enemies Of The People and The 10 Worst Of Everything.
As a journalist, he mainly writes for The Guardian, and mainly about books. He runs the Not The Booker Prize, and the Guardian’s online book club, The Reading Group. He has also taught about publishing on several Creative Writing university courses, as well as teaching a course on publishing at Greenwich University and journalism at UEA.
Find Sam on Twitter here: @samjordison
Testimonials
– Michael S.
- Lachlan P.
– Annerose W.
- Joe B.
- Irina G.
WHY WE LOVE SAM
Sam’s work with wide-ranging authors at Galley Beggar have proved him to be a talented editor who can work on a variety of genres from highbrow literary fiction to fantasy YA. He has a great sense of identifying what makes a novel unique and suggesting concrete ways to help authors make their manuscripts standout to publishers and agents. Jericho Members can watch our In Conversation with Galley Beggar Press here.
WHAT SAM SAYS ABOUT EDITING
I have edited novels and non-fiction by some of the best writers alive today. They have variously been shortlisted for and won The Booker Prize, The Republic Of Consciousness Prize, The Goldsmiths Prize, The Desmond Elliott Prize, The Jan Michalski Prize, The Folio Prize, The Bollinger Wodehouse Prize For Comic Fiction, The Jhalak Prize, The Women’s Prize, The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize.
I also love to see work by people who are starting out on their careers and am curious both about fiction and non-fiction. I’ve been on both sides of the fence of the publishing process as both a writer and editor, so am well equipped to offer you the advice you need. And I’m also very sympathetic to the work you are doing. I know that writing books takes dedication and I am always keen to give your work the attention it deserves.
What Sam works on
Manuscript Assessment
Developmental Editing
Agent Submission Pack assessment
Post-editorial guidance
Genres Sam specialises in
Sam's published books
The 10 Worst Of Everything
A celebration of failures, doom, disaster, mistakes, miscalculations, hubris, folly and really, really bad albums. Written by the author of the cult hit, Crap Towns.
Most books celebrate the exceptions rather than the rule. They focus on the over-achievers, the unique and strange success stories. They don’t provide a fair reflection of the general tide of history – but they do make your average reader feel, well, more average.
The 10 Worst of Everything redresses this imbalance and shows that you maybe shouldn’t take it too badly if your own plans aren’t working out. And there’s nearly always someone worse off than you. Which is reassuring, if nothing else.
Crap Towns II
From inner city poverty to self-satisfied middle England, from the dull and the lifeless to the ugly and the depressing, Dan Kieran and Sam Jordison are back with a brand new list of towns – and this time it’s personal.
Inspired by the success of the contentious survey, published in the Idler and in book form in Boxtree’s smash hit Crap Towns, residents of the original 50 towns, along with plenty of new towns will have their say in Crap Towns II: To Hull and Back on why Britain isn’t just the place of warm beer, cosy bed and breakfasts and amiable old gits that some travel books would have us believe.
Crap Towns
Crap Towns is a hilarious guide to the 50 worst towns in Britain. From inner city poverty to self-satisfied middle England, from the dull and the lifeless to the ugly and the depressing, no concrete monstrosity or phoney heritage centre will be left untouched. For the first time Crap Towns will prove that Britain isn’t just the place of warm beer, cosy bed and breakfasts and amiable old gits that some travel books would have us believe. With burnt out cars, shell suits, cheap shoe shops and housing estates patrolled by rabid dogs and feral kids, Britain can be every bit as challenging a destination as the places gap year students and ‘serious’ travellers’ usually go for their poverty and misery kick.
Enemies of the People
Something has gone wrong. We’re living in an age of celebratory racism, extreme inequality, uncertainty and fear. We’re governed by people who claim to be populist but who seem to hate everyone. There are idiots at the wheel and we’re heading for a cliff in a big red bus and no one knows how to save us.
Enemies of The People reveals who has taken us to this dizzying precipice. It provides the actual, non-alternative facts about Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Vladimir Putin and their charming friends – and also explains where they got their crazy ideas. Why did people turn so mean? How did so-called social networks like Facebook become so very anti-social? Why did anyone think it would be a good idea to privatise railways? Just how much should we fear the robots? Why is no one doing anything about Global Warming? Why is no one doing anything about Boris Johnson either?
