this interview is from an expert sales executive from osborne publishing which is an independent
kids publisher in the uk here is laura to tell you more i hope you found it useful and enjoy
hi my name is laura i'm an export sales executive at osborne publishing
i'm an independent children's publisher in the uk
so in export sales we sell english language editions
into international markets so these are often the exact same books that the uk
are selling into their market i specifically work on selling our books into africa south africa
india pakistan and sri lanka listen can include working from major distributors to individual book
sellers i also look after the general marketing for our departments my day-to-day can include
answering customer queries processing orders to go out from the uk warehouse adding larger orders
to print runs to go directly from our printer to our major distributors warehouses invoicing
working on marketing campaigns this can include coordinating with other marketing teams around the
company briefing our production design team um for marketing materials and organizing the printing
and distribution of those i'm very lucky that no day is ever the same often working with different
customers different internal teams and also on different books which keeps things interesting
i studied english literature at university and whilst there i did two internships one in the
marketing and publicity department at walker books and another in the editorial department at viking
which is an imprint at penguin random house after university i then did an internship and
ebook publisher called endeavour press when the internship finished i successfully pitched myself
to them as a freelance marketing assistant so i could get some more experience while also working
a part-time job to support myself i did that for around four months before i was lucky enough to
get my job at osborne as export sales assistant and i was promoted to executive last year
my meetings can be quite varied which makes them interesting
sometimes these are meetings with customers over zoomed to discuss their orders and accounts and
sometimes we're lucky enough to meet them in person at international book fairs or on sales
trips other times it's team meetings with the export department where we get to hear about
what's going on in everyone's markets how they're going how we can collaborate and then because i
look after general marketing in our department i often get to go to global marketing meetings
feed into them make sure we're working with a global approach and report back to our team
learned about the publishing industry that it's so big before working in a publisher i didn't
realize how many teams go into producing one book and obviously the author will
write the book it will go to an agent then to editorial and then loads of teams work on it so
production marketing and publicity accounts uk sales export sales foreign additions rights and so
many more it definitely takes an army to produce just one book before it even hits the bookshelves
and also how varied the publishing industry is if you're doing the same role at a big five publisher
compared to an independent publisher your role will be very different and that's the same for if
you're working in an adult publisher rather than a children's publisher and it can be so varied
so although i know all of those teams exist and interact with them on a day-to-day basis i don't
know the ins and outs of their roles and how they work which is one of the great things about the
publishing industry that you all interact together but also not only do people move upwards but they
can also move across so you can experience working in different teams throughout your career
so in 2019 i was lucky enough to travel to south africa to visit our distributor um over there it's
very surreal to be there and think that this is actually part of my job and i got to see a
beautiful country and visit our distributors who are lovely they also took us to see our books in
south african books stores which is just a really proud moment definitely a highlight in my career
just before i got my role at osborne i went to um yalk which is the young adult literature
convention they have an agent's corner where they give talks to publishing hopefuls one of the talks
was called publishing 101 and they suggested that you go around the fair with a notepad and
write down every single children's publisher that we're exhibiting at the fair get home
bookmark them and check for jobs every single day which is what i did and then
i then got my job at osborne so i would suggest that publishing hopefuls do that
so i believe that everyone should have a comfort read and mine happens to be
anna and the french kiss by stephanie perkins which is one of the most exciting
things that starting at osborne because they are the uk publisher of that book
i read it at least once a year without fail and it's one of those books that if i've read
a really scary book or a thriller i will read a chapter of that before bed so i can sleep