Work Placement – Page 2 – Publishing By Degrees

Publishing in a Small Town

In December, I was able to do a placement at The Independent, a local publisher near my home town in South Western Ontario, Canada. Essentially, they publish newspapers and magazines for the county I live in, and are the main written news and advertising source for our area. The Independent has a staff of five women, all of whom take on different departments of the company. From editorial, to design, ads, marketing and sales, they manage to take care of everything that needs to be done to ensure that the two weekly publications they have get sent out every Wednesday. I loved having the opportunity to see how publishing works in the area I am from, and being able to see how such a small company comes together to be a success. Over the course of my placement, I got to learn about each of the areas of publishing, from editorial and design, to sales and printing, and spend one on one time with each of the staff members to learn what it is, exactly, that they do.

When I started this course, I was sure I wanted to go into editorial, and that I wanted to work in book publishing. As we started to learn, I began to question this, because we were learning about so many different things I hadn’t even considered. Who knew that I really enjoyed design, or that I was really interested in rights? MSc Publishing has taught me a lot about all areas, and made me question if editing books was what I wanted to do. With these questions, I decided that maybe I should explore more than just book publishing, and applied for placements in books, magazines, and newspapers, in all different departments, to learn more. The Independent offered me a place, which was very convenient because it was while I was home in Canada for Christmas!

While I was there, I learned a lot. Continue reading “Publishing in a Small Town”

#ScotTradeFair with The Wee Book Company

It’s fair to say that we were all a little grumpy as we made our way to Hanover Street at 7am on a chilly January Monday. As interns at newly formed publishing house The Wee Book Company, we had been offered the chance to attend Scotland’s Trade Fair with Susan, the Managing Director. Of course, we had jumped at the chance, but when the time actually cam for us to force ourselves out our beds at 6am, we were all beginning to wonder what we had let ourselves in for. Fortunately, coffee is a marvellous thing, and by the time we reached Glasgow, our excitement about the day had begun to reignite.

IMG-20190122-WA0011 Once we arrived and saw the stall occupied by The Wee Book Company, we were raring to go once again. The Company had kindly invited Angus, Alison and I to the trade fair for one day, in order to get an insight into the purchasing and distribution process. It was a fascinating experience, and made me consider employment in areas of the publishing industry which I previously knew nothing about. Continue reading “#ScotTradeFair with The Wee Book Company”

My Placement at EUP

‘I can confirm we would be happy to take you on for a two-week work experience placement’. I couldn’t believe it when I received Rebecca’s email: they had a free spot in June and they wanted me. I was finally going to do a placement at Edinburgh University Press. Scaring as it might seem, on the 4^th of June I put on my brightest smile, took a deep breath, and started my first day. Little did I know that day that this would have been one of the most intense and formative experiences of my year here in Edinburgh as a publishing postgrad student. Should I tell all the things that I’ve done during my placement, two more weeks wouldn’t probably be enough. So, I’ve decided to list the highlights of my experience at EUP, a sort of a personal ‘best of’ of my internship.

Most rewarding achievement
I designed two promotional showcards that were meant to be shown at conferences. Given the time constraint – I had just a couple of hours to complete each one of them – I wasn’t really sure that the results would meet the marketing team’s expectations. To my surprise, not only did they like it, but also they decided to actually use them at the conferences. Continue reading “My Placement at EUP”

A Cracking Placement

From day one of the MSc Publishing course at Napier I knew that I wanted to try and get into the wonderful world of children’s publishing. Personally, I can’t think of a more vibrant and fun industry to work in, possibly swayed by the fact that I just adore children’s books. So, when my email and cv approaching Barrington Stoke about a placement was accepted, I was very excited to see how a children’s publisher operates.

Barrington Stoke is an Edinburgh-based publisher that specialises in books for dyslexic children. They were set up in 1998 by Patience Thomson and Lucy Juckes, a mother and daughter-in-law team, who had personal experience with how reading difficulties can isolate a child. Spotting this gap in the market they set up Barrington Stoke with core objectives to publish books that were dyslexia friendly and inclusive for children with this reading disability. Another key aspect of their intentions was to publish well-known authors and illustrators so that the ‘super-readable’ books were similar to those being already published for the age group. With a unique easy-to-read font and an amazing array of authors and illustrators working on the books, Barrington Stoke has become a pioneering, award-winning company that has changed the children’s books industry for the better. They have a wonderful list of books encompassed in their impressive array of series, all that cater to children’s different abilities and interests.

toppsta_ad _2018 — Don’t believe me? … check out this advert I designed for them!

I joined the team at Walker Street as a design intern. Continue reading “A Cracking Placement”

My Placement at Entangled Publishing

Since day one of the Publishing course at Napier, it was mentioned that Twitter is a great tool to connect with others in the industry and keep an eye out for possible internship/job opportunities. Funny enough, it was through this very platform that my internship with Entangled started.

Entangled Publishing is an independent publisher of romantic fiction, in the adult and young adult markets. They’ve released more than 1,200 titles, including the YA novel Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout which was signed for a major motion picture. They have 13 imprints which range from a variety of ages and topics and the novels are released in digital and printed form. Approximately 20 to 35 titles are published in digital form and 4 in print and e formats simultaneously each month. Furthermore, 57 of their books have made it to the USA Today Bestsellers list and 17 to the New York Bestsellers list.

The position being advertised was for readers to help with submissions. Continue reading “My Placement at Entangled Publishing”

A placement at Floris Books – what I learned about publishing (and had thought to ask).

Having undertaken a qualification in secondary English teaching, I am familiar with the concept of a work placement. As a student teacher you are required to undertake three separate placements, two lasting 6 weeks and one lasting 4 weeks. These are full-time, and you can feel like they go on forever. In publishing, when completing an MSc at Edinburgh Napier, you are hoping to take on a part-time or temporary placement, not required,but the aim of each is to provide valuable experience. For me this time, instead of teaching Curriculum for Excellence English lessons to teenagers in north Glasgow, I was packing my bag and heading to Floris Books, an award-winning children’s book publisher in Edinburgh. The opportunity to work at Floris Books as their Sales and Marketing intern is a rare and exciting one. Floris take on one intern a year, usually advertising the position from about October to university students at Edinburgh Napier and Stirling, before the role commences in January. This year, they’d chosen me. Continue reading “A placement at Floris Books – what I learned about publishing (and had thought to ask).”

My internship with Ringwood Publishing

When I first began my MSc Publishing degree I had no experience of working in the publishing industry. However, having had various jobs since my undergraduate degree working in sales, social media and customer service, I had developed transferable skills that helped me a lot coming into publishing as I got to grips with networking, the publishing community on Twitter and marketing. By the time trimester two came around I was eager to get started on the placement module which had appealed so much to me when I was applying for publishing courses the previous year. I was excited for the opportunity to combine the skills I had learnt in class with some practical experience in the industry.

When it came to securing an internship, I didn’t think twice before contacting Ringwood Publishing. Ringwood are a small, independent publishing house based in Glasgow and focus on publishing both fiction and non-fiction around the themes of sex, politics, football, the outdoors and more. With such a varied list I knew I wouldn’t tire of reading Ringwood submissions (something I can vouch for now), and having researched the company for my case study in trimester one I knew that they have a fantastic relationship with interns who take on key responsibilities and have more independence over the tasks they carry out than they would in a lot of larger publishing houses – it is easy to see why Ringwood has been quite a popular choice among some of my fellow publishing students this year. I was also drawn to Ringwood due to their dedication to new authors writing on niche subjects, and who are often overlooked by larger, more mainstream publishing houses.

I began my internship with Ringwood as a Marketing & PR Assistant which was very exciting – I didn’t have a lot of marketing experience at the time apart from what I had learnt in class so this was my chance to think strategically about events, target audience and promotion within a professional environment. Continue reading “My internship with Ringwood Publishing”