Jane Wolstenholme likes to be tested. The former editor of the Daily Post, published author in waiting and currently PR person, doesn’t get easily bored. She just needs regular bouts of fresh challenges.
 Wolstenholme
Allerton born and raised, she studied history at Liverpool University and went on to do a postgraduate course in journalism at Strathclyde University. As a teenager, she’d managed to blag several spells at the Post & Echo doing a variety of work experience jobs.
After Strathclyde, she got herself a place on Trinity Mirror North West’s graduate trainee scheme (no doubt secured well in advance) and worked her way up. Through the newsroom, production and into features – her passion.
It was all going swimmingly well, too well in fact, so she decided she really ought to take up the challenge of trying to work for the nationals.
Subbing at the Mail So at 24 she gave up what was already a top job on a regional paper and became a sub at the Daily Mail in London.
She had in mind a long and famous career on Fleet Street when unexpectedly a year later she got a call from John Griffiths, the then editor of the Echo, suggesting that she might be interested in applying for the vacant features editor role at the paper.
“The manner of the approach and the seniority and responsibility that it entailed, unquestionably held a great deal of appeal” she says. “Plus it was taking ownership of the section I love the most. Without doubt, features ed is one of the best and most enjoyable jobs on any regional daily. I’d wanted to give working on the nationals a go and I’d really enjoyed it but the opportunity was too good to miss.”
With such a referral, the job clearly had her name written on it and she moved back home. Just two years later, Mark Dickinson, the new Echo editor, appointed her his assistant editor and within a year she’d become editor of the Post – at the time the youngest editor of a major regional daily – where she remained at the helm for four and half years.
It was back at Trinity where she met her future husband – and future business partner - Jon Brown who was then assistant editor on the Echo.
Times were increasingly tough at the Post but she stresses “my time there was a very rewarding one. There’s no doubt the role was challenging at times, but I had a great team behind me and together we achieved some fantastic things.
Over 90% reader satisfaction
“For example, we relaunched the paper in 2004 and the research we commissioned said that over 90% of our readers thought the paper was good or excellent. And we subsequently went on to win North West Newspaper of the Year and we were runner up in the overall UKPG Newspaper of the Year category. A lot of people worked their socks off during that period at the Post.”
She was also part of the team that made the decision to make the paper available free of charge in the city centre in spring 2006. She says she is not one of those who has a hang-up about free or paid readers. “A reader s a reader. To make a success of print these days, you need to deliver response, that’s what advertisers want. And clearly it’s working for the Post.
“Again I thoroughly enjoyed my time there but I thought hard and asked myself did I really want to continue doing it for another four years?”
So she left, again.
A combination of a baby son, a two book deal with Simon & Schuster (S&S) - “fantastic publisher by the way” – and the opportunity to work with Jon, proved irresistible.
Jon had, by then, left Trinity, having been given a role initially as head of new media and then just digital, something he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. His new venture, PR company Factory Communications was also making steady progress.
So Wolstenholme left Trinity in April 2006 to spend three days a week with Factory and two days week writing.
Chick lit is not Jon's cup of tea The first book, Bridesmaids (chick lit by her own admission), is long completed and now in production. The book, she laughs is not “Jon’s cup of tea but he claims to understand why others (women) would buy it.”
She doesn’t yet know the print run as S&S is still researching and pre selling to the key retailers who effectively control the market: Tesco, Amazon and five others she says.
In the meantime, overseas deals have been struck in Italy and in Germany, where she says, her agent Darley Anderson, has pulled off a better deal than she got here. For the overseas market, the book was pitched as Bridget Jones meets Four Weddings and a bidding war ensued.
Rumours swirling around Old Hall Street that she’s also tied up film rights are quickly dismissed by her as “very sadly not true!”
With much of the publishing process now in train, she has been able to concentrate a bit more in recent months on helping Factory to grow.
The agency is now looking at moving to bigger premises and a particular office in the Cotton Exchange is enticing them.
Staff numbers have risen to four with the addition of former Post staffer Jane Woodhead, who has joined Factory following a year’s stint at Rossiter Media in Warrington.
Agency clients include ACME, Hope University, the Racquets Club, several Ainscough family private interests, law firm Quinn Barrow and the biggie – the ACC or Liverpool Echo Arena as part of it is now called. All local accounts to date but she is pleased that the company has just won its first piece of work from Manchester: Smoke Free Manchester, a promotional body funded by the nine PCTs and Dr Fosters. Factory won the work inompetition with a number of Manchester agencies.
She will not disclose agency turnover but maintains they are happy with growth to date and that their accounts filed in April showed a modest profit. They are, she says, forecasting substantial growth in the current year.
Working with her husband she says is “interesting. We work quite differently but we share similar ambitions. It’s a good combination.”
With success or failure still to be determined as an author, she says she can’t tell yet if she fancies being a full time writer. “I love writing books there’s no question of that. But I do also really enjoy the interaction and engagement with people that PR offers. Plus I enjoy being part of a business which is also our baby. I’m meeting people now I wouldn’t have done at the Post. I suppose it’s all about networking. But these days I need to do it whereas at the Post, people would come to me.”
Whether that proves to still be the case come next Spring, it will be interesting to see. In the meantime, outside work “it’s the family and all about kids.”
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