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which we post bestseller chart information, circulate reviews we have seen and mention events that our authors are participating in. And we mention talks and events that our agents are doing. A negative aspect of social media is that the time taken to do it can prevent the authors from finishing their work on time,” Ms Blake joked, adding that the main threat in the digital age is the chronic problem of piracy.“It’s a big problem. The Publishers Association in Britain is very active in helping publishers crack down on pirate sites. I have a Google alert set up for every one of my writers and any time I receive an alert showing a pirated version of one of my authors’ works, I’ ll tell the publishers. But when they take down one site here, it pops up again there. It’s impossible to stop piracy entirely, and there is a dark joke that it’s flattering to bepirated because it means people want your books. I don’t find it flattering and I want my authors to be paid. There seems to be a strange feeling of righteousness among some people who believe they’re clever if they can hack into any books or music sites and they don’t have to pay. Actually, they are stealing the material. It is clearly theft.”Despite this, Ms Blake has never let the changes in technology discourage her. She was presented with the Pandora Award in 2013 “for significant and sustained contri- butions to the publishing industry”. Apart from her work as a literary agent, she chaired the Society of Bookmen for several years (only the second woman to do so since it was founded in the 1920s), now the Book Society in the UK. She is also on the advisory board for City University and UCLA in London for their post-graduate publishing studies courses. She lectures on the courses, and select students from the programmes can get six-week internships in the Blake Friedmann Literary Agency. Several interns from these programmes over the years have been recruited as agency staff.Her book, From Pitch to Publica- tion: Everything You Need to Know to Get Your Novel Published, is a guide into the world of publishing, helping those who write to understand the book world of agencies and publishers, so that they can navigate this world and hopefully become published themselves. Published by Macmillan in 1999, it has sold over 100,000 copies. She loves the book world and feels grateful to it for all it has given her. For many years she has worked with BTBS: The Book Trade Charity, Britain’s only charity for people working in the book world.34 Elite+