Intern to Intern Part 1

Today I took the opportunity to talk with my friend, Sarah, who has spent not only this past summer but also the previous semester working as an intern at two different publishing companies. Sarah is one of my good friends from college--we are both seniors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst--and we both study English, though she is focusing on creative writing (she's actually created her own major) and I am focusing on non-fiction writing.

I wanted to talk to Sarah because I was curious about how her experiences compared to mine, because even though we were working as interns in the same industry, we seemed to have a different time of it. Sarah managed to work for companies that were respectively smaller and much, much larger than Berrett-Koehler. Though there was some overlap in the types of materials being published, she had a much different experience with the content.

I first asked Sarah to give me a profile of the first publishing house she worked for--a small, independent company based out of Brooklyn.

i spent the spring working for a small -- i mean, five full-time staff members, plus a handful of graphic designers and interns small -- indie press that published poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. most of it had a pretty typical indie bent, and they published a lot of fiction in translation, as well as a series of rereleased classics (i had to transcribe a norwegian novella from the 1920s into a digital file!). their nonfiction tended to be mostly political, with some social commentary, and i think a cookbook or two. pretty eclectic, very literary stuff. for such a tiny company, they were great about garnering publicity, and reviews in major papers, but there were no major bestsellers or anything.

Her job responsibilities were as eclectic as the company's catalog:

because it was such a small company, i had a lot of roles to fill. the budget was pretty small, so i was basically a combination of secretary, editorial assistant, publicity assistant, head of online marketing, and messenger. i was pretty much in charge of the slush pile - i got to read the many insane, unsolicited manuscripts, and write rejection letters. stuff i liked reading got passed along to the senior editor, who'd pass it along to the publisher if he liked it. i also sent out tons of press releases and galleys - literally, probably tons. i found bookstores and professors to contact, i started and maintained the company twitter, i did a lot of online advertising, i filled orders from the company website, i fixed printer jams, and i messengered things all over manhattan and brooklyn. also, the office had a small indie bookstore attached, and i ended up manning that a lot.

Sarah told me that this internship was pretty difficult for her. She had a lot of responsibilities and was often asked to work extra hours--for no money, mind you. She also expressed a sense of alientation from her coworkers--for such a small company, she felt that she hadn't really made any srong connections. When I asked her what she had gotten out of the job, this is what she had to say:

i think it definitely taught me everything that goes into publishing. it's not glamorous - you don't just sit and read all day and take authors out to lavish lunches. usually. it gave me a good foundation to know whether or not this industry would be a good fit for me, and it let me really put my finger on the pulse of what's going on in the publishing world. i also got to see that houses don't have to put out really commercial things in order to be successful and find their niche of readers. with smaller companies like that, you get readers who are really devoted to the aesthetic of the press, which makes the whole process that much more interesting. plus, i got familiar with the chicago manual of style, which is just fun and neat if you are a nerd like i am.

More on Sarah's experiences in the larger company soon!