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Sophia Egan-Reid, Mary Egan Publishing

By August 23, 2018No Comments

 

Pictured left to right Sophia Egan-Reid, Hayley King, Malcolm Clarke, Evelyn Tobin

L-R: Sophia Egan-Reid, Hayley King, Malcolm Clarke, Evelyn Tobin

Name: Sophia Egan-Reid
Role: Publisher
Company: Mary Egan Publishing

My first job in publishing was: Cleaning the office of my parents’ publishing services business at 15 years old. Since then I have been an office manager, accounts person, marketing assistant, project manager and publisher as the publishing companies evolved.

I’m currently reading: Baby by Annaleese Jochems (It’s so intense!)

My biggest career highlight in publishing was: That’s like asking a mother to choose which child is her favourite! But if I had to choose . . .  It would be working with author Malcolm Clarke, artist Hayley King (a.k.a. Flox) and my sister Anna, in publishing Tu Meke Tūī!.

I met Malcolm by chance in a bar and he was talking about a children’s book he’d written that was going to be illustrated by Flox, all he needed was a publisher, it was meant to be! I had been a huge fan of Flox’s work since I was a teen, and as any New Zealander, adore our beautiful flora and fauna. The whole project was like a dream come true. Tu Meke Tūī! has since gone on to sell 13,000 copies and we have published it in hardback, paperback, and in Te Reo. We were ecstatic to win the Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for the best book in te reo Māori at the 2018 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Tu Meke Tūī! was also the catalyst for my sister Anna and I to start our own imprint, Little Love, which is all about publishing beautiful children’s books, written and/or illustrated by New Zealand artists.