Season 1, Episode 4: Publishing (with guest host Rosie Maggs)

Lucy & Laura are joined by the brilliant Rosie Maggs who helped us delve into world of publishing as a freelance historian

From elevating the way in which historians share their work to the historians themselves taking over the publishing world, we took an  in-depth look at the old friend that is ‘publishing’, when building a portfolio career in history.  

A massive thank you to our wonderful guest Rosie, you can find her on….

Twitter: @historyrosie
Instagram @historywithrosie
TikTok: @historywithrosie

And of course you can also get in touch with the magazine at thehistoriansmagazine.com & at thehistoriansmagazine@gmail.com
Tiktok: @thehistoriansmagazine

To work with her you can contact Rosie at:                                                                                    : historywithrosie@gmail.com

As for us you can find us on:

Twitter: @HistBizAGuide
Instagram: @historybusinessaguide

For Laura:

Twitter: & @laurafitzach
IG:   @seekthehistoric
Tik Tok: @seekthehistoric

For Lucy:

Twitter: @lucyjanesantos_ 
IG: @lucyjanesantos_   
YouTube: @lucyjanesantos_

Until next time!

Transcript

Lucy Jane Santos 

Welcome to History Business, a guide to being a historian for hire, a new podcast taking an honest look at building a freelance or portfolio career in the field of history. I suppose we should introduce ourselves first. 

My name is Lucy Jane Santos and I'm a historical consultant, researcher, writer and presenter specialising in examining the historic crossroads of health, leisure and beauty with science and technology. 

And this week, so this week I've been working on getting a bit more of a healthy work-life balance by seeing friends and doing very little else at all. I haven't even actually read anything recently but I did spend a lot of time on eBay buying the things that will be photographed for the images of my next book which is about uranium.

So I've bought some vodka, well I bought and tested some vodka from Chernobyl and the Simpson's nuclear power plant toy. 

Laura Fitzachary

Both of them are amazing purchases, well done you. And I'm Laura. I'm an art historian and museum educator turned historical consultant, writer, researcher, and presenter specializing in medieval art and museum studies. 

But then I later progressed into 18th century social history, in particular, the history of fashion. 

And this week I have been doing a lot of ruin hunting. So up and down the country, traipsing around after old castles. And I also managed to squeeze in a library day to do some work on beauty in 1920s or the interwar period in Ireland. And recently I've been doing an article on hairdressing in 18th century England and Ireland, and there's an upcoming video on the way. 

Lucy Jane Santos

That sounds absolutely amazing and I cannot wait to read and watch all of these. 

So in this week's episode of History Business, we will be delving into everything from elevating the way in which historians share their work to the historians themselves taking over the publishing world and taking an in-depth look at the old friend that is publishing when building a portfolio career in history. 

So who better to join us than Rosie Maggs. Now, Rosie is a historian who graduated with a degree in film production and then did an MA in European history. She's a digital marketing officer at an independent museum in Surrey, a volunteer, a tour guide, and founded the magazine, The Historian's Magazine, in 2020. 

And if that wasn't enough, she also has a company, Past and Present Media, which has a podcast and various projects lined up. And on top of all that, and this is the bit I really, really am interested in, she has a podcast about the roaring 20s. 

You can find out more about all of these on her website. 

Twitter: @historyrosie

Instagram @historywithrosie

TikTok: @historywithrosie

And of course you can also get in touch with the magazine at thehistoriansmagazine.com & at thehistoriansmagazine@gmail.com

Tiktok: @thehistoriansmagazine

Welcome to the show, Rosie. 

Rosie Maggs

Hi, it's great to be here. 

Lucy Jane Santos 

It's absolutely lovely to have you here as well. We are really looking forward to talking all things publishing. 

Laura Fitzachary

We really are. I mean, I'm quite familiar with The Historians Magazine, actually. I mean, just submit an article on medieval relicry shrines for the medieval online edition, but I have had a very wide spectrum of experience with the field of publishing. Everything from eager publishers to not having a journal want to publish you at all, or, you know, any publishers not being interested, to ending up on the covers of said journals and then getting ideas rejected. It is quite tough out there, but the trick may be to write well and honestly, and remember the fundamentals from university. And I suppose just hope that people like your work. 

Lucy Jane Santos 

I'm really in awe of all the things that you've done, Rosie, and I'm really looking forward to talking about these. I've had one book published and have written a few articles for a few places, but there have always been people that have asked me to write rather than something I've submitted and I really want to write more and more. So I'm really interested in that submission process and what we can do as historians to make our ideas more attractive as articles and also obviously just get them published and get them out there and read.

Your tagline is the magazine run by historians for historians. Can you tell us a little bit about what that means to you and what is the importance of being independent? 

Rosie Maggs

That tagline is basically supporting budding historians who are coming up through their career. In my opinion, a lot of journals, I know they're run by historians and stuff like that, but for me, it's all about the community and about supporting people coming up through their career. I mean, we've had people write for us who are professors at universities, you know, it's not just people starting out, but I think the fact that we are supporting people who might not get the opportunity to potentially publish in a journal or in a BBC history magazine or one of the big well-known publications because they're not big name in history or maybe they just need somewhere to practice. I'm not saying that articles are practice ones but sometimes it just takes writing a little bit to actually get into it and I think already writing loads. I think it's got that in between of we're open to anyone. That's why we went with the run by historians for historians because we're really about helping people in that step in their career, whether they're already the biggest name in history or whether they're the smallest name in history. 

Being independent is, for me, really important because we can do what we want. If you are connected to a publishing house, you would have to follow certain rules and their style. We set the rules ourselves. We do everything so we can do whatever we want. And I think that's really important because we can make those decisions on what goes in, what doesn't go in. 

I couldn't imagine not being independent. If someone wanted to buy the magazine and they'd have to really tell me I could do everything I wanted to still do because for me just having that freedom of... making it the publication we want it to be is just so important. 

Lucy Jane Santos 

It's a great answer.

Laura Fitzachary

 Isn't it?

Lucy Jane Santos  

It's just the whole ethos of this is just really exciting. I couldn't help thinking when you were talking about professors as well and people who are used to writing a lot of stuff. I mean, for some people this is, I would imagine that this is the time that their work gets read the most. I mean, a lot of academic publishing is... you know, it doesn't have a huge reach outside of the, perhaps the small niche. So it's even with, even being a professor writing a lot, it's writing for the public as well, isn't it? It's writing for readers and for other historians rather than just that sort of niche history. 

Rosie Maggs

Yeah, definitely. It's a very public platform in terms of it's not a, like you said, a niche journal where only specific people are reading it. We have people kind of all over the world reading it and people, you know, who don't necessarily have a background in history reading it. And I know for a fact, all of my family are reading it and none of them really like history. So you've got like, you know, people from all walks of society reading your work, which as you said, doesn't necessarily happen all the time. 

Lucy Jane Santos

Unfortunately, yes. 

Laura Fitzachary

It can be a little bit like, oh, okay, you have no idea. I put so many hours into this, but no one's going to see this. I've got to be the light of day. Can I just ask you then Rosie, was there a certain kind of I suppose eureka moment, what was the factor that made you decide that you wanted to set up the magazine and jump and springboard off what Lucy was saying there, what gap in that market, which I think we've already kind of alluded to and may know the answer, where are you responding to?

Rosie Maggs

So the reason that I set up the magazine was because when I was doing my master's degree in European history. They were talking a lot about, you know, where can you get your work published? What can you do next? And I felt like for me, I didn't feel like I could go and submit my work to a journal. Like I didn't have that level of confidence or I didn't have that, you know, some people focusing in on one tiny topic and they're going to become the like master of that topic. I didn't feel like I was that person. I have a wide range of interests and I was like, oh, well, none of these options that people are talking about sound like. anything that I could ever achieve. And I was like, where else can you submit work if you're not going to a journal? I don't have anything that would go to a big, massive magazine. Like I'm not on TV and getting all these deals. And I was like, where else can you really publish your work apart from your own blog? 

And even then that's a struggle to get people to come to your own blog to read stuff, because there's so many blogs out there. 

A magazine seemed like a really nice idea to me because the history community on Instagram was quite big and everyone was very supportive. If I could just kind of connect this community and, you know, set up the magazine, maybe it will work. You know, who knows? 

And I was working, well, I still work in marketing and I have a certain amount of design skills and it was kind of something that I was like playing around with at work. Some brochures and I was like, oh, I could easily change this into a magazine. So from there I was like, why don't I just set it up, see what happens. And it was kind of in the lockdowny time. So it was like, I had a lot more free time on my hands. And so I decided just to put it out on Instagram. 

I think I just put it out on my own History With Rosie Instagram. I didn't like set up a separate account or anything. I just put out submissions and I think I got... honestly, so many people messaging me within the first hour of me putting up the post, I literally had to turn off my Instagram notifications because there was just so many people. 

And at this point when I set it up, I was not very good at being like, oh, I don't like your idea or I don't think that I want to put that in. So I just said yes to everyone who said, I'm going to write and went for it. So I think the first edition has about 50 articles in or something crazy because I was like, I'll just say yes to everyone. But it kind of just stemmed from not having opportunities myself that I thought, why isn't this... I feel like in the market of magazines and publications, there's just not that in-between publication which is a place where anyone could submit to because a lot of them just seem so far out of reach that I just... I thought, why not? If it goes wrong, I can just put the first edition out and never look at it again. But, you know, it didn't go wrong. So it kind of, it has gone on to achieve what I wanted to achieve because for me, quite a lot of our writers have now got book deals or further work from writing within the magazine. 

So for me, like that feels like I've achieved what I wanted to achieve when I set it up. 

Laura Fitzachary

It's just brilliant because I think you've, you've absolutely hit the nail on the head there. It's that in between, is that in between kind of niche and then us trying to promote and get our work out there as much as we can. And I can absolutely hear you when you're saying that you're interested in a broad range of topics, because there's, and I know Lucy, you're quite similar as well. Like, you know, there's me coming from medieval art, working in fashion, like, how do I marry the two? Then I'm like, do I need to marry the two? Can they just be separate entities and be two separate ideas? There was a huge niche for it that maybe might not have been thought of or tried to, but I think you need someone like yourself who is more market minded. And I think that's going to bring board off a question that we have for you later in that, do you think your background in film production and the fact that you worked in marketing has really helped that, that maybe somebody who was, who's an historian and hasn't gone into that field before may not have been able to achieve that creative magazine like it? 

Rosie Maggs

Yeah, I definitely think that my background, so my first degree was in film production and when I graduated in 2019, I basically went straight into a marketing job. And I've been working in marketing pretty much since kind of mid 2019. I still work in marketing. And I think for me, I can kind of like see the difference between people that maybe are coming from a more academic background. 

You, I feel like with the academic, you know, the experience I've had with kind of doing my master's and stuff. It's a very different ideology to kind of me coming with lots of different ideas and skills and meeting different people. 

When I did my masters, I did it at Birkbeck, which is kind of the evening university. So pretty much everyone on my course was not necessarily a history graduate or they were people that have returned back to studying. So it was actually a really good atmosphere to be around because it wasn't, I thought going into a history degree, I was going to be like, oh my gosh, I'm not clever enough. I haven't studied history since school. And I was quite worried about it. 

But actually doing the masters at Birkbeck and having people around me who were either returning to study or hadn't studied history before also helped with kind of developing skills because people look at things in different ways. So it's really interesting. when I was chatting with people on my course and stuff, just looking at different ways to approach how to write an essay.

So I think for me, I can really see that my background has just helped me get things off the ground. Most people wouldn't be able to just go and create a magazine on InDesign because you wouldn't know how to use InDesign. And luckily I was trained on that at work, so it kind of crossed over and helped me. 

And I think even with stuff like my film degree, just knowing how certain, you know, having a few media contacts has come in handy, having people kind of in different industries. Whereas I think sometimes people think they need to go through the academia route and, you know, become a professor to actually do anything in history. 

But actually, I really don't think that's the case. If you kind of look at everyone who I ever speak to -all have different backgrounds in history. And I think every route in has its kind of positives, like, for example, Jackson, who's in my team, he's gone through quite an academic background in terms of he's done a degree, he did his teaching degree, he's doing a master's, and he'll probably go on to do a PhD. And he looks at things very differently to how I look at things. 

But you need that to kind of center you back to the history standing ground of like, actually, this is what someone who's a uni student would want to see within the magazine, this is what you should put in. 

Whereas I might look at it from a, oh, well, is this not a bit boring? Because it's quite academic. Whereas he'll say, well, no, actually, that's what people want to see. We need to put this in because it's gonna, you know, in the world of medieval art, this is gonna really ripple circles. 

And I think that's the really interesting thing is working with other people with different backgrounds has also helped me because it's just interesting how everyone has different viewpoints. And I think I bought it all together with the kind of having the design skills, but actually without the team I've kind of bought in, I don't think it'll be anywhere near as good. 

Lucy Jane Santos

It would also be really interesting to hear for those who haven't come across your magazine before a little bit about what it actually is and what it actually contains. And so those editions are broken up into time periods. So we're really good to hear about the things that you like to publish within those different time periods. What things do you like to cover? And do you have sort of even a formula for each magazine? 

Rosie Maggs

It does vary from magazine to magazine. So some of our themes are split into time periods and it's very obvious that, you know, the Tudors, it's going to be about the Tudors and... other times we've kind of done it a bit more open ended in terms of I think we did one, like we've done like a Black History Month which obviously is a bit more wider scope in terms of time periods. 

And we've done, I think one of the really early ones was key events in history, so that was like a really wide scope. But I think the way we kind of look at it is what is the core parts of the topic. So like, for example, the ancient edition that we've just published, like we knew we wanted to have Romans, we knew that we wanted to have some ancient Egypt in there, we knew we needed some ancient Greeks. 

So we kind of map out in terms of like, these are the very core topics that need to be seen. So whether that's like a certain person we want an article on or certain eras within that time period. And then we kind of go from there. 

We've kind of seen like, everyone goes really niche with their submissions. So people will not be submitting stuff like, oh, why were the Romans good? We'd never get anything submitted like that. People like to go for the areas that they're obviously interested in or studying or... have studied. So it'll be stuff like, why was Alexander the great, a good ruler, it wouldn't be as generic as why was that time period a good time period. 

So it's really interesting to see kind of how niche people do get with the topics, because I sometimes read the submissions and I think I have never heard of that in my life. And most people do put an explanation with it and you can and you get the idea of what it's about. But there's been a few times where we've got some submissions and I'd be like, I'm definitely going to have to Google this because there is not enough info and I have no clue what you're talking about because I'm not an expert in most things. 

So recently our medieval edition, Chris, who's one of the other editors of the magazine, he is like obsessed with medieval. So that was actually a really easy one to... pick topics or because he went, Oh, I've heard of that. I've heard of that. That's great. Oh, like, no, I haven't heard of that. We need to do some more research. Sometimes we get lucky and someone in the team is like an expert in the field. And that's great. But other times, yeah, we just get some really, really interesting. But when you start researching, you're like, Oh, my God, how have I never heard of this? This is incredible. And it does make you think, Oh, I just don't know enough about history. But it's yeah, it's so we kind of split it into these different topic areas, I guess, just to theme each edition. And we've done we've done quite a lot of editions. I was realized like, I think we're on edition 13 now, which is crazy. 

But we've done Black History Month and LGBTQ History Month as well as themes. 

So we - yeah, we basically either try and theme it around the month. So we did like a Halloween style edition as well, or we just pick the topic.

 I mean, so far our most popular have been the Tudors and medieval. So that is obviously what everyone loves. 

Lucy Jane Santos

Yeah, I think that's often the case, isn't it? They are very, very popular topics. 

Laura Fitzachary

Well, I'm obviously guilty that myself after sending you in one. So I'll be reading. Hopefully it's not too niche, but I think it might be actually. So it probably brings us on then to our next question, which is, and I think you might have answered some of the first two, but we know that we, because I've gone through the submission process for you in terms of creating the article and sending it in, and you will release on the Instagram or on the website that you're looking for new submissions. Do you seek out any particular topics or experts or do you just wait for the submissions to come in?

Rosie Maggs 

It's a mix of both. So sometimes we will approach people that we know are interested in the topic or like experts on the topic. So, um, in the ancient edition, we had Tristan Hughes from the ancient podcast. 

Right for us, we approached him because we have listened to the ancient's podcast and we're like that he knows his stuff. So, um, that was like an approach one, but we have had lots of people and experts of different topics submit to us. So it is really a heavy mix. And we try and make sure that it is a mix because for me, the whole point of the magazine is that we are giving historians opportunities. 

If we went out and sourced every single historian based on either people that we're friends with or people that we see on like History Hit or the BBC then I feel that wouldn’t be meeting the aims that I set out with for the magazine. So for me, having the submission process where you submit your article and we look through them is just as important as us going to someone because we think they would have a good article for us. 

So we definitely try and keep it balanced. And we have a few kind of staff writers that we have on the team now who write for every edition. because previously we found that, I can't even remember what edition it was, but we got let down by a lot of writers and that really impacts the kind of content within the magazine because people say, yeah, we're gonna write this. And then you never hear back from them ever again and they fall off the face of the earth. 

So then you start panicking because you're like, there's not enough to go in. So we have implemented the staff writers within the team so that we know that we've always got, I think there's six of them. So like we know. we've always got these six articles. And then, yeah, a mix, mostly the rest of the content does come through the submission process. 

And there's four of us that normally pick the articles. So we look through the submission. So it comes to a form and we look through it. And in terms of what we're looking for, when someone submits something, we just wanna see an overview of the topic. So like actually tell us what it's about because a lot of people will just put two lines to submit their idea. 

And I'm like, I'm not, I don't, I'm not an expert on history. I know what I know about history, but if you put a two line submission, I'm, it's not going to tell me enough about what your article is about. 

So just making sure that you actually write enough for, let's just call us idiots. to actually understand what your idea is and actually be able to say yes, that sounds great, we're gonna commission it because otherwise it's just not enough info. 

Which is unfortunate because we like saying yes to people, we don't like rejecting people. It's unfortunate, sometimes it does have to happen because we get so many submissions that we can't say yes to everyone which always disappoints me because I just... love being able to publish everyone's work, but it's just not always the case.

But yeah, I would urge anyone like listening if you think, if you have an idea, why not submit it? Because we do love reading through the ideas and we appreciate every single submission that comes in. Even if we have to say no, it's not necessarily because we don't like your idea. It is potentially because we had hundreds of submissions and we can't... do 100 articles. 

Laura Fitzachary 

And of course, for our listeners, we'll be putting all the information about how you can get in touch with both Rosie and the Historians Magazine at the end. And we will list all of that information of how you can get in touch with the Historians Magazine on all of our outputs, all of our socials. 

Lucy Jane Santos

I did have a supplementary question, which was around, now you said that obviously you have a submission process and people can approach you on the theme or the type of the magazine, but you've also said that you sometimes approach other historians when you know that they are writing and researching in that area. Is there anything you can talk about how to make yourself more visible as a historian that you might be able to get, well someone be able to catch your attention so you can see what they're up to and what they're researching? 

Rosie Maggs

That is a very good question and I think there's a number of ways. One way that I've seen people, you know, Instagram or whatever, is by maybe them reaching out to me at some point for a conversation, because a lot of people that I've taken notice of have either shared something of mine or liked something of mine and then I've just gone, oh, that looks interesting. And then in the kind of future, I've gone, oh, actually, I remember that person, you know, who shared my post or something or shared the Historian's magazine post. And I'm sure that they were a ancient historian, oh, let's reach out to them because I remember that they were interested. 

So sometimes it's just as simple as like interacting with content. I mean, I'm sure at kind of maybe a bigger publication, they aren't sitting on Instagram all the time and they might not notice it as much. 

But I'd say just posting and interacting with the topic on your own socials or blog wherever you are comfortable in kind of talking about the thing that you're interested in because I always take notice of if people have a blog or they have an Instagram page that's dedicated to the topic or to what they're doing. 

I think you're automatically more out there than someone who never ever post something or says, oh, I love ancient history, but actually you're not going to be standing out if you never post anything about it or you never -even if you made a few TikTok videos about it, I think automatically you're going to be more stand out than, you know, someone who just sits back and, you know, likes the content that people are making about ancient history. 

And not like all the time, but sometimes if someone does mention in the, if they submit an article, like, oh, their Instagram name or something, we will have a look. Why not? See what you're posting about. And that can really help with. us thinking, okay, yeah, that actually like you do know what you're talking about because you've got this blog. 

The amount of times people have put a blog link within the submission and you think, oh, that's brilliant. Like that's exactly what we want. It's amazing how something that probably, I mean, I know it takes time to do an Instagram or to do a blog, but it's something that you're going to enjoy doing. 

So something that you do as a hobby can actually really make you stand out -because we do get loads of submissions from historians that don't have any social media presence. And then when it comes to us promoting your article, which we try and do for people that kind of respond with a photo or video about their article, which we have not asked for medieval stuff. 

So anyone who was listening and thought, well, I or Laura, if you thought I haven't been asked for a photo or video, that's because I'm unorganized this week, but we ask people for photos and videos to go on TikTok. 

And even just that process of being able to tag you in that post, I think makes a huge difference because then it sticks in our mind because if we think, oh, we remember like someone wrote for Medieval, but actually they told us that they were more into film. 

And then we go, oh, we tagged them in something. We can go back and find you. Whereas someone social trail, you kind of have to trail back through the emails to find them and they might not be as obvious in your mind. 

So for me, it is about kind of having that presence that I can then stalk you on and find out more about what you're into. 

Laura Fitzachary

Yeah, we've actually got a whole episode dedicated to online presence. And it was a really, really interesting one recording that because the importance of it just is I think paramount in the life of a freelance historian, which we will be touching on freelance historians a little bit later. 

Lucy Jane Santos

I was just gonna say, you know, the one thing that I was thinking about when you talk about the importance of having an online presence and interacting, I mean, it is showing genuine interest, isn't it? And it's making your life easier as well, or the publisher, the independent publisher's life easier if the submissioner... can provide something to sort of back up their claims of knowledge, but also interest as well. 

And I think a lot of the conversations we've been having about being a freelance historian, so much around it is about showing a genuine interest and just a genuine love of their topic. This sort of keeps coming up again and again and again.

 So the next question we're gonna go into, have we found expanding into historian magazine TV has been helpful promoting the work within each edition?

Rosie Maggs

 Yeah, so the Historians Magazine TV is a very new venture. And we're hoping to get more videos as we go along. We've got a couple for medieval, I think. But basically, the idea is that we would have videos related to the topics, whether that comes from the writers who are actually writing within the edition or people specifically submitting to do video content. 

So hopefully it will really complement what's going inside the magazine so that people who do, you know, if the articles aren't enough, then you have something else that you can then watch and interact with. Because I know like, once you kind of get into a topic, you think, oh, where else can I see more? So having that kind of YouTube element, I think will definitely be useful for people who become interested in the topic through reading the articles. As well as that, with YouTube stuff, we've launched a kids magazine recently and we're putting loads of YouTube videos up on the little historians magazine TV as well. 

So if you find that you don't want to watch all the... adult history content and maybe your kids are interested in history, there's also that angle to look down as well because I think it's just such a complementary thing to go alongside both publications because it just helps, you know, once you've read the articles or the content, you might be looking for something else. So why not look at our content? 

Laura Fitzachary 

And I suppose that kind of goes on then to Not necessarily straight into what the next question is, but just in terms that I've been able to find that balance because you just said it was a new venture. 

So there's a lot of things happening and it seems to be growing legs, which is always exciting and great to hear. 

So my question then is where does History with Rosie, which is where it all started out and the magazine and subsequently the Historians Magazine TV begin? 

Rosie Maggs

I mean, at the moment, History of Rosie is on the slightly back foot of, in the background, supporting the magazine at the moment. I know in the intro, you mentioned that I have my roaring 20s podcast, which I'm very much hoping to bring back kind of this summer, because for me, I love the 1920s as a topic. 

And it's something that I always want to talk more it's just one of the areas. I think for my dissertation, I did something on just before the 1920s because I couldn't get the records that I wanted for the 20s because it was COVID and lockdown. 

So I went for just before the 20s. I think I finished my research topic in like 1919 because that was the last records I could get. But yeah, so for kind of History of Rosie and the magazine is almost, it's basically one at the moment because I just I'm concentrating on getting the magazine where I want it to be at the moment because we've got kind of with the kids stuff launching and a podcast and the Historians Magazine TV. There's just a lot going on. And obviously that takes up a lot of my time because yeah, I mean, I might be making it sound too easy, but it's not easy to go and set up a magazine. It does take a considerable amount of time. 

But yeah, History With Rosie is something that I am still passionate about and I do want to explore the interests that I have. But I want it to be fun. Like for me, the kind of like I was saying about having an online presence, I think if I started posting again now or doing my podcast, I would feel like it was quite forced. Like I was pushing myself to get it out there just for the sake of having something to showcase. Whereas actually for me, I want it to be enjoyable because I like the topic and I want to spend time on the topic, not just go, oh, I'm going to throw 10 posts out because I feel like I haven't posted in ages because I do keep feeling like I really need to get on top of it because no one's going to ever see what I'm doing. 

But actually, the Historians Magazine is showcasing all of my hard work, so it's fine. 

Laura Fitzachary

Oh, it absolutely is. And speaking of the 1920s, you were speaking Lucy's language there. That is. 

Lucy Jane Santos

Love the 20s and 30s over here. Huge, huge fan. I mean, we've covered a little bit about it already and when we started talking about how does History With Rosie end and the Historian Magazine begin, but really, I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts about how this could fit in or how this fits in your life as a freelance historian and if you even would really consider yourself to be a freelance historian?

Rosie Maggs

 I don't know if I... I guess in a way I am a freelance historian in terms of I do lots of projects that aren't my job. So I guess in that regards, I guess this would be a freelance historian's project. But because I have a full time job, I often kind of, if anyone asked me to kind of introduce myself or whatever, or what do you do for work, my first thing would be well, I work in digital marketing. run a history magazine or I do projects on the side, that only comes if people ask me a bit more about my interests because I put that in my hobbies side of my, if I was talking about my career, even though it's not really a hobby, it is quite serious. 

But I think because I do have a job, I often don't think, oh, I'm not a historian or whatever. But actually, I... pretty much I'm a freelance historian and I kind of started using the term public historian because I saw people like Greg Jenner using it and I was like, that kind of describes how I am. I'm not someone who's putting out loads of academic work. I'm very much doing stuff for like historical enjoyment and more on the side of creating and like producing stuff rather than writing. 

I haven't written in the magazine for... a long time. 

Lucy Jane Santos

I think it's interesting because I have a full-time day job. It's within the historical and the visitor attractions industry. There was a point where I thought I am a historian as well. I do lots of historical projects and I found that a really fascinating idea. And we will talk a little bit about day jobs and freelance stuff in a minute or two. 

But I do think it's... that decision that you suddenly have to say, I'm a public historian or I'm a historian or I'm a freelance historian or I'm doing this. It's quite personal to everyone, but I think having that day job, even if it is as yours in the museum, is still to do with history. It's a funny place to try and work out where you actually are situated, isn't it? 

Rosie Maggs

Yeah, and I think also for me, because I work in digital marketing, I, when I'm at work and other people work in collections or they work in, you know, the more history side. I mean, for me, I do a lot of history stuff at work because I'm content creating about Brooklands and about the history of Brooklands. And I know loads about the site and lots of historical stuff. But if so, like if someone at work says, oh, like Rosie's a bit of a historian. 

I kind of feel a bit like, oh, I don't know if I should say that because I don't work in collections and I don't feel like I'm a historian and people who kind of work in other areas go, oh, I really like kind of shocked that I would be, you know, classed as a historian because I don't work on that collection side. 

So it's a really kind of strange because I'm not in the collections or anything like that. I often feel like, oh, if I say historian, are people going to judge me? And I’ve been on other podcasts for work and they've gone, oh, can I introduce you as a historian? I've thought, well, technically I'm not the historian for work. So is that going to be judged by the person who is doing the history collections management at work? Because they see me as digital marketing, which although digital marketing in a raw form, if I was just marketing. But for me, I'm creating scripts and researching and doing a lot of history stuff. 

It's just that weird kind of in between where you aren't in the history role at work. So you're like, can I call myself that? 

Lucy Jane Santos

Yeah, I do think it's a difficult one. And it would be easier if you could put on the historian hat when you're feeling that you are being a proper historian. I've never found a historian hat. One day I shall put it on myself. 

Laura Fitzachary 

Yeah, it's a hard one. It's like, what is the definition of it necessarily that, uh, that make the, I mean, I call myself an historian because I would research what nearly daily. And but then is that what, is that what equates to being a historian or is it that you're educating the public? And that is, so, you know, I think the definition of a story, if it even needs to be defined, it's kind of what's hindering us putting a label on, on the actual job itself, on the role itself. 

But, um, whatever you're doing, whether you're are historian or not is so fantastic for historians and you should be proud of it. Whether a digital marketing officer or a historian, I think you can both or whatever you want to call yourself because what it is, is great. 

And providing that, as you said, that source for historians is phenomenal. 

And especially in the world of publishing where we've and I think I mentioned it in my little bit at the start, which has been an interesting, the publishing world in talk to some people not in with others and chatting away. I think I'm not sure actually if this question had made it in the end, Lucy, but I did just want to just kind of ask your opinion on this idea of publish or perish, the fact that historians must continuously create work and have it published in order to stay relevant. Do you think that maybe something like the Historians Magazine offers a much more, I suppose, diplomatic way of looking at it, instead of putting you into a box and making you more niche or having you associate with a certain university or institution, for example. 

Rosie Maggs

Yeah, I think for, yeah, we're quite open to ideas and, yeah, getting stuff out there. And I think for someone who maybe is feeling like, oh my God, I've never had anything published and I want to publish it, but I don't know what I want to publish it about, but I really love 1920s fashion, then I think we are the perfect place to go to with that idea.

I think, for example, like you said, like a university publication or like a journal, unless you are specifically find a journal on that exact topic, and journals can take years to get your work into. It's not just a... send your article in and then a month later it gets published, we have the kind of, we have quite short turnaround time. 

So when you send your article in, I think it's about two months till it gets published, like probably less than that at the moment. So very much if you're kind of panicking or you're like, oh my God, I really want this to go out. I think we are that great place you can go to because you know that it's not going to get submitted for peer review, it's not going to go on for two years waiting for something to get published when actually you really want to, maybe you want to write about 1920s shoes because you have a book idea for 1920s fashion. 

Well, submit the article to us about the shoes and then potentially that could then be used to showcase to someone, this is my book idea, this is what I've already written and it's been published. 

We have and I can't even remember what it's called, but we have that number. 

So when you kind of go to a publishing house maybe or whoever you were then looking to for next, you can say this is the publication number and they can look it up. And so I think it's a great place just to go to, you know, if you have an idea, why not submit it? If what's the worst that can happen? 

Laura Fitzachary

Exactly. Wise words. As we move into the final part of the podcast episode today, this section we refer to as the business clinic, Rosie. 

And today, obviously we'll be pulling from our mailbag questions on publishing. 

So we get a few questions sent in to us when we talk about the topic or when we mention it, that we're going to be talking about it. And so we receive a couple of questions on that. 

And so we do have a few from people who've either heard or sent in questions to the show. 

So our first question for you is, as a historian, I've, oh, this is actually quite on the nose, I've heard throughout my career, publish or perish. I just mentioned that, it's funny. Do you find that us academics are being a bit more picky about the audience that reads our work?

Rosie Maggs

 I think yes. I mean, I think people have an ideology like they need to submit, they need their work to be published in a certain place for it to mean something. I don't think that is the case. I think for me, anywhere that you can be published is surely a great place, even if it's not your dream. I mean, I've been guilty of it before. I've thought, why would I want to write something for this? But actually, why not? You're not going to lose anything by having something published. if it backfires on you later, you can always take it off your CV. You don't have to be honest about everything that you've written. 

Lucy Jane Santos

Again, very wise words, isn't it? I know personally that I've published in some, online especially, I've been asked to write some blog posts and some things for places I wouldn't have ever considered to be my audience, perhaps. Not that I wouldn't consider writing for them, but I didn't think that these would be the people that would want to hear from me. And it's remarkable, the connections that you make and the people that you could, I hope you can start bringing in, so you talk about one topic and they start reading your stuff and then you sort of hopefully can draw them into your little, or my weird world of what I like to research in history. And so I've always said yes to... to even the strangest blog posts, just because I found it so fascinating that journey of readership and that sort of public history as well, isn't it? 

Yeah, I think that was a great question actually, about being picky about the audience that reads their work. 

And the second question we had in our mailbag of questions, now this is definitely something that I've been thinking about a lot recently and reading a lot about recently. 

And the question is about how are artificial intelligence chatbots like CHATGPT affecting the publishing industry right now? And is there a way of engaging with this in a positive way to help my history writing or is it best left alone? 

Rosie Maggs

So, As someone who works in marketing, I have been dabbling with ChatGPT. And I think it is a, it can be a positive tool. I think, I don't think that if you said to ChatGPT, can you write me an article that it's actually going to sound like a human writing it. I think there's, you know, I think obviously they know all the info because they can, uh, you know, crazy technology. 

But I actually think for one, with articles, having that personal kind of way of writing is so important because everyone writes differently. I think if you start going to ChatGPT to start writing your articles for you, I think it's going to be really noticeable because you're going to lose that tone of voice and what makes you unique as a writer. So I would say never get ChatGPT to write an article for you. And I don't think it's going to become something that oh, humans aren't going to start writing articles anymore because the chat box can do it better. 

But I do think so for me, I've actually asked ChatGPT like some ideas for blog posts about 1920s Britain, and it's come back with some great, great articles that I then go, oh, that's interesting. I might research that idea. So I think it can be a useful tool. to kind of support what you're doing, because I've even asked it like how to market, you know, a medieval edition of a history magazine. 

And although I already thought of all of these ideas, it's nice to see if something else comes back because then you know if you're going in the right ballpark, if you're, you know, completely over promoting what you're doing or whether you're actually, you know, you've found a really important subject in. ChatGPT tells you that you should be reaching out to, I don't know, I can't think of a topic that's super niche. 

But I think it's a useful support tool, but I don't think you should be worried that robots are suddenly going to take over and take all your publishing spots. And I also don't think that you should use ChatGPT to write an article or an essay because you completely lose your personality if you do that. Because I think for me... personality in writing is so important. 

Lucy Jane Santos

Absolutely agree. I mean, I personally have been quite interested in it and I was dodging writing, what I was meant to be writing the other week. So I asked it to analyse my style of writing and I gave it a bit of something I'd written recently and it came back with some nice compliments. That was great.

But then I did ask it to, because I'd seen people talk on Twitter about, you know, that you can sort of train it to mimic your style of writing. So, I gave it a sample of mine and then gave some notes and asked it to try and recreate my style of writing. It was not a very good success, but it was interesting to see the process and it is so lovely just to see a bunch of notes being turned into something- into like three paragraphs of text. But then actually when you sit down and actually read it, it's not the same as is it? It's not a substitute. Unfortunately, I'd love it if it was because I'm exhausted with writing it. But it just isn't quite as good. And like I said, it does lose that personality as well, doesn't it? 

Laura Fitzachary

It definitely does. I feel your pain as well from all the writing out. I have to keep wearing those blue-like glasses as I'm just staring at screens all day, which is great. 

Whether it is introducing a new topic to the world or utilizing other mediums to bolster your work, it seems that publishing will forever have a place in the role of a historian. But that doesn't mean we can't challenge how it's done. 

Before we let you go, Rosie, we ask our guests, if you could choose a dream remote office, where and when would it be? 

Rosie Maggs

Well, that's a very good question. I mean, if I was going back in time, I would definitely say going back to the 1920s or like 1930s. I think Britain, and I think, you know, if it was kind of in the similar realm of the magazine, then I would definitely say like, I love reading 1920s tabloids and gossip stuff. And I feel like I'd just be in my element there, just writing horrible things about it. Not horrible things. I wouldn't write horrible things, but I love the gossip and I love how different it is to what I would ever think would be publishable. 

So I think if I was going to go back and I would have my office in one of these 1920s tabloids and just see how I fit it in. 

Lucy Jane Santos

I love the responses to this question because they are always so varied and so fascinating. Thank you so much for that one. 

Laura Fitzachary

I'm just imagining you all glam and like kind of film noir kind of setting with like a typewriter, love and life, it just sounds great. But yeah to echo Lucy, they've all been brilliant and they've all been so different as well, which is great. 

So thank you so very much to our wonderful guest Rosie. 

You can find her on Twitter at HistoryRosie. On Instagram at historywithrosie, on TikTok at historywithrosie, and you can find out all things, the historians magazine at the historiansmagazine.com. On Twitter at historiansmag, on Instagram and Facebook at the historians magazine. And on YouTube, the historians magazine TV. And for us then you can find us at histbiz a guide on Twitter. For myself, Laura, you can find me on Twitter at Laura Facac. On Instagram at SeekTheHistoric and on TikTok at SeekTheHistoric. And for Lucy, you can find her on Twitter at LucyJaneSantos underscore. On Instagram at LucyJaneSantos underscore and on YouTube, you guessed it, at LucyJaneSantos underscore. 

Twitter: @historyrosie

Instagram @historywithrosie

TikTok: @historywithrosie

And of course you can also get in touch with the magazine at thehistoriansmagazine.com & at thehistoriansmagazine@gmail.com

Tiktok: @thehistoriansmagazine

To work with her you can contact Rosie at:                                                                                    : historywithrosie@gmail.com

As for us you can find us on:

Twitter: @HistBizAGuide

Instagram: @historybusinessaguide

For Laura:

Twitter: & @laurafitzach

IG:   @seekthehistoric

Tik Tok: @seekthehistoric

For Lucy:

Twitter: @lucyjanesantos_ 

IG: @lucyjanesantos_   

YouTube: @lucyjanesantos_

Thank you so much again, Rosie, for joining us. It was a fantastic episode. You were absolutely brilliant. 

And join us again for History Business, a podcast to of course help any freelance historians get by in this new and wonderful world of historical consultancy. Thanks for watching!