Alison Myer is the Craft Community Leader at David & Charles in charge of their RU craft website and the craft publishing division.   She has kindly taken time out from her busy schedule to tell us about what new sewing books we can expect to see this autumn and her plans for the RUcraft website.

Craft Community Leader sounds like a very impressive title, but what does it actually involve?

An awful lot of meetings!   Sometimes it does feel like I spend all day in meetings but in response to your question I guess the best way to describe my job is to say that I am responsible for forward planning ideas for books and crafts.  I also spend a lot of my time building relationships and partnerships with other people within the industry.  I head up new ideas and initiatives and implement business strategies in collaboration with my team.

You mention partnerships; I personally have found the craft industry to be very collaborative and supportive.  Do you find that too?

It wasn't always this way but now I do find that people and businesses are very willing to work together and form partnerships.   I think previously people were a lot more protective of what they were doing.  I do definitely think a lot of this is due to the recession, the industry is a lot more collaborative and friendly than it used to be.  I really hope that when the recession is over the relationships and friendships formed will continue.

What do you consider to be the best and worst aspects of your job? 

The best bit is definitely the forward planning of books and the RU Craft website, getting ideas together for new books and the excitement of seeing it through.   The worst bit is being stuck in the office at 7pm on a nice sunny June evening!  It can be high pressure and stressful, I have a £5.5 million budget to deliver this year and it is challenging.   I've had to learn that you cannot control your destiny; another company might make promise they don't keep and that affects you, if they promise to sell 1,000 books and they don't that has an effect on your budget but is beyond your control.

Sewing seems to be becoming increasingly popular, have you seen a big increase in the sales of sewing books in the last couple years?

Most definitely, we get a lot of data from Nielsen Book Scan and their figures have shown that in the last few years sales of sewing/needlecraft related books have increased by 50% per year.  We have some very popular sewing authors including Tilda whose sales have been amazing.

We have only started producing sewing related books in the last few years as we were previously Readers Union (where the ‘RU' on the craft website comes from) which was a specialist book club that mainly catered for paper crafts and cross stitch so it has been truly liberating for us to explore a new area.

What made you expand into sewing?

Quite simply market demand, we realised there was a demand for good quality sewing books so we started producing them.

How do you decide what books to publish?

We spend a lot of time doing market research and studying trends to see what people want.   We also continuously review our internal figures to see what has sold well in the past and what is selling well now.  We tend to build on our successful series and authors. 

Does building on previous successes run the risk of stopping you from being innovative?

We do have to be very careful.  Many people are not aware of the costs and time lines involved in producing a book.  The problem with trends is they can pass very quickly.  It can take 1-2 years to get a book produced and on sale in which time a lot of trends will have passed.  So we have to be very careful and make sure there will be a future market for a book before we go ahead with it. 

One example of a recent success in a new area for us was Pam Lintott's Jelly Roll books.  We spotted her at a craft fair and she told us that jelly rolls were going to be the next big trend and we managed to get a book written and on the shelves within just 1 year.   

Do you look at what the competition are doing and does it influence what you do?

Part of our market research is seeing what books sell well, regardless who they are published by.  If we see a book is doing particularly well we will look at it to work out what is making it so popular.  We also have to look at what other companies are doing to ensure there is still enough gap in the market for the books we are planning.

How do you find authors? Do you approach them or do they approach you?

It's a mixture of both, we spend a lot of time looking for new talent and if we find someone with an idea with a unique selling point (USP) then we approach them.  We also get sent in a lot of submissions which we go through and contact anyone that we think has what we are looking for.

What do you look for from an author?

They need to have a USP, they need to be filling a gap in the market.  We also look for people who use Twitter/Facebook/Blogs etc and are prepared to self promote.  We have found that social networking is so important at the moment; people want to interact with authors and find out about them and what they are doing.  In fact we have just commissioned a book from someone we found on Twitter.  We also look for people that have a good name/reputation in their industry that is also important, people who have built respect in their industry. 

They don't have to be experts at writing.  For the right person we can take their ideas and turn it into a book.  However, that is costly so it would need to be a really big name or someone with an extraordinary idea.  

How would someone go about submitting an idea of a book to David & Charles?

They would need to send us a synopsis and a contents list.  Plus for crafts it is very important to send in some images, show us your work.  You'd be amazed the amount of letters we get saying ‘I make beautiful products' and they don't enclose any images of the products.  Plus as I said before you need to have a USP.  I'm happy for submissions to be e-mail through to me: ali.myer@davidandcharles.co.uk or sent by post to David & Charles Publishers, Brunel House, Newton Abbott, Devon, TQ12 4PU.

However please do bear in mind that we get a lot of submissions and we like to review each of them thoroughly so it can take 3-4 months before we can respond. 

Obviously a hot topic at the moment is the I-pad.  Are you planning making some of your books available as e-books?

Yes, we are.  E-books is definitely a growth industry and it will be amazing to be able to embed video into our books to demonstrate to techniques to people and show people how things should be done.   In fact our American company (F & W Media) have already done this with woodworking book.  The e-book looks exactly like the paper book but when you click on the images they turn to video.

The technology is so new at the moment it's a case of waiting to see what will become the universal platform for items such as the I-pad, Kindle readers etc. 

I am also pleased to say we have a range of sewing e-books being launched at the beginning of August.  They are small books of 24 pages each focusing on a different technique such as applique, patchwork, felt etc.  They will cost 99p each and you will be able to give some away through The Sewing Directory too.   We would love to hear the opinion of your readers. 

Can you tell us what else you have coming up sewing wise?

I am very excited about the new Martha Stewart book we have coming out in the autumn.   Her Encyclopedia of Craft was a huge success and now we will be releasing her Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Craft.  It has got over 150 projects and techniques from A-Z.  It comes with a CD ROM with all the patterns and projects on. 

We also have a great box set by Tone Finnager creator of the Tilda range.  It is a lovely slipcase of 4 books containing Tilda's favourite characters.  It is being released end of October and would make a perfect Christmas present. 

Please tell us a bit more about the RU Craft website.  How would you describe it to someone who has never visited it before?

I would say that it is much more than an online book store, not only do we sell an amazing range of craft books but we sell the products you need to make the projects in the book.  So you can get everything you need in one place.

What is the most popular section of the site?

Without a doubt the cross stitch section.  We have a great range of cross stitch books, charts and projects.  We had a large cross stitch fan base from the Reader's Union and this seems to have carried over to the site.

What are your future plans for the site?

We are really focusing on growing the sewing section of the site.  We sell sewing machines and haberdashery supplies alongside the sewing books and we will be expanding our range to include fabrics too, in addition we are looking to increase the range of the sections already onsite.

We will also be adding a projects section to the site where you will be able to download projects, some will be free and some will have to be paid for.

I understand RU Craft are also on Facebook and Twitter.  What can followers expect from you?

They can expect news about our products, details of offers and discounts plus competitions and giveaways.  They will be kept fully updated of everything going on with the site.

Check out the RU Craft Website here: http://www.rucraft.co.uk/ and the David & Charles website here: http://www.davidandcharles.co.uk/.  Click on the words Facebook or Twitter above to become a fan.