Last night a speed date saved my . . . career

Posted on February 29, 2012 in Uncategorized

Buzzing, full of publishing folk and gin and tonics, The Phoenix Arts Club was a merry place to be last Tuesday. A few days after the dreaded V-day we held a not so romantic “Speed Dating” session, not to find love, but to mingle with professionals across the industry. We had a table for Literary Agents, Recruitment, Digital, Marketing, Rights, Sales, Publicity and Editorial. This was a unique chance to talk with professionals on an intimate level about their sector, to network with them and gain an insider’s perspective. This perspective was all within a few minutes, of course, as in keeping with the “Speed Dating” theme, so everyone got a chance to visit each table, even if they thought they were only interested in Editorial, for example. Some of our attendees openly admitted when they got to a table that they didn’t know anything about that particular sector and that they weren’t really that interested. However, these were the ones that came away from the evening learning the most.

Our agents’ table was one where I know our attendees learnt a lot, eyes were indeed opened. The agent’s job is pretty mysterious to people that are new to publishing, so it was exciting to hear their role intimately explained and questioned. They talked about how they find and sell talent, have vital relationships with publishers and how a lot of their job is to do with the legal side of the business. Most people who work in publishing have a novel on the go right? Well I do, and I know a good few of us who are writers, so it wasn’t any surprise when our attendees asked these guys how they could get an agent, or if anyone from the slush pile ever gets published. The answers to these questions were pretty clear and resolute: it is hard to get an agent, you have to be very good, know people and it is very rare that a manuscript will be found and published from the slush pile.

Next door, the ravishing publishing recruitment ladies awed us with their smiles and gave sound advice about how to get a job in publishing. Work experience was a main topic throughout the evening with each sector but more so, quite obviously, with the recruitment ladies. One piece of advice which I must share is that they suggest putting any work experience you’ve done above your degree on your CV, so work experience comes first, showing its massive importance in this industry. They all agreed that prolonged free internships weren’t good for anyone (we’re talking months here) but short placements, for less than six months, are a must. It is also very important to take complete advantage of these placements and gain as much experience, office/admin skills as possible. Another gem from the recruitment ladies: create a skeleton CV which allows you to cater your CV towards specific jobs easily. It takes hard work and perseverance but you will get there, trust me.

Now, we get onto the marketing table, this was in the middle of the room. We event organisers at the SYP wanted as much variety as possible, we wanted professionals from publishers’ big and small, fiction and non-fiction and this is what made such a fab evening. What I became aware of when talking to our marketing professionals is that everything is interlinked within publishing and if you get into a good enough position, you can be involved in marketing, editorial, production and digital all at once. A lot of our conversation consisted of discussing the digital realm: blogging, e-Newsletters and social networking. Talking to our attendees, we all seem pretty well-equipped with the digital side of things. The industry is moving and changing so quickly that you need to be in-the-know about what’s going on, what positions there are and how they all work/effect each other. It is very exciting that we all love digital and e-books etc, but one thing is for certain, and was agreed at the marketing table, is that there is still room for old-school beautiful books and print campaigns.

Let’s continue this line of thought by discussing our digital professional table, which I personally found really interesting. Digital is such a fast-moving, new sector of the industry and these guys were semi-famous from Twitter and had a lot to say, most of which was under the realm of the unknown. The acronyms HTML and CSS were thrown about, both of which I am desperate to get to grips with. It came to light that all of our digital professionals had started off in IT and they say that is best if you want to get into the digital sector. You have to be a computer brain-box and I have admiration for anyone who can do HTML, you are fabulous. Please teach me.

When I was at the publicity girl’s table I had the unusual pleasure of meeting one of our attendees who is a publicist, in fiction, but wants to get into non-fiction. It is known that fiction is the most popular area of publishing that people want to get into, so it was delightfully refreshing. We had a wonderful conversation about the advantages and disadvantages of working with fiction and non-fiction as our publicists have experience with both. All agreed around the table that, as a publicist, non-fiction was best to work with, mainly because you can do so much more with it and in a way it is easier to work with. This brings us onto another theme that propped up a lot in the evening: flexibility. You have to have flexibility and not always go for the norm – look at different aspects of publishing that you think you could be interested in.

Both the rights and sales tables talked about the necessity to be flexible and also to be diverse in your qualifications. Another language will set you apart from the crowd in whatever job you go for, but especially if you want to get into rights. The quote of the evening was: “If you can work your way around an excel sheet, you will excel in publishing.” This is a jolly quote that made me and a few others chuckle quite a bit, but it should be taken seriously. Both tables were passionate about their jobs but one thing that really stuck out was that they loved that they got to work across lots of different types of books in different genres, which we should keep in mind. The sales sector doesn’t often get talked about in careers evenings, but we were proud to have our sales ladies as we wanted to look at all the different roles within publishing. They wanted to stress that sales is what turns the whole publishing company into a business.

The ultimate big fat conclusion is that all of these different roles make up a publishing house and all of these roles need to have people who are well-suited and can learn to do these roles as best as they can. The final table that I joined was editorial and it was brilliant talking to these (demigods) editors who work on books that I love. However, as shown by our professionals, this popular sector is a long, hard road before you can get anywhere near your dream position. I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t follow your dreams, but there are so many different sectors that you should take your time to consider and look at what will best suit you personally. This is what the SYP “Speed Dating” night was all about, it was for you guys, to network and learn and if you ask me, it was a highly successful evening. Well, the Twitter and Facebook shout-outs hit the roof, so that must mean it was amazing, right?