How we got started in Publishing: Jess Stevens

Posted on August 10, 2020 in UK

Jess Stevens, Artworker Apprentice at Bloomsbury Academic & Professional shares her thoughts on how you should never stop trying.

Growing up I had a difficult relationship with reading, I was diagnosed severely dyslexic when I was very young and I only stopped reading picture books when I was nine. Always having a passion for stories, I only fell in love with reading and books when I was in my mid-teens. Deciding the following year I wanted to work in publishing, my teachers reminded me that it wouldn’t be easy getting into an industry that would expose my greatest vulnerability. But if being dyslexic has taught me anything it was, I would always have to work three times harder to do the same amount of work as my peers, and I wouldn’t let dyslexia get in the way of what I wanted to do.

When I applied for the art worker apprentice role at Bloomsbury, I had researched publishing houses and knew that they only hired people who had degrees and I had known that university wasn’t right for me, so I had been looking for another way into the industry whilst working at Tesco’s.

When I was offered the job, I was excited and incredibly nervous, more than just simple new job nerves. Knowing Publishers normally hired people with degrees and coupled with my insecurities about my dyslexia I was nervous that people would think I was a phoney and ask me to leave before my first day had even ended. Obviously, that didn’t happen; in fact, when I met the other apprentices on my course, I realised that I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been to university, or the only one who was dyslexic. This along with meeting my amazing tutor Vimbai reassured me that I wasn’t going to be asked to leave because I didn’t fit with the norm. As the days flew by and I met more and more people at Bloomsbury I realised that publishing isn’t the kind of industry that shuts people out because they’re different. When completing projects set in my fellow Bloomsbury apprentices department, she was more than willing to help me and answer all of my questions even those that I would repeat because I still didn’t understand. Even when I felt stupid she and my boss where amazing, patiently working with me until I understood.

I still have days where I feel like I don’t belong and that Bloomsbury made a mistake hiring me but then I take a moment and realise that it’s just my insecurities ruling my head and no one thinks that but me.

Being on a course where all the apprentices are from a range of backgrounds, and with all of us working in different departments, it is refreshing to know that I’m not alone in this experience and I can always send one of them a message asking for help or – when the world is back to normal- to meet up for a coffee to ask them about their publisher, and their department. Having Vimbai who has worked in publishing along with having the rest of the LDN apprenticeship team to support me and help when I ask for it is reassuring so say the least.

When I was a child I never would have guessed that someone like me would be able to work in an industry like publishing, but being here now and all the hard times when I never thought I would be able to read a book, were worth all the break times spent in the class room learning to spell and the tears of frustration when I couldn’t keep up with my class mates.

If the past seven months have taught me anything is that I am so privileged to be where I am and be doing a job that I love, learning about an industry I have been fascinated with for years now. Just because you might not fit in all the time, doesn’t mean that you can’t and even if you don’t that’s not a bad thing. Publishing is an industry that relies on stories, and the things that make us as a society and as humans different are our stories. I nearly gave up on my dream of getting into publishing, but I am so glad I didn’t. It’s easy when we are working against the odds to succeed and reach our goals, to think you are never going to make it and give up. But that should never stop you from trying; one of Albert Einstein’s many great quotes says it all. “You never fail until you stop trying.”