♪ Can we go back to the place where we started ♪
♪ Let's do it all again ♪
♪ From where you found me all alone in the darkness ♪
♪ And said it wasn't the end ♪
♪ Can we go back to the place where we started ♪
♪ Let's do it all again ♪
♪ As if I never felt broken hearted ♪
♪ Cause I was different then ♪
- Hello everyone, my name is Jack Edwards
and welcome back to my YouTube channel.
For me this feels like a very full circle moment
because on this channel you've seen me
graduate from university,
have a bit of an existential crisis,
apply for so many jobs,
and get rejected from so many jobs,
and now I finally found employment
in a job that I absolutely love.
I'm currently working as a research assistant
on a book in the publishing industry,
and so today I wanted to show you
what a day in my life looks like
working in that role.
- [Broadcaster] On tonight's program
ladies and gentlemen, we have something
that's gonna make ya sick.
(lo-fi music)
- Okay, so, I don't know if anyone is interested,
but this is what I'm wearing to work today.
This Argyle sweater gives me research assistant energy,
whatever that means.
And I'm also wearing some comfy wide leg black trousers.
Not that it matters that much
because my colleagues only ever see
this part of me on Zoom.
I could just be wearing a glittery thong
on my lower half for all that it matters.
Not that I own one of those.
So today is Monday, which means
I've got a 9:00 AM meeting with the whole team.
We basically do a Monday morning debrief
so that we can kickstart the week,
know what everyone is up to,
and how we can assist each other.
I'm gonna head to the office,
and by the office, I mean the desk next to my bed
because it's 2021, baby.
So this week I'm working on
fleshing out the new concept for the book
and seeing where it fits into the self-help canon,
so really trying to identify our niche.
I'm also looking back at the previous proposal
that we did have to see what kind of evidence
and research I can extract from that
that's still relevant even though
we've sort of changed course a little bit.
Yeah, I've got a lot of reading to get done,
so that'll keep me busy.
Cool, talk to you soon.
Success, I really like the team, it's such a shame
that we haven't got to actually meet in person yet.
But yeah, doing these whole team meetings
and occasionally we have like, socials,
it just makes us all feel a bit more connected
and part of a team, I suppose.
And that's what I was really looking for
with a job like this, is to work within a team.
Now that the meeting is all done,
I'm gonna kickstart my week
with something relatively straightforward.
So I basically have a few Zoom interviews
that I need to transcribe and make notes on.
So I thought that would be quite a nice way
to start the week.
So let's go do that!
♪ Summer nights when I feel so lazy ♪
♪ Sipping wine but I'm not too crazy ♪
♪ Would it be different if I told you that ♪
♪ I never wanna leavе this moment ♪
Okay, so it's my morning break now,
and I'm going to make myself an iced coffee.
The trick is two teaspoons of coffee,
one teaspoon of sugar,
then four tablespoons of boiling water.
Pop a lid on here and shake it up to make it foamy.
Add your ice, ice baby,
and then add some milk.
Can you hear the sirens in the background?
That's because this is so good it should be criminal.
Cheers!
And let's use this opportunity to about our sponsor,
which is BBC Sounds.
I'm so buzzing about this.
I frickin' love BBC Sounds,
I'm gonna stop aggressively waving my biscuit at you.
It is the place to go to to find exciting
and diverse music mixes, BBC radio, and podcasts.
And my go-to podcast recently
has been 'Grounded' with Louis Theroux,
he has the most amazing guests.
And I feel like he's such a good host,
cause he really brings out the best in people
and has really thought-provoking discussions.
Specific episodes I would recommend to you
would be the episode with the Helena Bonham Carter,
oh my God, they went to the same school,
how mad is that?
Jon Ronson, who is my favorite nonfiction author,
and Michaela Coel who wrote "I May Destroy You"
and also starred in it, and it's just incredible.
Those episodes are so, so fascinating.
I guess you could say that Louie's podcast
is getting me Theroux this isolation period.
Am I right?
And best believe anytime I'm walking anywhere,
tidying my flat, having a coffee break like this,
I'm listening to a podcast.
Also in the least tragic way possible,
during this lockdown I'm living alone.
I know, world's smallest violin.
Because I'm on my own, I feel like
I've been a particularly enjoying chatty podcasts
where you just feel like
you're in the room with people, it's so cozy.
And I've also been hosting my own little podcast club
on my Instagram stories where I'm recommending
a different episode each week.
And it's just my favorite thing to do ever.
So the link to download BBC Sounds
will be in my crotch, down below.
Go check it out.
Thank you, BBC Sounds, I love ya.
So I've been working my way
through a book called "Grit,"
which is by Angela Duckworth.
And it's basically about passion and perseverance
and how talent is like a base layer for success,
but then you need hard work to actually achieve goals.
So I finished reading that, what I do
is I type up a kind of summary, chapter by chapter,
so that the team that I work for
don't have to read the book,
they can just see a quick kind of summary
of what each chapter says,
so I put in all of the key anecdotes,
the key takeaways, the key ideas.
And then I'll also have a Quote Bank,
so anything that's like a quote or idea
that we might want to reference or cite,
I'll put them into a separate document
with page numbers so that it can all be tracked.
Just to make sure we're crediting other people's work,
and my next book is this one.
This is called "The Happiness Advantage"
and it's by Shawn Achor.
I listened to this guy's Tedtalk,
and it was really interesting,
so I think this could be a quite helpful book to read.
And yeah, working a job where I have to do research
and read loads of books is doing wonders
for my Goodreads Reading Challenge this year.
'Cause I'm getting through these babies
like there's no tomorrow.
(chuckles)
So then we just repeat the process
for the next one and the next one and the next one.
Also, if you are doing research in any capacity,
so whether that's for a job, for school,
for an essay, anything like that -
Use the bibliography,
use the sources that these people cite,
because they've done loads of research,
and then they shared a bibliography.
For example, like, there.
At the back of the book,
you'll have all of the different sources
that they used, and often you find something
that is so valuable in there
that doesn't come up when you Google
or you haven't spotted before.
So I find that very useful,
the bibliography just unlocks so much more
♪ Those winter days where it's cold outside ♪
♪ But I'll be warm, I'll be safe from the lies ♪
♪ They hear the rumours and expect a high price ♪
♪ I'm seeing through it all, I'm lost in your eyes ♪
I've been kind of working on jazzing up
this little corner of my room.
This mirror is very cool,
maybe even too cool for me, actually.
It's kind of like asymmetric,
you know when when there was that meme
about RuPaul being like,
"I don't wanna see any H&M."
Yeah, when I saw that on Twitter,
I had literally just pressed checkout
on the H&M website for this.
So that made me feel fantastic.
So I realized that I haven't actually properly explained
what it is that I do.
Should this have been at the beginning of the video?
Yes, probably.
But you know what, what's done is done
and what's dumb is dumb.
Essentially, there is an author who is an expert
in that field and is therefore writing a self-help book
to help other people become masters
in this area of expertise.
But equally, they are a professional and a very busy person,
and the process of writing a self-help book
requires a lot of research
because you have to back up every claim you make,
you need empirical evidence, you need case studies,
you need a really diverse range of sources.
That research is a huge undertaking,
and so that is where I come in.
I'm working as a researcher on this book.
So I go digging for case studies and journal articles
and books, which will help the author
make the point that they are trying to make.
So I'm constantly trying to think
of all the different audiences who might read this book
and how we can apply these theories to them
and evidence that we can find that backs up
that this actually works.
So one job of mine is just finding all of the articles
and all of the sources that we need to investigate.
And the second kind of follow-on job from that
is to go through the articles and basically work out
what is worth the author's time.
So I make notes, I write little summaries,
I keep these big research banks
so that everything is searchable.
So we can just type in a keyword
and we can find all of our resources
and research on motivation, for example.
So just as an example,
this is a kind of template research log that I made,
just so that I can keep track of everything
that I'm searching and knowing where it came from.
This is also what I used to do
when I was at university and wrote essays.
So basically you have the name of the text,
the quotes or idea that you're using,
this section does say Pp.,
but what it means is like, page number.
Then here is where I would put the citation information,
every publishing house has a different house style
of how they do this, so I just need to make sure
I'm doing that right.
Also, every single publisher will also have
their own house style in terms
of grammar and punctuation.
So, you know, things like,
whether they use the Oxford comma,
which words they capitalize,
so much goes on behind the scenes
that you wouldn't even consider
when you just sit and read the book.
I think the vibe is just so that everything
that one publishing house produces
is all one sort of house style,
it all kind of is cohesive, but yeah,
that's an editor's job, not mine.
And then the final section says 'notes,'
and this is where I add keywords,
so I can search for them later,
and also, you know, ideas that come off of reading
this particular quote or idea.
And that final section encourages me
to constantly be thinking analytically
and critically rather than just kind of
taking everything in as absolute fact.
And basically, I'm streamlining the process
so the author can do what they do best,
and that is write the book.
So then the subsequent kind of other aspects
of the job is the fact that
because I'm doing all of this research,
I've become a really good person
for the author to sort of bounce ideas off of,
because I've also done the digging
to understand the counter arguments
and the case studies that back it up.
So we chat regularly about all the different ideas.
And at the moment, in this really early stage
of the book where the author is writing up his proposal,
we're trying to really nail and refine the concept
so that it's something that no one else
has ever written before, and it's better
than anything else that has been written before.
That's the idea.
So I'm checking to make sure everything
that we write is original,
like no one's used to those sources before,
they're up to date and modern,
and also that all of the citations are correct,
so that when the author references this research
that I'm doing, it's crediting the right people
and not plagiarizing.
What I'm realizing is that self-help books
are a real blend of fact and philosophy.
So you need to have the concrete evidence
to back up your philosophical observations.
And also there's a lot of thinking involved,
so we have done some soul searching,
last week, we were talking about the meaning of life.
That was kind of intense, kind of breaking down
what even is the purpose of this life.
So it keeps me busy and I'm learning so much,
both about the publishing industry
and how these books go from idea and concept
to published article of information.
And also every time I read an article,
I'm obviously taking that information in
and I'm learning loads.
So it's all good fun, to be honest,
I'm having a nice time.
So right now, well, firstly,
I'm wrapped in a blanket because it is Baltic!
It is so cold in London today,
and it's just like, wet and windy and gross.
I cannot wait for more daylight hours, more sunshine.
I feel like the weather has never really
affected my mood until like this year.
But I'm feeling it, I'm feeling it.
Anyway, what was I saying?
What I was gonna say is, I've now got a meeting
with the author and we're going to discuss title ideas
and just the overall concept of the book, really.
So I've written down a list of like,
45 ideas for potential titles.
It's so hard because you want to nail the title.
Especially in this genre, like self-help books,
I feel like the title really makes or breaks the book.
So I spent quite a lot of time thinking about
and looking up idioms and sayings and phrases
and metaphors and you know, synonyms even.
And just had a big fat brainstorm.
And so I think it would be good to discuss,
I am gonna take the blanket off, cause I am -
A professional.
Don't know if you could tell.
We just put that there.
Also, controversial opinion,
but I low-key really enjoy Zoom calls,
because I love getting to see
other people's houses in the background.
Because I'm nosy!
You can bet if you've got a bookshelf
in your Zoom background,
I am not paying attention to a word you are saying.
I'm reading the book titles on your bookshelf.
So yeah, that meeting is - well, now.
So I'm gonna go!
Meeting is all wrapped up,
I'll drink to that.
Should we talk about how good mango juice is?
Are we ready to have that conversation?
I thought it might be interesting
to quickly touch on like, payment
and basically like, how my employment kind of works.
I am essentially working freelance
because even though this book
is going to be published by a major publisher,
I don't work for the publishing house,
I'll be kind of working with them.
And so that basically means
I'm working with this specific author
on this specific project for this specific book,
versus working in-house at the publisher,
so I work for them and they would just assign me
different projects to work on.
So the payment is what's called a pro-rata,
so basically if you imagine like,
a full time salary, I get a proportion of the salary
based on how many hours I actually worked.
So I essentially have a time sheet,
and then I quote for the amount of time that I work.
To put it like, numerically,
if the salary was 20,000 pounds for 40 hours a week,
if you worked 30 hours a week instead,
then you'd get 15,000 pounds.
Do you see what I mean?
I hope that makes sense, I also hope that maths is right,
because English student over here,
maths was not my strong point.
I did actually retake my Maths GCSE.
But we don't need to talk about that,
I just wanted to point out like how the payment
kind of works for a job like this.
Just in case any of you are interested,
the publishing industry is very cool
and there's so much range,
so many different things you can do.
It's the versatility for me.
We use Notion for pretty much everything at work,
but there's very little I can actually show you on here.
And I've never used Notion before,
but I'm actually really enjoying using it,
it's quite a cool way of organizing everything
and keeping track of everything,
all in one central hub that we can all access.
I'm not gonna lie, I am a massive tech grandad,
and I just couldn't get to grips with it at first.
But I think, I think I've cracked it.
Instead, I thought we could do a desk tour.
So hello, MTV and welcome to my home office,
AKA, this corner desk.
I get so many questions about this,
this is part of the Bronx range at Next Home.
So I have my laptop, this little sign
that says 'Work hard and be nice to people,'
which I think is a good mantra for life.
This whiteboard, I find it so useful
because I can kind of just brain dump
and brainstorm and mind map things
that don't need to be neat
because I can just wipe them away afterwards,
and it really helps me focus.
What is this back here?
Oh my God, this is my gym log.
I bought this with the intention
of turning my life around and getting fit,
but then gym's closed the next day.
So, it wasn't meant to be.
Oh, see ya. (laughs)
I have a giant paperclip, a lamp,
and the remnants of an iced coffee.
Did someone say interior design?
A bunch of pens and pencils, and then my Mac,
which I use for editing YouTube videos.
Some ornaments, notice the cocktail mixer.
That is not something I necessarily do at work.
A bunch of books, my YouTube 100,000 Subscriber plaque,
which is still crazy to me.
And some houseplants, I'm not gonna lie,
my room is kind of a house plant graveyard right now
because I left my plants over Christmas
and they're not doing so well, okay.
So I'm trying to revive them at the moment.
Also, I have this vanilla candle
because I felt like it's very adulty
to have a candle burning.
However, I think the smell is sort of
putting me to sleep, so,
I might blow that out, you know.
Another bunch of books,
and then my camera equipment up there.
More rotting carcasses,
stationary storage,
and then a bunch of self-help books
that I'm either reading for work or for a YouTube video
that I'm working on at the moment.
And that my friends, is the desk of dreams.
Okay, so, work for the day is done.
Why do I look like I'm about to judge for the X-Factor?
I look like I'm about to tell you
that you through to bootcamp.
That was not the plan for this clip,
the plan was to show you this.
This is something - oh.
This is something that I bought
for myself the other day, and it's a puzzle,
but all of the pictures are iconic book covers.
And I'm so excited, it's a thousand pieces.
So this is going to keep me bus-ay.
I think this is the best way I've ever invested my money.
You know, sometimes I'm actually a parody of myself
and it's kind of worrying.
That's a lot of pieces.
Yeah, this might be harder than I first thought.
But you know what, lockdown is happening,
we're in this for the long run,
and this is my life now.
And of course, doing my puzzle, perfect time
to listen to a BBC Sounds podcast.
So, Louis Theroux, I'm coming your way, my friend.
For dinner this evening, I am going to be cooking up
the famous TikTok pasta.
Because I love pasta and I love TikToks,
so what could possibly go wrong?
Actually, I'll tell you what could possibly go wrong,
the fact that I'm not following a recipe,
I'm just very boldly assuming
that I will remember the TikTok
that I watched four days ago,
But if this pasta makes me dance like Charli D'Amelio,
then it will have been worth it.
I'm pretty sure you add Feta and cherry tomatoes
to a baking tray, season, and add olive oil,
and then you just chuck it in the oven,
and this, basically, is then mashed up
and used as your sauce for your pasta.
Nothing gets past-a me, am I right?
Well, we'll find out if I'm right.
Wait a damn minute, that looks kind of edible.
Okay, I added some bacon and two extra tomatoes,
and wow-ee!
Okay, here goes.
Whoa!
Wow!
Why has TikTok taught me more than my actual degree?
All I'm saying is if you catch me
on your For You page doing the Renegade,
you know why.
I think this will morph me into Addison Rae.
And now for some pudding.
I bought these this morning,
and if you haven't tried these yet, from Aldi,
these will change your whole life.
So these are fizzy pineapple
and these are tangy watermelon.
Yes, they are sweets, yes, I am a 22 year old man.
But I have got these sweetest tooth, and these are just-
(kiss) Chef's kiss.
Oh, heavenly.
Mmh!
I think I might've actually regressed,
because while I eat my sweets,
I'm going to play some Animal Crossing,
like the fully functioning adult that I am.
Seriously though, I haven't played this game
in literal months, and then all of a sudden,
just as my schedule got really busy,
my brain was like,
"I wonder how my animal crossing villages are?"
I made a little library in the game
and I genuinely think it's the biggest thing
I've accomplished since like, March last year.
Do you know what would make living alone
a whole lot easier, would be if my boiler
didn't make random spluttering noises every 25 minutes.
Because every time, it scares the (blank) out of me.
I just started a new job, like,
I am too busy to be murdered right now.
This evening, I'm going to crack on with some editing,
this is looking cozy as hell.
Also this light, 10 pounds from Amazon, you're welcome.
And now I'm going to read my book,
this is "Think Like a Monk" by Jay Shetty,
I've heard very mixed reviews about this,
so quite intrigued to get started,
But thank you so, so much for watching this video.
Thank you so much for watching it all the way through.
I hope that you enjoyed this kind of
insight into one of many roles
in the publishing industry, and there are so many
other really, really fascinating jobs
that you can do within this industry.
So definitely look it up if you are interested.
Of course, an absolutely huge shout-out
to BBC Sounds for sponsoring this video
and making it happen, I appreciate it so much,
and it's an absolute privilege to get to
promote an app that I use every day anyway.
If you're new around here,
make sure you subscribe down below
and you can give this video a like
if you liked it, if you like.
I'm gonna read my book and then head to bed
because I got work again tomorrow, so,
cycle begins all over again.
Love you loads and loads,
I'll be back very soon with a brand new video,
and in the meantime, have a lovely time!
Bye!
(lo-fi music)
- [Male Voice] In case, I don't see ya.
Good afternoon, good evening, and good night.