Judy Piatkus – A page turner

What does a woman who spent 28 years climbing to the top of the publishing industry do when she retires?  Well, conquer something else of course. 

Judy Piatkus, renowned for setting up Piatkus Books at age 28, and growing it from her bedroom to become one of the UK's top independent publishers, turning over £10m, thought she'd be taking walks, reading books, and just generally kicking back when she sold up in 2007.  Turns out, she hasn't quite got round to that yet.

Instead, Piatkus is busy going to seminars, building a career as a professional public speaker and writing reports for the internet, advising people how to become published authors of non-fiction books (her fiction report is on the way).  "I thought I would miss publishing, but it's fine, I'm loving it!" she giggles.  

Her plan was to take some time off last year after selling, to recuperate after the previous five particularly demanding years in her business, when she was publishing up to 200 books a year, and it was ‘just impossible to do anything other than really focus on the company'. 

Her days would start at 6.30am, be a blur of back-to-back meetings with authors and agents, followed by receptions and book launches in the evenings.  Then her weekends were spent reading stacks of books, many of which, by her own admission, were not suitable for publication. 

"There's no doubt that the Blackberry has led to an unfortunate addiction, which means that we stop actually enjoying the moment."

And always with the same quest, to pick up on trends and identify what people would want to read in 18 months' time - which she did in the 90s when her company began publishing mind, body and spirit books, and in the noughties when she identified the popularity surge in ‘Misery Memoirs', people's personal stories of hardship.

"I loved being a publisher," she says wistfully.  "It was wonderful, fabulous, I loved reading all the books people would send me, the new voices.  But by the time I sold, I was ready for something else because I'd been doing it relentlessly for a really long time and it was a lot of responsibility."

So it's been a surprise how quickly time has flown by since retiring from the industry - something she puts down to technology speeding up the pace of life, with constant email and texting.

"It's very exciting in some ways.  Take Facebook - it means you can keep in touch with friends without working too hard, you haven't got to ring or email them all the time.  But there's no doubt that the Blackberry has led to an unfortunate addiction, which means that we stop actually enjoying the moment and really have to work hard at saying ‘I'm going to switch everything off now and sit here quietly'."

Sitting quietly every now and then has been one of the pleasures of no longer running her own business, she says.  It's also given her a chance to pursue her own personal development again, rekindling a passion she discovered years ago. 

In the late nineties, Piatkus volunteered as a counsellor on a helpline before qualifying as a psychodynamic psychotherapist (therapy focused on childhood experiences and the unconscious) and worked in a doctor's surgery seeing patients, until her business became all consuming five years ago. 

Overall though, she's surprised how much life has remained the same.  "I find myself drawn to the same things; new ideas and society, interesting thoughts about business, mind, body and spirit books, philosophical, thought-provoking books." 

Her work ethic is also unchanged, now carving out her career as a public speaker with the same dedication she once bestowed on books.  It's a profession in which she already has solid foundations, having spent a large amount of time presenting books to the publishing industry at sales conferences, introducing authors at launch parties or giving impromptu speeches. 

"So many people are unhappy and suffering from depressions and addictions and stress that we're clearly not going in the right direction."

Now, she speaks on a range of topics - spirituality, the publishing world, her 28 years as an entrepreneur, which includes on how she found men and women to operate differently. 

"Men decide they want to be an entrepreneur and look to work on something that will be a success.  So they're passionate about growing their business but not always passionate about the actual business itself, hence more detached and able to buy and sell more quickly.

"Women," she points out, "usually have something they're passionate about which motivates them to start their own companies.  They care more about what they're doing, so it's sometimes harder for them to let go."

That's not why she kept Piatkus Books for so long though, she insists.  It was a combination of working in a friendly industry, doing something that was ever-changing, and having a platform to present new ideas to the public.

It was why, when she decided to grow the company in its latter years, it was only the element of risk that initially held her back.  "I knew that if we grew, I wouldn't be doing anything particularly different, there would just be more books and more risk, because publishing is very high risk.  So I needed to feel comfortable with the amount of it I was managing every day."  

Risks continue to plague the publishing industry today, particularly with people reading more online and from their Blackberrys or handsets.  Piatkus still enjoys predicting a trend, but the future of the publishing industry is a tough one to call.

Instead, the trend she's more concerned about is the one emerging in day-to-day life.  "We have so much that is wonderful in our society but so many people are unhappy and suffering from depression, addictions and stress that we're clearly not going in the right direction.  I think we're in for some really interesting times, perhaps returning to thinking about our values in a different way over the next few years and, as a result, becoming a lot happier."

Unsurprisingly, Piatkus is ahead of us on that, having stepped away from her demanding career to achieve more lifestyle balance.  She feels it's worked so far, saying: "I feel in a good place, everything I'm doing at the moment feels right."  But can this highly driven entrepreneur fight the temptation to embrace an all-consuming public speaking career when it undoubtedly takes off?  Only time will tell.

Find out more about Judy Piatkus by clicking onto www.judypiatkus.com

By Barbara Walshe