Liv Bonsall: Penguin, Marketing, and the roots of the Cambridge Language Collective.

Liv Bonsall, co-founder of the Cambridge Language Collective.

Co-founder of the Cambridge Language Collective sits down with current Editor-in-Chief Rebecca Turner to share her career journey since establishing the publication during her time at the University of Cambridge. Liv Bonsall, who co-founded the CLC back in 2020 and currently works as a digital content executive at Penguin Random House, talks to our Editor-in-Chief, Rebecca Turner, about her career studying Modern and Medieval Languages (French, Spanish and Portuguese) at Cambridge, following her graduation in 2021.

RT- Thanks for joining us today! Could you tell us what you've been up to since graduation?

LB- Sure! I graduated in 2021, and after uni I stayed in Cambridge, partly because a lot of my degree was affected by the pandemic, and I felt like I hadn't really gotten the most out of Cambridge itself. So, I stuck around, got a flat with the co-founder of the CLC, Hannah, and began working at Cambridge Satchel, a local-gone-global business that makes handcrafted leather satchels, bags and accessories, and which is known for its bright designs and unique collaborations in fashion, film and the arts. I started working with them because I'd done something called CamBrand which is run by CAMSoc, the Cambridge Marketing and Advertising Society,  which pairs you up with local businesses and you work on a project with them. They took me on afterwards and I was then there for three years as a brand marketing executive. After that, in May 2024, I started at Penguin Random House, which is where I am now, working in the children's books division as a digital content executive for Puffin and Ladybird.

RT- That’s so cool! There’s often that misconception that when you study languages, your only career pathway is teaching or translation, and whilst these are brilliant pathways, it’s good to know that there are other options out there.

LB- Absolutely.

RT- I’d love to know more about your current job. Could you talk us through an average Day in The Life at Penguin?

LB- Yes, I can try to -this is always such a difficult question.

RT- Yes, each of your days must be so varied!

LB- Exactly. We have a hybrid model, but for a day in the office, I arrive around 09:30 AM into a really nice open plan space surrounded by meeting rooms and brainstorm areas, all of which are very bookish as you'd expect! Everybody just loves books there. My time is split between running the social channels day-to-day, making content for them and advising the rest of the marketing team on content that they might produce for their individual book campaigns.

Half of the time is me running my own brand campaigns, and the other half is helping other members of the team; such as updating them on social media platform changes or the right formats to use, or the kind of content that I'd suggest for them to use if they want to film some content with an author, for example. Or, if they're stuck on how to launch a book on social media, I might help with that as well. There are also, of course,  lots of meetings, which are actually great because you learn a lot about the whole process from how a book is acquired, created, and finally marketed out into the world. So it’s very varied and fun.  

RT- Do you find you prefer working at home or working in the office?

LB- I think I need both! When I’m at home, I really get my head down and concentrate, but I couldn’t do it every day. Whereas in the office, you’re constantly in meetings, there’s a lot of buzz, you get to talk to your colleagues, but also authors and illustrators, and do external events as well. If I had to choose, I’d say the office, because that’s where real collaboration happens.

RT- It sounds like it works well to have a balance between the two.

LB- Yes, absolutely.

Liv meeting Jacqueline Wilson at work.

RT- Let’s move onto marketing in general. What would you say your favourite things about working in marketing are?  

LB- I just think that it's such a creative job, which is something I really need. When people think of publishing, they tend to automatically think about editorial roles, because they think it might be the most creative and exciting, and it is those things - but marketing also lends itself to creativity. In marketing, you’re coming up with your own campaigns, your own taglines, and generating out-the-box ideas for socials. I find the strategic element of marketing just as satisfying, too. I like that I can work on a variety of elements, such as design, planning, and scheduling, and I also like that most roles in marketing are very collaborative.

RT- Yes, that’s so true- creating campaigns is so creative! Do you ever find it difficult to come up with ideas, or do they always come to you?

LB- Some days they will just flow into your head, but other days you could be stuck for a very long time. That's where the collaborative element comes in though; whenever we're stuck, we can ask somebody else for their input and they’re usually very happy to just help you out using their expertise or get the juices flowing in a brainstorm session, which is lovely.

RT- I’m sure that you’ve been involved in all sorts of projects since being at Penguin. Do you have one which you felt particularly passionate about?

Liv filming McFly’s Tom Fletcher at Waterstones Oxford Street.

LB- Good question. I think one of the most fun ones has been working with McFly’s Tom Fletcher. What some people don’t know is that he also writes children’s books, and he's one of the most popular children's authors in the UK. He's very good at what he does, and I've been able to film some content with him a couple of times last year. He's just such a lovely person to work with, but it was also great to see how people reacted to that content that we filmed.

I’ve also enjoyed producing and advising on social media content for picture book author-illustrators such as Kim Hillyard, Nadia Shireen and Huw Aaron, who create such magical worlds for little readers. Their books are just as appealing to little ones as they are to the adults that are reading to them!

RT- And what led you to Penguin as a company? Do you feel that having studied such a literature-based degree at Cambridge influenced this?

LB- Yes, I think so. I've always been into literature, and post-degree, I started reading for pleasure a lot more again, which I’d really missed. It reminded me of all of the Penguin Books I’d read throughout my life, and since it’s such a prestigious publishing house, I wanted to give it a go. I hadn’t necessarily considered children's books as a specialism, but I was open to any kind of imprint and wanted to get my foot in the door. Having applied for this job, I'm now really happy to be working in the children’s division!

RT- And did you always know that marketing was what you wanted to do?

LB- No, not at all. It was only in my 4th year of university that I had that classic impending graduation panic that many others have, and I was just trying to narrow down my options. With  that blend of creativity and strategy in mind, marketing seemed like the right option for me. It wasn’t a case of knowing what I wanted to do from a young age.

RT- That’s really interesting! And I feel that that’s the way for most people. Although some people know what they want to do straight away, people’s plans can also change, and uni is a great time to explore that. Do you feel that your extracurricular time at Cambridge was shaped by thinking about your future career, even if you weren’t yet sure of its direction? I mean, co-founding a student publication does lends itself nicely to editorial.

LB- Actually no! The idea of the Cambridge Language Collective came about when I was on a call with my Year Abroad Project supervisor, Hugo Azérad. I was calling him from my parents’ house in lockdown and we somehow got onto the topic that a lot of us in MML didn't feel that connected anymore, because we didn't get to see each other in person. We were thinking forward to 4th year, where things might be a bit different, and we came up with this idea for a website where students would connect and give their opinions on the year abroad. I was very much on the social media and marketing side, so they were all really valuable skills for afterwards, but it wasn't created with a specific career in mind.

RT- I’ve got a couple of hypothetical questions to end on. This year, we launched the CLC’s Year Abroad section, where we collated past articles on the year abroad, and have staff writers writing about their current experiences. If you were a staff writer for this section, what do you think your first article would focus on?

LB- I think I would talk about the second half of my Year Abroad, which was in Cuba, and I’d talk about the unexpected parts of Cuba, or maybe some misconceptions about the country. Cuba is often viewed in this very colourful ‘perfect postcard’ way, but this is only really the case in more touristic parts of the country, such as the centre of Havana. There are many things about Cuba that we aren’t aware of; just day-to-day parts of life that you wouldn’t think about unless you visited. For example, when I was there, there wasn't much access to the Internet, and we would need to go into a hotel and pay for an hour's worth of Internet access that would cost one Cuban dollar!  I actually learned to appreciate the lack of connection to the online world, but at the start, it was one of many culture shocks that I came across, and it was a realisation that many people in Cuba are cut off from aspects of life that we take for granted . Similarly, if you wanted to watch a film at home, you would have to visit one of many little hidden film shops, flick through a physical catalogue of films, and buy them for one or two Cuban pesos, and they would put the film onto a USB that you just plug into your laptop when you got home. There are so many things that you just wouldn't expect, and all of them are rooted in Cuba’s unique history.

RT- My last question is to continue the style of the CLC Alumni interviews you and your co-founder Hannah conducted (I read them recently and just loved reading the answers to these questions.) If you could go to dinner with any author, dead or alive, who would it be? And for a twist, where would you take them? This can be a city, favourite restaurant or otherwise.

LB- Ah! I would take Amélie Nothomb, a Belgian author. I‘ve read her books since I was a teenager, ever since  my mum recommended her to me. She's a Belgian author, but since her dad was a diplomat, she lived in many different countries growing up. Her favourite place was Japan and she's written about her experiences living there and understanding the nuances of the culture, often in a satirical way. I really like the way that she writes because she almost blends fairytales with the everyday in a way that remains accessible. She has an amazing mind too; I was lucky enough to meet her on my year abroad at a signing, and she remembered the names of so many people who had come to see her that she had met only once or twice before.

I would have to take her somewhere in Japan, maybe take her back to where she lived. I think she would really enjoy it, and I'd like to see where she grew up as well, to see if it matches the picture I’ve created in my mind based on her books!

RT- Thanks so much for joining me today. It’s been so great to speak to you and find out all about life after MML, and the CLC too! I’m sure many marketing and publishing hopefuls will find this helpful. A huge thank you for starting the CLC and I hope that you’ve enjoyed seeing its development; you should be very proud!