#SYPConf20: A department insight on… Scouting

Posted on November 11, 2020 in London

What was your journey into the publishing industry?

I did English Literature at university and learned about the existence of publishing as an industry when I was about two years in – mind blown! I didn’t really have any clue how to get into the industry though, and ended up getting distracted and doing postgraduate degrees in Comparative Literature and Children’s Literature. Eventually I remembered that I didn’t really want to work in academia, and started working as a content editor at a charity while I tried to break in. After a lot of rejections, I got a job as the editorial assistant at Penguin Random House Children’s, thanks to a combination of two stints of month-long work experience, my academic speciality, my work as a content editor and my own particular brand of charm, research and preparation.

What is your current role?

I am the Junior Scout at Daniela Schlingmann Literary Scouting, covering children’s and young adult books primarily, but I also read SFF (sci fi and fantasy) and romance. I love a romance! If you don’t know what a scout is, I work for foreign publishers and help them find the best titles from the UK which they might consider translating for their list. This means 50% of my job is reading books, and 50% of it is talking to agents, rights agents and editors about what is happening in children’s publishing here in the UK. I love it!

How has Covid affected your role?

Ooh, interesting. Well, obviously all of my in-person meetings have now moved to being taken virtually, and there are no longer the frequent drinks events, book launches and other socialising opportunities which used to be the bedrock of my schedule. This generally means that I send many more emails and messages in an informal manner to people I’m getting in contact with, and I’m much more likely to randomly pick up the phone and give people a bell (some people like this and some people HATE it and I am learning who is who…) It’s also interesting because individuals from teams are less aware of projects their colleagues might be considering or working on, as there’s no easy opportunity to just chat over a desk to see what’s happening. So this can sometimes mean that people are keener to talk to me as I perhaps have a wider and more thorough view of what’s going on (or I should do if I’m doing my job properly!) and it definitely means that I talk to more people because I’m eager to make sure I’m covering everything as I should be.

Do you work closely with any departments in a publishing house?

Yes, definitely! The people I work with closest in-house are rights agents – we’re always emailing back and forth as they submit books to us, I chase them for material, we ask for updates on rights sales, they inform us of offer deadlines, auctions and pre-empts in the territories they work in. And the people in publishing houses I talk to most after that are editors – I like to hear from them about the titles they’re acquiring and more broadly about how the UK publishing scene is looking and how busy or quiet things are.

Please discuss any difficulties you face in your role:

I don’t really like talking about any parts of my role as being difficult as that makes it feel more negative, and genuinely I feel extremely positively about my job (also the word difficult always makes me think “it’s not easy peasy lemon squeezy, it’s difficult difficult lemon difficult!”) but there are certain challenges. Time management and organisation is a HUGE one – I frequently start the day with a to-do list which has been thrown out the window by the time I’ve triaged my email inbox, so it takes a particular skill to be reactive to what’s going on whilst also making sure you’re prioritising what’s important and completing tasks which need to be done. In addition, I’d say networking and staying in contact with everyone you need to be talking to can be quite tricky at times too, although it’s so brilliant talking to such a wide range of people and hearing lots of different opinions and updates, it really makes you aware of the scope of the industry.