I’ve had a couple of days to reflect on the weekend’s event at the Free Word Centre hosted by TLC lead by the Book Skills Collective (Jason, Jessica and James – trio of heroes is what I’ll keep calling them).

Whilst on the first day I managed to quickly knock off my stunned thoughts, it’s on the second day that I realised how powerful the course’s message was to prospective candidates in publishing.

Originally, I had the impression that the course may only be relevant to job candidates in publishing but it’s equally relevant to writers who feed the publishing machine. (A good thing too because it turns out a lot of publishing attendees on the day were writers too.)

It’s useful in the sense that writers should know the immense work that goes on behind the scenes to appreciate how much work is involved in bringing a book out into the world in the traditional sense. Self-publishers do the same for their own books on a smaller scale but it’s worth mirroring the mainstream (esp. editing processes) to provide the reading audience with the highest quality of work that they deserve. Having gone through the series of talks that took us along the journey of publishing, I’ve gained a lot more insight into the components of the machine, but more than that, in the social media age too.

Twitter played a powerful role with the #getajobinpublishing tag as it helped break the ice for many of us introverts who find the face-to-face networking side a little daunting. There were almost 100 attendees and yet threading between conversations wasn’t deemed rude as I would normally suspect, and in such instances, I would tend to hold back hovering loosely waiting for someone to feel sorry for me. Here, I recognised those I ‘met’ on twitter and that certainly helped me approach them directly.

So what sort of tools did I take from such an event?

My particular focus for this blog is the routes into publishing (this is by no means exhaustive just a starting point):

1. Look out for Structured schemes like
   1. PRH ‘The Scheme’
   2. Harper Collins
   3. Hachette – BAME 6 months editorial
2. Advertised Job e.g in the Bookseller, Guardian mainstream papers.

Note: Starting salaries aren’t always listed. Aki’s campaigning hard on this one. See #BookJobtransparency

3. Non-advertised jobs: Good networking is essential for this one. Take out one of the employees for coffee to ask about their role perhaps. Preferably somebody not too senior. But you can try your luck. A softly-softly approach is advised. There may not be a job opening yet but if it comes you’ll be on their minds, hopefully.

4.Agencies

• Atwood Tate
• Inspired Selection

5. Book Careers – run by Suzanne Collier. Highly recommended to anyone trying to enter publishing.

6. Degree courses: Chances are higher if you have a BA/MA in publishing e.g Kingston University lead by Alison Baverstock. I was one of the lucky ones to take away her book ‘

And some advice:

• ‘The onus is on YOU to create the narrative.’

I love that stellar advice. It’s certainly made me question what IS my narrative anyway. If you don’t have one you will have given an impression either way. The question is what sort of impression do you WANT to give. That’s powerful if you start viewing yourself as a brand whether you realise it or not.

• ‘Be systematic with your approach.’

Like submitting a manuscript just keep going and don’t dwell too much on rejection. This advice, whilst we hear often, is a habit we have to establish in ourselves and see it as a process as an essential part of getting into the industry (as in any industry).

Guests:

• Hearing from Hamza Jahanzeb, with his infectious enthusiasm, working in the industry from an internship perspective found that his adventure included learning Mandarin in China. Do NOT cross off any path to your ideal career. This was the message I took home. And what an exciting path that was too. His witty and fun nature set in the importance of being yourself in this industry. Find what suits you.

 

• Further, listening to Chris Cleave from an author’s perspective was equally delightful because his message was purely from how caring the industry can be. It protected him, and some cases literally (SAS guards thrown in too!), in many ways he felt that he could delight in doing his role as a writer and just throw himself into his field in the confidence that he is being supported by some of the very best in the industry. I was quite moved by his talk. This caring perspective is well worth understanding. It’s an industry that can’t be cold and aloof.

So much more than I mentioned above went into this event as it all ended with an interactive mock interview between Aki, the employer, and James, the candidate. The audience chirped in every now and again (and again and again – we weren’t shy anymore!) to interject at points when we thought the interview went wrong. This was a nice exercise to see how one should and shouldn’t do an interview. Needless to say, that answering questions like ‘What are your weaknesses’ shouldn’t be followed by a generic ‘I’m a perfectionist’ answer. But tailor it to yourself.

Follow the #Getajobinpublishing to read insights that were happening from many other people’s perspectives.

For me, I’ve taken that nugget ‘The onus is on you to find your narrative’.

Thank you!

Thanks to my sponsor Aki Schilz, Director of The Literary Consultancy, who’s worked tirelessly in making it all come together perfectly. Thanks also to the trio of heroes: Jason Bartholomew, Jessica Killingley, James Spackman who delivered the series of talks in such a dynamic and richly informative way.