Nikki East

I’ve been involved with the crime fiction community for almost two decades. Initially, I assisted numerous authors with promotions, building websites, proofreading, branding and much more. I’ve been described as one of the most skilled marketers within the business and an excellent facilitator.

I am a Co-Founder of Hull Noir. We hosted our first crime fiction festival over the course of a week celebrating Hull’s City of Culture status. We incorporated the traditional panel set up for our festival, but we also used film and music to highlight and reinforce the impact of specific authors and/or crime works that have influenced, and still influence, to this day. Our second festival in 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. We rescheduled several times, eventually we changed our format and held the whole festival online in 2021. By doing this, we went global with attendees from over a dozen countries!

I have hosted Noir@TheBar in both my hometown of Hull, as part of our festival, and also a couple in London, where I live. I have chaired a panel of super talented authors at Newcastle Noir 2018 and, along with my wonderful son George, I helped coordinate logistics for Bouchercon 2018 in St. Petersburg, Florida. That was an amazing experience – hard work – but thoroughly enjoyable and very satisfying (& I met some legends of crime fiction).

I still have a day job and currently that is managing a pub in the City of London. I have worked in hospitality, either full or part time, for over 35 years. It brings with it a multitude of transferrable skills that help with running festivals – dealing with people in a busy, excitable, environment being one of the best ones!

During the COVID lockdowns, my friend and I decided to pool our skills and put together an anthology of short stories to raise money for an NHS charity. This escalated into us creating SpellBound Books; a small, indie, publishing house focussing on digital books. We taught ourselves the skills necessary to keep services in-house and I found it very satisfying; learning, perfecting and discovering new skills.

SpellBound Books closed its doors at the end of 2025 and I have subsequently set myself up as a freelancer. At EAST Editing & a r t E A S T, I provide all forms of editing, proof reading and book cover design and I’m happy to say that a substantial amount of authors have already begun to utilise these services.

Essentially, I love books and I love being around people who love books. I am a chatterbox but will listen and take notice of what my clients want/expect from me. You will also always get honest opinions and advice from me. It’s my Yorkshire blood! I look forward to working with you.

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