Helping you take the next step up in your children's publishing career!
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To the Moon and Back
by Emilia Bechrakis Serhant; illus. by EG Keller
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- Letter from the ECC
- Tips of the Month
- Helpful Links
- What I Wish I Had Known
- ECC Reads and Recommends
- Day in the Life
- Intern Corner
- Events
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To Our Beloved Readers,
We hope this newsletter finds you safe and well, and have some great books for your downtime. These are strange, uncertain times, and more than anything we hope you’re able to prioritize self-care and moments of joy with loved ones.
As we transition into a more solitary, reflective, and contemplative period, we wanted to take a moment to thank you for all of your enthusiastic participation in Early Career Committee events over the past year: from attending panels and networking events hosted by the ECC, to making new connections over coffee and reading our newsletters. There wouldn’t be an ECC without passionate publishing professionals like yourself, and more than anything we can’t wait to meet more of you, swap books, and continue sharing experiences with one another.
Currently, the ECC is in the process of planning more socializing, networking, and panel/conversation events, albeit via digital platforms (at least in the meantime), so please keep an eye out for those event invitation emails. While children’s publishing, like so many other industries, is experiencing turbulence right now, we’re heartened by the supportive and creative bonds so many of us have forged with one another, and want to keep making and maintaining those relationships. We’re hopeful that, during this process of rapid reconfiguration, the kidlit space becomes even more inclusive and accessible.
If you have ideas for future events or content you’d like to see from the ECC, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our CBC Liaison,
Jena Groshek,
with those thoughts. In the meantime, here are a few groups to follow for more industry news and resources:
All our best,
The Early Career Committee
Ali, Arik, Claire, Gaby, Hannah, Jena, Jordana, Josie, Marla, Rosie, and Savannah
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Set reminders in your calendar:
Whenever you have a task you’ll need to do in the future or something you know you’ll need to check in on in a week or two, help yourself out and put it in your calendar. If using Outlook, just select “Show as: Free” at the top and color code as you wish. Putting it in your calendar frees up important mental space—you can just forget about it until it pops up in your email. In fact, I set a reminder for myself to write up these tips by the due date :)
Practice good posture:
Sitting for most of the day, especially when starting your first 9-5 office job, can take a huge toll on your body. Good posture is essential—straight back, feet flat on the floor, shoulders down and relaxed, computer screen at your eye line. Set reminders to get up and get moving if you need them, and don’t hesitate to reach out to your HR department about chair and standing desk options.
Working remotely:
What works best for your productivity in the office is likely what’s going to work best for your productivity at home. I originally thought working from home meant I would be able to keep Netflix on in the background, but I quickly realized that’s not the case. I typically listen to music when working at the office, so doing that at home really helped me focus.
—Claire Stetzer, Assistant Editor, Bloomsbury Children's Books
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My first boss (the great Tracy van Straaten) once told me “know what you don’t know”.
How can one know what they don’t know
? I thought initially. This soon became my daily mantra. It means in order to succeed at your job, you must be able to recognize your areas of strength, as well as the areas where you just don’t know what to do. As someone who is mentally wired to try and problem solve on her own, sometimes it is just best to ask for help or clarification (especially early on in your career!) You are not expected to know it all right away!
—Jordana Kulak, Publicity Coordinator, Scholastic
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ECC Reads and Recommends
Find out what the ECC Committee is reading below!
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Day In the Life
Written Before WFH Mandate, Reflects Office Life
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Name:
Ali Romig (ECC Committee Member)
Publishing House:
Delacorte Press,
Random House Children's Books
Position:
Editorial Assistant
My Mid-Week
9:00 AM:
The first thing I do when I get to the office is fill up on coffee! Once I’ve had a decent dose of caffeine, I get started on checking any emails that may have come in overnight or early in this morning. I keep something called a Current Title Tracker which helps me keep track of all the titles my boss and I are working on. I usually update this before my morning check-in with my boss.
10:00 AM:
Every morning, my boss and I have a daily check-in at ten. This helps me organize my priorities for the day. These meetings consist of talking about what we need to do for certain titles, discussing submissions, looking over routing items, and just catching up (sometimes we wander down a YouTube hole). I would recommend scheduling a daily check-in with the person you report to if possible. It really helps me focus my days and stay on task!
10:30 AM:
Once a week, our imprint has a Publishing Status meeting. These meetings consist of editorial, production, design, and managing editorial. We basically go through our entire list for the current span as well as the three spans coming up. We use this time to make sure everyone is on the same page regarding a title and any necessary items are moving forward on schedule. These meetings are a HUGE help to me. I keep notes during the meeting and most of what I do for the rest of the day is in response to certain requests that come out of it. We also pass around a giant basket of candy, so...that’s a plus.
11:30 AM:
Weekly Editorial meeting comes next. This is a smaller meeting with just the editors in our imprint. We use this time to discuss submissions that we’ve received and get feedback from the group. Sometimes this meeting feels more like a socratic seminar (which I love). We can also use this time to share general business updates. Our group tries to rotate who leads the meeting in order to give everyone a chance to set the agenda.
12:30 PM:
Remember to eat lunch! This is also a good time to answer or check any emails that may have come in during my meeting-heavy morning.
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So what’s it like to intern in children’s publishing for a nonprofit organization? Hear from
Alexus Blanding
, Marketing Intern for Magination Press, the children's imprint of the American Psychological Association
ECC: What is something surprising that you’ve learned, be it the particular department you're interning in, the publishing house, or the industry?
Alexus:
I was pleasantly surprised to see so many people of color working at APA. As a member of a minority, it's comforting to know that APA not only values diversity, but aims for inclusion on every level of the organization.
Favorite/best internship moment?
A:
Small as it may be, the most impactful part of my internship at APA is the warm greeting I received every morning. Undoubtedly, APA is results-oriented, but they value people, and it shows.
What would you recommend to a new intern?
A:
To all prospective interns, I suggest the following:
- Do your research. Know your department, know the house's backlist, frontlist, current campaigns, and the staff before your first day.
- When your workload gets light, take the initiative to assist on new projects. You never know what cool tasks await you.
- Get to know everyone! If a role in another department within the house interests you, don't stand in your own way, ask them for an informational interview! But, always, always, always keep your supervisor in the know.
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Climbing the Publishing Ladder Recap
On February 13th, a panel of five publishing professionals gathered in one of Random House’s conference rooms, organized by Dial Books, for a conversation about how to advance your career in publishing. On the panel were
Kate Sederstrom
, an Editorial Assistant at Bloomsbury Children’s;
Dawn Ryan
, Senior Managing editor at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group;
Sydney Tillman
, a Publicist at Scholastic; and
Abbe Goldberg
, a literary scout at Aram Fox. From interns, current assistants and associates, and future publishing hopefuls, the room was packed with attendees from a wide array of publishing houses. Some also tuned in on our livestream.
The panelists started out by sharing a variety of tips on how to be successful in your first few publishing jobs, as well as on how to create a network of other publishing professionals. One thing everyone agreed upon, was making yourself “irreplaceable,” as Dawn put it. Or, as Amy put it, “find little areas where people know to turn to you, to show you’re really important to your team”. And never underestimate the power of small talk—learn from other departments and take opportunities to take other colleagues out for coffee to learn about their positions! And, as Sydney suggested, definitely sign up for mentoring programs and shadowing opportunities for other departments. But also, don’t be afraid to set boundaries with your workplace friends and colleagues—it’s great to be genuine and have casual conversations, but don’t be afraid to take time for yourself to work. Sydney also relayed the importance of “showing up not just for your day to day job, but for others”. Whether that’s going to an author’s launch event at a bookstore, or attending a POC in publishing event, it’s important to become a person that people realize shows to support others. It can be exhausting, but it’s one of the best ways to meet people and make connections when you’re new to the industry.
For more great tips and advice from that night, please
visit our blog
to read the whole recap!
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GET INVOLVED!
You could be featured in our next newsletter! Do you work for a
member publisher
? Share your tips about jobs, networking, budgeting, upcoming events, etc. with us
here
.
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Encourage your colleagues to sign up for the ECC Newsletter and CBC Bulletin!
Share
this link
with your co-workers and new hires so they can begin receiving important news from the Children's Book Council.
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The Early Career Committee
Rosie Ahmed
(Secretary)
, Penguin Young Readers
Jena Groshek
(CBC Liaison)
, The Children's Book Council
Savannah Breckenridge
, Simon & Schuster Children's Books
Josie Dallman
, Little Bee Books
Arik Hardin
, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group
Marla Koenigsknecht
, Magination Press
Jordana Kulak
, Scholastic
Cassandra Martinez
, Candlewick
Hannah Milton,
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Gaby Paez
, Abrams Books
Ali Romig
, Random House Children's Books
Claire Stetzer,
Bloomsbury Children's Books
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Copyright © 2020 Children's Book Council. All Rights Reserved.
The Children's Book Council, Inc. | Every Child a Reader, Inc.
54 West 39th Street, 14th floor | New York, NY 10018
212.966.1990 | cbc.info@cbcbooks.org
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