Last day of the internship

Pic by Vladimir Konovalov

Friday was my last day as an intern. It was one of the most hectic days as I had to organise an impromptu business trip to New York for the Director. I was also asked to transfer quite a few files from some CDs onto the server which the Art Designer had dropped off. I then printed off the new layouts for the Director and Editorial Director to look through.

I sent off another 20 invites for the London Book Fair - the 2 tables are almost full now, with back-to-back 30-minute appointments over 3 days - that's a lot of meetings!

The intern who left on my first day (I took over from her although she was primarily Sales) had been asked if she could return for a few weeks as a temp, like me. Friday was her first day back so I passed on a few tasks to her and brought her up to speed on a couple of projects. I'm quite relieved that we've been given this extra support - perhaps it won't be so crazily busy anymore! Although it's 3 weeks until the office move and 5 weeks until the London Book Fair, so I wouldn't count on it!

Most of the afternoon was spent on the office move. First we had a meeting to find out where everyone had got to with their individual tasks, then I started to sort out some documents, furniture and moving boxes. At 5.30pm the Director jokingly sent me home as I was still ill and lost my voice about 4 times in one day! I was looking forward to the weekend and excited about Monday as my first day as a freelance temp yet also nervous - would my role change? Would expectations be higher?

I've decided not to blog every day now that my internship is over - it simply takes up too much time! I may do the occasional post here and there so please do check back every now and then. I'm glad that I documented most of my day to day work so that I can read over how I've developed and see what I've learnt. I also hope that it's helped to shed some light on such a role for those interested in pursuing a career in publishing. Good luck to you and may your work experience lead to a contract!

Ill

Today I felt pretty ill so went home just before lunch.. Will report back again tomorrow.

Busy but optimistic

This morning I was called into the production meeting where everyone gave updates on the yet-to-be-released titles, such as which production deadlines had been met, if the translations were sent in time, if invoices have been paid or whether contracts were outstanding etc. The meeting created lots of work for me as I was asked to chase or research a few things. I was also told that I'd be working on another title, taking in amendments. I haven't heard anymore on that yet though.

After the meeting, I went through several territories (Germany, Brazil, Italy, Spain etc) to check on pending business deals, seeing whether they were regarding any books we were about to publish. I marked them up to discuss with the Director tomorrow; not sure whether she will phone them up or ask me to, or perhaps send another e-mail.

For the impending move, I organised a site visit for IT support and picked up some spare boxes from the local Sainsburys and Rymans. I delegated the task of putting lots of books from some crates into the other boxes to an intern which I felt bad about but she had nothing to do so I think appreciated it, even if it was a rather mundane task.

I sent off more invites for the London Book Fair to various publishers around the world and then started to organise an impromptu trip for the Director to NYC next week to visit some US publishers who cannot make the book fair.

I was asked to created a few VCF cards which are electronic business cards/contacts. I hadn't done this before so checked online first and managed to do it.

I still have quite a long To Do list but am optimistic I can get it all done before the deadlines.

Just another day in the office

A representative from our external IT support company was coming in for a meeting first thing this morning. I had to run to work because the bus never showed up so I took a different one to the closest point possible and walked/ran from there. I arrived just as the IT guy did but unfortunately neither the Director nor the other intern who had arranged the meeting were there yet! The Editorial Director led the meeting until the others turned up and I dutifully took notes to type up later. We discussed the office move and the configuration of the new premises, whether to go wireless or get a cabled network, whether to choose VOIP etc.

I'd been asked to print off some more presentation material for a potential customer which of course took up most of the morning as my computer is pretty slow!

Then I worked on some more appointments for the London Book Fair - the calendar is pretty full now with around 18 appointments per person on each day (it lasts for 3 days).

I finished off the post redirection request and looked for originals of certain documents we need to provide. I could only find copies so hopefully tomorrow I'll manage to finish that off and send it to Royal Mail.

I worked through my inbox answering a few e-mails then received a phone call from Italy - it was from a publisher who was hoping to publish 2 of our books and they wanted a quote on a certain amount of copies. Good news!

Around mid-afternoon I continued on the proofreading. I think that this is the longest book I've proofread so far and I can tell it's going to take a long time to finish! Fortunately it's not urgent (yet) so I'll just do what I can during the week then bring it home every weekend to spend some more hours on. I'm still enjoying this side of the job though.

Thus the paperwork commences...

This evening I registered myself as self employed and read about self assessment tax returns, tax working credit, national insurance contributions, invoicing as a freelance etc. My head is spinning! So here's a quick run down on how today was in the office.

• I updated some of the customer contacts and whilst doing this, came across their database of freelance proofreaders/editors of which there were 25. I think that this is perhaps a job that I'd like to be doing ideally but I still need more experience to figure things out!
• I created this week's To Do list which was very cathartic and showed just how much I'd achieved last week.
• I typed up last week's meeting notes on the office move; we have a meeting with the external IT support team tomorrow morning.
• I finished preparing the production copies for storage.
• I amended 2 contracts as instructed, changing some of the finer details and correcting the format of the new book as it was wrong in the draft contract.
• I filled out a post redirection form to send to Royal Mail.
• I learnt how to process invoices.
• I removed staples from a huge stack of A4 paper so that we can use it as scrap paper to print on the other side.
• I finally located the phone number of a phone technician who will help us during the office move and called him to check availability and what services he can offer.
• I arranged a few more London Book Fair appointments, constantly cursing at how slow Excel is on the Mac! It took 6 minutes to edit 4 cells (all I was doing was typing 4 words in each cell).

The Gremlin Effect

"The Gremlin Effect causes devices to malfunction in strange and unpredictable ways..." 

Today was slower paced in general however quite frustrating regarding technology!

I started off by looking through the sales copies for some books which were missing from the production room for the stock check. We receive 20 books from each print, some are kept in the production room, in editorial and then around the office as 'sales' copies. I found about half of the missing titles and updated the list but didn't get a chance to ask about the others as I was then asked to provide an update on the London Book Fair appointments so I printed off the 3-day schedule along with the invitee list.

I was really battling all morning with Excel to update the stock list as the colourful swirly wheel would appear every other character or mouse click. I don't know what's wrong with my computer of late but last night it just froze and crashed. Today wasn't much better and it was only going to get worse.

At lunchtime I went to pick up the signed lease for the new office premises from the solicitors which I knew would make the Director very happy.

I had also been asked to prepare some materials for a publisher ie the spread/layouts, synopsis and jacket/cover. I spent over an hour on this and tried to print the documents from 4 different computers. Either the programme would crash or the computer would, or the printer would print the wrong thing even though it was fine on the 4th computer.. At one point the whole server went down and everyone lost connection. I was getting increasingly frustrated because of the time pressure and because nothing seemed to be working!

The day ended with me and another intern spending one hour tearing up folders and folders of old accounts - the office doesn't have a shredder so we had to do the honours. My back was pretty sore by the end of it but at least we got it done.

This weekend I'll continue to proofread the book I've been given as I cannot concentrate in the office when I'm interrupted every 5 minutes! I have to figure out what to do about that...