Books Are My Business: Merrion Press' editor Patrick O'Donoghue

Patrick O’Donoghue is commissioning editor with Merrion Press. Originally from Watergrasshill in Co Cork, he is currently based in Newbridge, Co Kildare.

Patrick O'Donoghue, Merrion Press

How did you get into the publishing business?

I did English in UCC and I was considering journalism as the natural route to take. 

I remember looking at journalism in Galway, and the line above was a masters in literature and publishing in Galway, which appealed to me far more. 

I was always more comfortable with reviewing and critiquing writing. 

I thought I could leave someone else do the hard part, and I could worry about other facets. 

A sales job came up with Columba Press, selling religious books in Ireland, the UK and Rome, so I got to travel there. 

I did that for about two or three years, then an opening came up in editorial, where I learned on my feet. 

I progressed to managing editor, and I had a number of breakthroughs in terms of commissioning. 

Then I went to work in Mercier Press, where I was delighted to flex the commissioning side. I was commuting between Dublin and Cork, and I got married and had kids and that was when I took a role with Merrion Press, keeping the title of commissioning editor but also working on some elements of production, harking back to my time as managing editor. I have been here for four years.

What does your role involve?

There are a number of ways you can commission. 

Any publishing house will have a list of submissions coming through the door which is a starting point. 

You might be looking at half an idea and making it right, you talk to the author and make some suggestions. 

Those are the ones that come to you and there is mechanical work to be done. 

The other side is the far harder part — having a sense or a nose for what the market wants. 

As a commissioning editor, you are trying to be a bellwether for what people might want in the future, which can be fraught with danger because if you look at what is on the bestseller list now and try and imitate that, by the time you have approached an author and have a book out for publication, you can be almost certain that the trend has moved in another direction.

You have to look forward to what is going to work in a year, 18 months or two years time. Then you have to cost it and project what it is going to sell. 

You might think you have a great idea, you find a gap in the market, it’s brilliant, you put the book out on the shelf and there are two other books on the same subject, because Ireland is a small place and everyone is looking in the same direction.

What do you like most about your job?

Probably the author interaction. I do enjoy the editing side but I am looking at the whole package a little more, when we have a great story, I can see the cover, the blurb, all of those elements excite me. 

Ultimately it is the first contact with the author right through to the end, guiding them, because writing is a very lonely business.

What do you like least?

The uncertainty that comes with putting a book out there. 

The constant anxiety around whether a book performs never goes away for a commissioning editor.

Three desert island books?

My top one is That They May Face the Rising Sun by John McGahern, which was a game-changer for me. I picked up Amongst Women one day when I was in college and I devoured it, I had never read anything like it. I thought that was good, then I read That They May Face the Rising Sun — it is perfect, not a word is wasted. 

The Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson — you could read that at any point and be endlessly fascinated. I love the way he condenses complex things into simple analogies. I am always looking for an Irish Bill Bryson. 

And last, any book read by Steve Coogan as Alan Partridge. It is some of the best comedy that has been produced in any format in the last ten years.