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...

My first paid job in publishing

The day kicked off by processing lots of London Book Fair e-mails which had been sent overnight from around the world. I confirmed a couple but was mostly trying to fit in others like an advanced-level jigsaw puzzle!

We were then asked to meet to update the Director about our progress on organising the Office Move (which reminds me that I still need to type up those minutes). We're considering using VOIP instead of paying BT for our phone calls but we still want a BT line for the broadband so there's a lot to sort out.

The evening before I had proofread several pages of the vegetarian cookbook and I showed them to the Editorial Director who wanted to check how I was doing it. She seemed pleased with what I'd done so far but also asked me to check on some layout and image issues that may come up, as well as to write a 'general notes' sheet with information for the next person who would be taking in the changes to the document. I had had a thought the evening before about the cookbook. I plucked up enough courage to make my suggestion and see what she thought about it. I am vegan and quite a few recipes I find tend to be on vegetarian websites or in veggie cookbooks which are marked up as vegan. This particular cookbook however didn't mention at all whether the recipes were also vegan or not! I found this strange as it's kind of a standard thing to do but also it would widen their audience so that (if enough recipes were vegan, I have to check..) vegans could buy the cookbook for themselves too. Or relatives and friends may notice the vegan comment and think, "Ah, I should buy this for my niece Jane, she's vegan!" The Editorial Director said that she didn't really know what vegan meant but if she could leave it to me to mark up the vegan recipes and add a note to the general notes sheet, she can discuss it (if there are enough recipes to warrant it). I feel so proud of myself for a) voicing my own opinion and b) furthering the vegan cause!

Just before lunch, the Director asked if she could talk to me in private. My internship was due to finish next Wednesday so I thought she'd be giving me an assessment or hopefully asking me to stay! Indeed, it was the latter! She said she'd like to offer me a 6-week temping contract as a freelancer (for a very minimal amount, no holidays, no sick pays etc). I was flattered to have been asked and very happy to be offered a paid job within publishing - my first! It's a huge step for me. However I was really worried about money so I phoned my father who is an accountant to check on taxes and NI. I'll have to pay taxes but not as much as I thought however it still won't be enough wages to cover my rent, bills, transport and food (and food for my cat!). At least I still have a bit of redundancy money left to subsidise my living costs for a bit.

The afternoon started off rather mundane as I was asked to send out presentations to a couple of publishers - these are high quality A3 print outs of the layout/spreads, jacket covers and an A4 synopsis of the book. Except that there were so many options that I messed one up regarding the page scaling and had to re-do it all which the Director was understandably not happy about! In my defence, no one had actually shown me what to do.. but I could've checked.

I then made a non-refundable booking for a hotel during the Frankfurt Book Fair in October on her credit card. About an hour was wasted trying to print a 33-page PDF document which kept crashing my computer and my colleague's, when I tried it on hers. It worked on the 3rd colleague's computer though.

Towards the end of the day I was asked to draft 2 contracts which I'd never done before. I located the template and the COR (confirmed order report) and filled out the blanks as best I could with names, dates and payment terms then asked my colleague for help with the rest. It took a while as we discovered the template was wrong so I had to change the 2 contracts and the template as well. Then at the end of the day my computer crashed for another half hour so in the end I just left it and went home 20 minutes late.

Still, a good day overall ;) I feel very proud of my first paid job in publishing.

This does lead to the question though whether I should continue to blog once my internship is over.. would you like to read more about my daily tasks in this role? Thank you, also, for the 350 hits I now have on this blog! Spread the word :)

The woes of a malfunctioning printer

Yesterday I was asked to proofread the new vegetarian cookbook which is going to be published soon. Unfortunately I do not have InDesign on my laptop so I came in early this morning to print it on my colleague's computer. Except it wouldn't print. Whilst opening the file I was getting all sorts of error messages about missing links, fonts not being uploaded and plug in errors. I figured out how to print it but then the printer stopped working and restarted itself. 40 minutes later my colleague had arrived and I gave up, hoping someone could help me later.

Instead I sent out some more invitations to the London Book Fair, this time to Brazil, the UK, Australia and the US. The Book Fair is open from 9am - 6pm and each appointment lasts half an hour and runs back to back leaving no break for the attendant, not even for lunch! I don't know how they survive..

I returned back to the production room mid-morning to try and finish off the stock check of all of the production copies so we could empty out the room for storage and start getting rid of furniture for the office move. "Production room" sounds fancier than it really is; it's a meeting room with bookcases against the walls. There can be several versions of 1 book depending on the publisher and the print run and hardback or paperback. This is what I had to sort through and check against the inventory list.

Just before lunch I was asked to update the pending business deals, going through e-mails to find out whether any books had been rejected by other publishers - this means that they don't want to join our print run and publish a book in their own name.

In the afternoon I worked on the office move, trying (and failing) to persuade the current tenants of the new property to allow a BT technician in a week early to transfer the lines over so we'd have internet when we move in (it takes 7-10 days for BT to do this..). The move is planned for Easter Weekend which is just before the London Book Fair so it's not optimal to be without internet during that period!

I then started proofreading (after the Editorial Director converted the .indd files into .pdf so I could print the documents!). The printer crashed and restarted about 4 times today, frustrating the entire office. I've brought some proofreading home with me tonight to do as well so that I can finish it quickly. It's 10pm now so I'd better get cracking!

Vegetarian proofreading

This morning my MacBook had been given to another intern because it has QuarkXpress and Indesign on it which she would be needing and I wouldn't apparently! This is not a good sign.. So I spent about 4 hours today saving all of my e-mails onto the server then saving them into my new laptop as each e-mail address is computer-specific; you can't use your account on a different computer. It felt like such a waste of time because my internship is due to end next Wednesday and I have so much to do! But I bit my tongue and did my duty.

I was getting bored of dragging the e-mail folders over so after an hour or so I took a break and went downstairs into the production room to continue doing the stock check and packing away extra copies of each print for storage before we move office.

Then I had to check with the current tenants of our new property who their service provider was for phone and internet and check if they were keeping their number etc.

I also had to phone First Great Western Trains because we discovered that a receipt was missing whilst doing the weekly credit card expenses so I was trying to get them to re-send the e-mail confirmation for the booking. Unfortunately we had no record of a) who made the booking, b) which account was used and c) what the booking confirmation code was. The first guy in customer services was clueless how to help us but the second one was much more helpful and we figured it out together.

The new intern was still working on making the changes to the layouts in QuarkXpress (the project which had been taken from me) and I suddenly remembered that I'd been asked to proofread one of the chapters and keep it for later, which I had done. I asked the Editorial Director if perhaps the new intern should take in the proofreading mark ups and she flicked through what I'd done briefly and said that it was a good idea. I was so pleased, hoping that I'd redeemed myself slightly after the disappointment of yesterday!

At around 3pm I was asked to join the Director, Editorial Director and Designer as well as 2 other colleagues for the production meeting. They ran through a spreadsheet of all live books (ie about to be published), getting the latest news on if the other publishers had paid their invoices (they spread the payment into 3 throughout the publishing process), if the printers were meeting the deadlines, if the contracts were ready, if we'd secured another co-publisher for a foreign print of the book and so on. It was sort of interesting to listen to but I must admit that this side of publishing really doesn't appeal to me.. The 2nd book project which I'd been told at the beginning that I was to work on (but hadn't yet been given any work for) was given away to the new intern. Just as I was feeling thoroughly disheartened, the Editorial Director said that she'd like me to work on a vegetarian book that they're publishing! She wanted me to check the number of recipes as there was a discrepancy as well as to proofread the entire book! I was so happy as this is what I really enjoy doing. I'm certainly going to do my best and even work from home in the evenings if this is what it takes to finish it in time!

Tomorrow is another day

Today was the toughest day so far. It started off with the Editorial Director asking me about my progress on making the amendments to the modern art text, to which I replied that I'd completed chapters 1 and 2 but that I had been asked to prioritise other tasks over it by the Director. I was then told that as unfortunately the deadline is Tuesday (tomorrow) evening, which I didn't know about, that she'd be passing this project on to a new intern. I am really kicking myself for not answering that I could manage to finish it in time. I hadn't even had a chance to look through the remaining chapters to estimate how long the amendments would take. I'd been working late 3/5 days a week and working through a couple of lunch breaks too. However the fact remains that the only editorial task I'd been given was now being taken away from me. I felt like such a failure. I want to work as an Editorial Assistant; the current role is entitled Editorial & Rights Intern but in fact 90% of my workload comes from the Director and is either sales work or sorting out the impending office move. It feels more like my old PA job, a "career" which I am desperately trying to leave behind. We had a handover meeting where I explained what I'd done and what needed to be done and then the intern set to work. She kept asking me lots of questions which is understandable but as it turns out, there wasn't actually that much left to do. With the time it took for the handover meeting and with her questions, I could've done it myself. Annoying.

So I am feeling sad because a) I lost out on doing the interesting work, b) the Editorial Director has lost faith in me/my ability, c) I made a mistake not saying that I could do it before the deadline and give it a shot. I should have just tried, rather than be honest and replying that I didn't know whether I could finish it in time. I did offer to talk to the Director and ask which of my tasks were top priority but the Editorial Director didn't give me a chance.

The rest of the day was fairly miserable and stressed because the Director kept finding new things for us all to do. My colleague even commented in exasperation that she didn't know where to start with her workload.

I arranged some more London Book Fair appointments, checked the furniture inventory list for what we were keeping or getting rid of, and I went into the production room where there are copies of each print of each book, and I had to take one of each and put the rest into storage as well as label them and do a stock check. I haven't finished this task yet, I can tell it's going to take a while.

Tomorrow is another day, as they say.

Another week over!

Photo: View from my desk

Friday.. Halfway through my internship. I've been given a lot more responsibility than I thought I would be which I'm grateful for. I thought that I would be observing mostly and doing menial tasks - which I am, however I'm also responsible for more interesting work too.

I got in early today, partly to do the editorial job I'd been given and also because I had to pick up a delivery from the post office before work. I was looking forward to peace and quiet before the others arrived (working hours are 9.30am - 5.30pm although the Director tends to arrive between 9.45 - 10.30am). Of course, this morning, she arrives at 9.15am!! Fortunately I'm left alone so I finish 2 chapter amendments before continuing to arrange more London Book Fair appointments. It's a slow process because I was given the customers in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada to liaise with so the time difference makes for very slow e-mail conversations!

The Director mentioned the Bologna Book Fair to me, which is focused on children's books. She may be attending so I need to start informing myself about this one too.

I continued to work on the furniture spreadsheet for the office move and wrote an ad for the desks which we're selling. I managed to finish contacting all of the German customers with pending deals! Then I was told that next week I'd be working on pending deals in Brazil, Portugual, Spain, Italy and Greece. *gulp* I was feeling pretty tired by mid-afternoon after a long week so I prepared my weekly To Do list for Monday morning as it didn't need much brain power. I also worked out that I'd made about 40 cups of tea for the office this week! Ah, the life of an intern.