{"id":24356,"date":"2025-09-03T11:45:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/?p=24356"},"modified":"2025-09-03T11:48:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T10:48:47","slug":"queens-graduate-revives-belfast-publishing-service-after-cathedral-quarter-blaze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/2025\/09\/queens-graduate-revives-belfast-publishing-service-after-cathedral-quarter-blaze\/","title":{"rendered":"Queen\u2019s Graduate Revives Belfast Publishing Service After Cathedral Quarter Blaze"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Almost three years after the business was devastated in a fire at Cathedral Buildings Belfast media and marketing company Excalibur Press has revealed they\u2019ve brought back their publishing department thanks to a Queen\u2019s graduate.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the blaze in their Donegall Street premises, caused by arsonist Patrick Gough who was jailed for the devastation, the company were forced to retire their small publishing department that had brought to life the work of 23 authors across Northern Ireland since its inception in 2015.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thousands of pounds worth of stock was lost in the fire and the company struggled to revive the ailing department.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chief vision officer and founder of Excalibur Press, Tina Calder, explained: \u201cThe fire at Cathedral Buildings in Donegall Street completely decimated our business and over the last three years my staff and I have had to make some really tough decisions such as retiring our publishing department in order to save the main business.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Queen\u2019s graduate Niamh Cooper asked if she could do a funded internship with us last year we jumped at the chance to start supporting young people again at the business.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt became clear very quickly that Niamh had a natural aptitude for editing and publishing and so we agreed to publish Patience Bradley\u2019s book Princess Mary\u2019s Long Journey Home, a children\u2019s book Patience had hand written in a notebook.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNiamh\u2019s dedication to supporting Patience, who is dyslexic, and helping her bring the book to life showed me that there might be life in the publishing department yet, albeit a slightly different offering from before.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlongside Niamh we started accepting the enquiries and created a new series of packages that are more than just publishing someone\u2019s book for them. Instead, now we support authors through the entire journey with everything from ghost writing, line editing, copy editing and setting up their Amazon accounts, to helping them create a PR plan to support the launch of their book.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m delighted Niamh has brought this department back to life and look forward to seeing how she develops it over time.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Niamh’s arrival at Excalibur Press she has gone on to secure ongoing publishing work for the business alongside client relationship manager Carole King.<\/span><\/p>\n

Niamh said: \u201c<\/span>As a recent 2025 graduate, it has been such a privilege to be able to work alongside wonderful authors in order to bring their books to life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very excited to continue building my skills and experience, whilst working alongside a wonderful team to grow the publishing department.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In the last few months Niamh has overseen the publishing of 3 books: Holywood author Patience Bradley (Princess Mary\u2019s Journey to Find True Love), County Devon writer Mike Menhennitt (Mount Radford School) and Ballymena journalist Jonathan Traynor (Race The Undead).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Niamh is currently working with a portfolio of authors where she is supporting them with editing and publishing their own material and has opened the Excalibur Press diary for enquiries from new authors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Author Patience Bradley said: “I’m delighted to be working with Excalibur Press again after they supported me with the release of my books Where Do You Go To My Lovely in 2017 and The Housework Workout in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWorking with Niamh on Princess Mary\u2019s Long Journey Home was an absolute pleasure. She had her work cut out for her deciphering my notebook but she did an excellent job.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot just that, when we hit a bump in the road when I was struggling to figure out how to illustrate the book in the way in which I wanted Niamh supported me to use AI to help me create exactly what I wanted in a way that worked for me and the book.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cExcalibur Press also looked after my book launch, PR and setting up my Amazon account so that I have full oversight of all my own sales.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m already thinking about my next book and can\u2019t wait to work with Niamh and the team again.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of September Niamh will also be managing the release of Excalibur Press founder Tina Calder\u2019s book I\u2019ve Just Put My Socks On Standing Up, a frank and honest account of her 10 stone weight loss journey using the widely talked about medication Mounjaro.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tina said: \u201cI love writing and I love telling my story but I knew I didn\u2019t have the time to do everything myself when it came to writing about my own personal experiences. Once Niamh had revived our publishing department it became apparent I could start working on my series of mini books covering aspects of my life that I speak about publicly and at events.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting with my weight loss journey at the end of September but I\u2019ll also be looking at topics such as my late diagnosis of ADHD, my struggle with the chronic condition Fibromyalgia, imposter syndrome and resilience and a few others.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing I\u2019ve been excited to see is how Niamh has weaved the wider Excalibur Press ethos of transparency into her department. There\u2019s no get rich quick schemes or false promises of fame and fortune, it\u2019s simple, honest advice that gives authors the ability to make informed choices about their publishing journey.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To find out more about Excalibur Press\u2019 publishing services contact <\/i><\/b>niamh@excaliburpress.co.uk<\/i><\/b> or go to <\/i><\/b>excaliburpress.co.uk\/publishing-packages<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost three years after the business was devastated in a fire at Cathedral Buildings Belfast media and marketing company Excalibur Press has revealed they\u2019ve brought back their publishing department thanks to a Queen\u2019s graduate. Following the blaze in their Donegall Street premises, caused by arsonist Patrick Gough who was jailed for the devastation, the company … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[1625,1893,1892],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24356"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24359,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24356\/revisions\/24359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatsonni.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}