No more internships!

Last Friday I finished up at what is my last publishing-related internship that I have planned for the near future. While I love the industry, I can't afford to keep doing all this unpaid work with no guarantees of a job at the end of it.

I completed two weeks at a Camden-based literary agency. I signed a confidentiality agreement on my first day, so I won't name them, and I won't tell you much about what I did there. However, I will tell you that I was slightly disappointed. I'd heard good things about them, but once I was there I became more or less a glorified receptionist. The way it was meant to work was that they'd have two interns at one time (which they did) and the two interns would alternate days providing reception cover. For some reason this never happened, so for two weeks I was there as a receptionist first, and then doing odd bits of reading and writing reports when I could grab some spare time between phone calls and dealing with the post etc.

So that was unfortunate. But most of the people there were very lovely, and I did get to read a couple of fabulous manuscripts that I need to make a note of. One was the first book in a longer series, and of course I now want to know what happens in the rest of the series, so I'll have to keep an eye out over the next couple of years, I guess...

But now I'm finished with internships, and I don't really know what to do. I've got about four months worth of experience in total, and am keen to find a full-time job, but there aren't many out there at the minute and so I'm back home looking for other work. We'll see what happens. I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple of jobs in the industry, so I'll keep my fingers crossed. And if nothing happens there I'll have to find myself something else to be doing in the meantime, and also keep my eyes on the industry so I know if/when the vacancies open up.

Lots to think about. My brain is currently very scared by the big expanse of time that's opening up in front of me, with nothing to fill it.

Hmm. Something will turn up.

Johnson & Alcock

Yes, this is another internship-related post. I was actually at Johnson & Alcock a couple of weeks ago, right at the start of the month, but I've been a bit quiet on all fronts lately and forgot to do any kind of follow-up post.

I was there for two weeks, in their offices in Clerkenwell Green, London. I'd actually worked in the same building with another literary agency last summer, so it was nice to know the commute and the area (and the Krispy Kreme doughnut stand in the Tesco at the end of the road!) before I started. This was another unpaid position, though they did make a contribution of £10/day towards travel expenses.

Johnson & Alcock is the smallest company I've done any work experience with. I've had the opportunity to work in a small team before, during my time at Oxford University Press, but obviously it's very different working in a small team that's part of a much larger organisation, to working in a very small team. There were six members of staff at J&A, one of whom only worked half the week. The office had a very nice feel to it and you could tell that everyone got on well with each other, making for a very pleasant work place to go into.

The majority of my time was spent reading unsolicited manuscripts, sending out rejections and passing things I thought were good onto the agents. I also got to read something that one of the agents was considering, and provided her with a report on it giving my thoughts. I helped sort out some rights reversions, and wrote a couple of pieces to go on their website, which provided a nice break from the reading!

One of the best things, though, was that I got to sit down and properly read through a contract, and then I had a short, sit-down meeting with one of the agents where I had the opportunity to ask about anything I didn't understand. It was a very valuable morning, and gave me a much better insight into how a literary agency functions at the business end. We also had a chat about e-books, from which I came to realise that actually, no-one really has a clue about what they mean for the future of the industry..!

So while this placement involved doing lots of things I'd done before, it also gave me lots of new opportunities. I really enjoyed my time at J&A; the staff were friendly and welcoming, and I was sad to leave after only two weeks.

A big thank you to everyone at J&A - it was wonderful to have the chance to work with you, and hopefully our paths will cross again in the not-too-distant future.

Conville & Walsh

Last week I completed a two-week internship with the above-named literary agency, based in Soho, London. It was a short placement, unpaid [for details on the debate regarding unpaid placements with a particular focus on the publishing industry, see here], and very different from previous placements I'd done in the industry.

First, a little background on what I've done:

• A one week placement at A.P. Watt - mainly admin work. Interesting first insight into the industry, made me realise this is the area I wanted to work in.
• A six week placement at Andrew Nurnberg Associates. A long placement with a varied, interesting workload. Well-organised and informative, supportive staff members during a difficult period of my personal life.
• A four week placement at Oxford University Press. Great fun, came into the team at a critical time in their year, when they had a staff shortage for various reasons, so got to do lots of hands-on stuff and get heavily involved in various projects.

Now that's out of the way, some thoughts on this latest two-week placement.

I started at C&W the week of the London Book Fair. This meant that for the first three days of my placement there were only two of us in the main office (plus the lovely finance guy but he was two floors up...). It was a very quiet few days filled with bizarre tasks - making party bags and buying olives, for example. But it gave me a chance to get to know the office, work out the postal system and where everything went, and I had the fantastic opportunity one evening to attend a party for S.J. Watson, author of BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP (released today).

If I'm honest, the party was one of the highlights of the placement. It gave me the chance to chat to previous interns (all of whom gave very positive comments regarding C&W), to other people in the industry, and it let me see a side of the job that I'd not had a chance to before. While I realise things like that won't be happening every day, it was certainly interesting to see that things like that go on, and how they tend to work.

Parties and merriment aside, I also spent a lot of time reading unsolicited manuscripts. There was one I read that I really liked (it was about clowns...), that wasn't right for the agent who had it, but I persuaded her not to disregard it completely and it was then passed over to another agent. I don't know what has become of it, but I was pleased that my opinions were valued.

I was able to get involved with some of the follow-up from the LBF, too. Lots of putting notes onto the computer system, complete with a crash-course in how NOT to make notes. Tip: make them legible! And then in my last couple of days I got to do some editorial work - one of the agents has a book coming out, and I was responsible for making the edits on the document in question. Again, a crash-course in handwriting translation.

In comparison to others I've done, it felt very short, particularly as my second week was only four days, due to it leading up to the Easter weekend. It was also completely unpaid, with no contribution at all made towards travel expenses. I was also irritated by the fact that, as they have an intern in every week of the year, they use them as a receptionist, managing the switchboard as appropriate. Perhaps it was just that I was used to larger agencies that had their own receptionist. But at the time I felt that they were taking the 'unpaid work experience' thing a little too far.

Minor qualms, anyway. Ultimately I enjoyed the placement, and was glad to be back in that environment, involved with the industry again. It re-enforced my desire to find a permanent job in the publishing industry, and everyone I spoke to there said I was going about it the right way. I guess I just have to keep my fingers crossed, and my eyes open.

To finish, I should say a big thank you to Conville & Walsh. They were great to work with, if only for a couple of weeks.

Catching up

Phew. This has been a busy week. I've been doing work experience at a literary agency in London, so I've been commuting in, leaving the house at 8:30am and getting back at about 7:00pm. After the student life, and five hours of classes a week, it's quite a lifestyle change! I'm enjoying it, anyway. I've got another week there, though it's only a four-day week because of the Easter Bank Holiday weekend coming up.

I'll probably do a round-up post of this placement once I've finished, with some thoughts on the process, and taking a look at what I've learnt, so you can expect that next weekend. Until then, here's a couple of things I wanted to post this week but didn't have time for.

The Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist is out, which you can see here. I've only read two of the books shortlisted; I want to read ANNABEL but last time I checked it was only available in hardback, and I haven't really got space for many more books on my shelves so I'd better wait until it's out in paperback. The prize isn't awarded until 8th June, though, so I might try and get through the shortlist by then. It's only four books, to be fair, so I'll see what happens. Looking back to the longlist, I just finished reading REPEAT IT TODAY WITH TEARS by Anna Piele, which I really enjoyed. I would review it, but I've got hardly any time at the minute. I need to write a report for work tomorrow and an essay for university, so I think I've got plenty to be getting on with!

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It was the London Book Fair this week. I hoped to get there for at least one of the days, but unfortunately didn't manage it as I was working. From the sounds of things, though, it was a nice busy fair, much better than last year which was disrupted by the ash cloud... But everyone I'm working with at the minute seemed very happy after the fair. Happy and exhausted. So I guess that's a good sign. You can see a report from The Bookseller here. I wish I'd been able to go, but perhaps next year I'll be able to go as an employee of one of the publishing companies, rather than just as a student. Fingers crossed.

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Hopefully I'll get a chance to post a few things later in the week. Now I need to write my essay. Eek!

End of an era...

Or the beginning of one.

Only time will tell.

Tomorrow I finish up at university. I have one piece of coursework that's due in, in May, but other than that I'm completely finished. No more classes, no more exams. I'm averaging a nice solid 2:1, which is pleasing. So I'm heading home on Saturday, not knowing if I'll be coming back, and that makes me sad. I mean sure, I'll be back for graduation, but that's just one day...

But enough doom and gloom. In more exciting news, I've got a work placement starting on Monday. It's only a two week placement, but there's also a job vacancy at this place that I've applied for, and I'm planning to use these two weeks as a kind of extended interview process, where I'll make everyone love me and they'll start to think they can't manage without me, and then they'll give me a job.

OK, it might not happen exactly like that, but I'm still hoping that I'll do well on this placement. They offered me a placement last summer, but I was already committed to working at another place, so I had to say no, so I'm glad I'm getting a second chance to go and work with them. It'll be quite strange though - for the first few days the office will be practically empty while the Book Fair's on, and then I guess it'll be incredibly busy once the Fair is over...

I'm sad I won't manage to get to the London Book Fair this year - I went last year and it was an interesting (but daunting!) experience. But I'm excited to see how things look from the other side.

Wish me luck!

The (possibly never-ending) Job-hunt

Phew. I was feeling too grumpy to do a blog post today, but I looked at some photos of really adorable kittens and that cheered me up. No, really. Who can stay miserable when faced with the super-adorableness of kittens?

Anyway. Today I was going to tell you about my job-hunting process. Perhaps you'll be interested. And if you're not, well, tough. It's my blog, and this whole job-hunt thing is what's taking up roughly 90% of my thoughts at the minute...

I'm currently in the last couple of weeks as an undergraduate student at university. I'm in my final year, and am just finishing off the last couple of pieces of coursework. When term ends on 8th April, that's it, I'm finished. Lots of my friends have exams after the Easter break, but my course wasn't structured that way so I'll be all finished and ready to graduate in July (fingers crossed). I'm hoping to come out with a 2:1 at the end, but one of my classes this term is really tough so I'm not sure how I'll do in that one. Hopefully my marks over the rest of the year will make up for it, and hopefully I won't have any complete disasters.

Being so close to finishing my degree is an exciting time, but also completely terrifying. I'm looking for a job in publishing - ideally as an agent's assistant - but there aren't that many jobs out there. By which I mean I can't afford to be too picky. I spent last summer doing work placements in the industry - a six week placement at a literary agency in London, and four weeks at an Oxford-based publishing company. Before that I'd spent a week at another literary agency, a placement that I got through the careers centre at university.

So I feel like I've got a decent knowledge of the industry. This summer I've lined up a bunch of placements between April and July. If I'm honest, I can't really afford to do them all. They're unpaid, for starters, but also there's only so much you can learn in a two or three week placement. I'm very keen to find something permanent, and as it is I'm waiting to hear back from a number of places - a couple of literary agencies, and then some entry-level positions at some publishing houses.

I find it's the waiting that's harder than anything. Waiting to hear back from employers, and waiting for jobs to come up. Publishing isn't a big industry, and there are lots of people trying to make their way in it. I feel like I've got a good C.V (or resume, if you're American...), and I feel pretty optimistic about my chances on a couple of these applications. But the lack of certainty is doing my head in, and I'm going round and round in little circles of worry that would put my worrier-housemate to shame.

Hopefully in the coming weeks I'll have some better news to share with you as my job-hunt continues. Of course, it'll probably be much more exciting for me than it will be for you, but I always like reading about other people's success stories. Hopefully soon I'll have one of my own. Hopefully.