So you want to work in publishing?
Well, if you love books, and want to work around books every day, there are so many
more different types of publishing jobs than you ever might have imagined.
So this is Book Break's guide to the massive range of different jobs you can do to work
in a publishing house.
And of course, there are even more different types of publishing jobs you can do outside
a publishing house, like being a bookseller or being a literary agent, but if you want
to work in an office like Pan Macmillan, here are just some of the things you could do.
So let's start with probably the most famous publishing department: editorial.
So outside of publishing, a lot of people kind of think that this is the entirety of
what publishers do.
And it's not, not by a long way.
But it is a very exciting and of course very important job.
So let's talk to some editors.
There are three main aspects to an editor's job. There's commissioning, so receiving manuscripts
from agents for consideration, and being part of the decision making process as to whether
or not to take them forward for publication.
There's editing, so working very closely with the writer to make the book the best possibly
version of itself.
And then there's publishing, working with all the other departments in house, to take
the book from a stack of paper on my desk to a finished book in the shops.
So being a good editor means understanding trends, knowing the gaps in the market, and
being able to see the potential in a manuscript even before it's in its final form.
It's a lot more than just knowing where the apostrophes go, though that is part of it
as well.
Most people enter editorial at the beginning, by working as an editorial assistant and working
either to assist a whole editorial team, or one or two editors in particular.
I came here as a Creative Access intern, and Creative Access are the greatest people in
the world, so they're a charity, and basically they half-fund internships with companies,
and they're specifically for people from a BAME background.
So they helped me get a foot in the door here, and I was publishing assistant, and then I
basically just didn't move.
So on to the next department: production.
So once the editors have got the manuscript exactly where they want it to be, and they
know that readers are going to love it, production are the people who turn it into an actual
book.
So the clue's in the name, basically we're the ones that produce the books.
Directly this means printing and shipping.
We're here to help you decide what format, what final specification you might want for
your product.
We can help you work through prototypes to make sure that it all technically works, and
we work really hard to make sure that we get you the very best costs.
So the production team are responsible for why you so love holding these books in your
hands.
Yes we make books, but we kind of do other stuff as well.
This is a product that would have gone through several rounds of prototyping to get it right,
just getting in blank copies.
And it's basically, we've just created a paper structure that looks like a truck!
Now the next department is quite closely linked, and that is design.
So the people in the design team design the book covers, and this is something that you
can do freelance, or you can work in the design team in a publishing house.
So as a designer at Campbell, we do novelty books.
I'm the designer who briefs the illustrator, and I have an idea of what I want in each
spread, but it's the illustrator who draws all the, the pretty characters and nice pictures
that we want.
So, for this one, My Magical Dragon, Yujin comes up with all her little characters, but
the first stage I would do would be like, we want a gate, and what's popping up.
And then that's the really exciting bit where you get files back, and you see what were
your little sketches come to life.
I also went and had a nosy around the adult design department and saw all the amazing
props that they actually make to design the book covers.
So cool.
Now a department that I had definitely never heard of before working in a publishing house
is the Brand team.
It is an unusual role.
It's really about bringing more focus to the most commercial authors that Pan Mac publishes.
So that's partly through extra kind of project management in house, and bringing teams together
across all the different departments in the business.
It's also offering a bit more author care and support for our authors, and listening
to their point of view.
And we also do a lot of work commissioning market research and bringing that information
into the business.
OK, next, moving on to rights.
So while all of that production side is going on, going back to when the manuscript is first
finished, the rights team negotiate other people's rights to that manuscript.
The main bit of our job is working with lots of foreign publishers across the world to
sell our books into translation.
But also in rights we do things like production requests, and serial, which is where I license
parts of our books to be excerpted in newspapers, or publications.
If you are interested in the world at large, and Europe, and what goes on in the world,
then I think that's also a really good place to start.
If you know your way around a contract, the rights team is the right place for you.
Now for another big one: sales.
They get our books out there, they sell our books to customers from small independent
bookshops in villages all around the country to big high street chains and supermarkets.
A big part of the job is going and actually talking about our books to retailers.
Other people in the company, it's their job to get the consumer to pick up the book.
Our concern is trying to get it into the store in the first place, so that people can pick
it up.
So they're enthusiastic, they're talking to people a lot, if you're a people person, the
sales team might be a great fit for you.
So I absolutely always loved books, but I also loved maths.
So for me, for sales, it was getting to use - and I also loved talking.
So like, talking, maths, and books, working in sales in publishing is perfect for me.
So now moving on to working in comms.
So comms is the department that I work within, but we will get to that in a minute, but overall
comms is responsible for making sure that the world knows about these books.
The thing I enjoy most about my job is that it's very creative, and I would say no day
is the same.
Every day is completely different.
One day I could be out filming an author, next day I could be working with designers
on a new advertising creative.
What I love most is that comms works with all the different teams across the whole of
publishing, in a really creative and fun way.
I think if you're looking to enter publishing now, come in with fresh ideas, new energy,
show off what you have to offer.
So this is all about getting the world excited about these books, identifying the perfect
reader for each book, and then making sure they hear about it.
As a communications executive, I do marketing and publicity.
I think comms is the best department to work in because you get really close contact with
the authors and then in children's case as well the illustrators.
So you have a really good sense of them as people and what they want their book to be,
so you have good insight into the making of the book, and also into what consumers are
looking for, and what readers like.
Now within comms, you'll find the team that I work on, and that is the digital team.
And my job sits within that, I am the creative producer of Book Break.
Working in the digital team means that we spend a lot of time thinking about our consumers
and their daily activities, and how we can remind them that they love to read.
The digital team consists of people who work on content for the blog, people who make videos
like you Emma, social media, email marketing, and the metadata team.
The best part about working in the digital team is definitely that you get to be creative,
you can try different and new things, and people are always coming to me with ideas.
We can't always do them, but it's nice to have that positive spirit.
And finally, there are the people that make our building run, who we really would not
be able to function without.
So a typical day at reception involves all the things you'd expect from reception, so
greeting visitors, answering the phone, we have to have quite a good overview of everything
that's happening and know who does what in the company.
I think my favourite thing about here is the books, and being surrounded by people who
are obviously really obsessed with books, and really enthusiastic about them.
So that gives you an idea of the massive range of different types of jobs, and more are being
created every day as publishing is constantly changing and evolving.
Mine definitely didn't exist when I first was looking for jobs when I graduated.
So it's a really exciting industry to work in, and definitely do leave any comments you
have below.
And of course, give this video a thumbs up if you found it helpful, and hit that subscribe
button below for new videos every Thursday.
Coming up next week, we're throwing our annual Pride party, so do check back in to watch
that one.
And in the meantime you can head over to Instagram, @bookbreakuk, and follow us there for fun,
behind the scenes content.
See you next time.