How to Have a Career in Publishing
How do you have a career in publishing? This is the question on a lot of minds. Do you have to move to NYC? Do you have to be incredibly lucky? Learn how to have a publishing career with this video.
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How to Have a Career in Publishing Video Transcript
My name is Mary Kole, and I'm here to speak to you a little bit about a publishing career. So I've been in the publishing industry for over 10 years and right now I work as a freelance editor. I work directly with writers. It is my dream job. I work on over 500 projects a year, which is a lot, and so people see that. And they always ask me, "How do I get into the publishing business," especially if you don't live in New York City, which in America at least is the home of the publishing industry? This is something that I did and something I would love to talk to you about because I am a small business owner. I have been self-motivated my entire life. It's something I'm really passionate about. And I do think that no matter where you are, no matter who you are, you can get ahead and get yourself into the publishing industry if that's something that you wanna do because that's exactly what I did.
When I started my career, I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not a bad place to be, and a lot of businesses there, a lot of industry there, but not necessarily a big publishing business, not like New York. I mean, of course, we have amazing publishing in the Bay Area, but it's not necessarily seen as the heart of publishing like New York City is, at least in the U.S. And so, I had to make my own path and I hear from aspiring editors all the time. At this point, I've been editing for seven years. And so people email me, they say, "How do I get to where you are?" My path is not that easy to replicate because I did move to New York City, but there are lessons in what I did that I think could be applicable to anybody who wants to be in the business, who wants to know what the inner working of the publishing industry is like, and who wants to, more importantly, be a self-starter and create a career for themselves. Sorry, a cat in the background.
So one of the things that I really recommend and what I did in San Francisco was I researched opportunities because opportunities are not going to come for you. All the time, you have to keep pursuing them and get yourself in the way of opportunity. There's a great quote that I like to reference a lot, which is ''Fortune favors the prepared,'' right? It's not this idea that things fell into my lap. It's that I was prepared, I was pursuing things, and I was able to take advantage of opportunities. So as soon as I decided that I wanted to be in the publishing business, what I did was research opportunities in my area in San Francisco that had to do with the business.
I found two things. One was the opportunity to read for a literary agency. This was onsite in Tiburon, which is north of San Francisco. And so I started driving there a couple of times a week reading for them, getting experience that way. It was really, really valuable even though the agency wasn't necessarily doing what I was interested in doing which was children's books. This agency catered to all kinds of writers, all kinds of projects. And it was really, really valuable experience though to go and see how a real literary agency works, to go meet a real literary agent, and to start working in the business and start, you know, making inroads in my own career.
The other thing I found was an internship at Chronicle Books. Chronicle Books is one of the most beloved publishers that's out of San Francisco. And I was able to intern there and apply for that opportunity and get real experience of what it's like to work in a publisher with publishing house editors. It was just the cornerstone of everything that I would do in my career. Now, you're saying, "That's great for you. You were in an area where these opportunities existed, but what about me?" So I'm happy to say that now, more than ever before, a lot of literary agents and publishers are working with remote interns, remote assistants. Sometimes these jobs, being internships, are not paid, so that's important to know. But the experience that you learn working in a real setting with a real literary agent, with a real publishing house, with a real publishing house editor, it is absolutely priceless.
And so, if I was in my own shoes about 10 years ago, what I would do is start following agents I admire, publishers I admire on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, wherever they are because oftentimes when they have a call out for interns, they will post it on their social media. And they'll say, "Hey, we're looking for readers. We're looking for beta readers. We're looking for interns," and you can apply. And the great thing is we've all realized that anyone can work from anywhere, anytime with technology. And so I'm not just limited to what's available in my area. I can read for a literary agent in New York. I can do kind of slush pile submissions for a publisher in San Francisco. And I can do it from home.
And so what I've heard from other people is that opportunities like this are popping up all over the place. The thing is fortune favors the prepared, right? You have to go there. You have to be prepared to apply for these positions. You have to put yourself where those opportunities are. And for these remote opportunities, you'll find them on Twitter. You'll find them on social media for literary agents and publishers. So what do you have to do? You have to research the agencies that you're interested in. You have to research any publishers that you might be interested in. But having that inner track behind-the-scenes publishing experience if you wanna work in publishing at all, no matter where you are right now is going to be so, so valuable. So when people email me and they say, "Hey, how can I do what you've done? How can I be an editor," you have to really put yourself into those situations. And the good news is it's easier now than it ever has been to be a remote intern, to be a remote reader for a literary agent, for a publisher.
That's how I got started. My literary agency, reading internship was really valuable. But like I said, the agency wasn't necessarily a fit with what I wanted to do. Well, having had that experience, having had the experience of Chronicle Books, what I did was I took that, that gave me legitimacy, that validated me as a person. I took that experience and I applied for an agency where I did wanna work. There wasn't anything wrong with my initial agency. But again, I was interested in children's books and this agency didn't do children's books at all. And so I went to an agency that did, which was Andrea Brown. I took my resume, I updated it, and I said, "Hey, look, I've been at Chronicle Books now. I have been with this other agency." And they were excited that I had that experience already. So what I did was I took experience and I built it into more experience. And I actually ended up being a literary agent at Andrea Brown for five years based on that experience that I got first.
I was also taking the opportunity to learn as much as I could and do as much as I could to better myself. So that meant going to writers' conferences that were in my area. The good news is writers' conferences are not just in New York City. For example, the SCBWI, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, does conferences all over the world. I've spoken at them in Paris, in Japan. You can do these conferences no matter where you are. SCBWI is for children's writers. RWA, in America at least, is for romance writers. You have these organizations all over the world that cater to the type of writing that you wanna do, whether you're a short story writer, fan fiction writer, poetry writer.
And so, as I was getting this professional experience, I was also bettering myself as a writer and getting more publishing knowledge as I went along by attending conferences and also by blogging in the industry, writing myself, doing my own writing, and at the same time getting an MFA. I had a day job. You know, I couldn't just take all this time away and I needed money to get to all these writing conferences, right? They're not free. So I did a low-residency MFA, which only required one or two nights a week so I could keep my day job while learning how to be a better writer. And all of these things really came together for me because I took one piece of experience and I built on from that. And I had to be researching opportunities and coming up with the next step and the next step. That led me to New York. It did. And that was a wonderful move for me. Not everybody can do that.
And so there are opportunities, though, no matter where you are. You just have to look for them. And then you will find your publishing industry fortune. So, if you want to know more about me, if you want to maybe work with me, I work as a freelance editor. You can check me out at marykole.com. My last name is spelled with a K. I'm also launching in November 2019 Good Story Company, which is articles all about writing, all about the publishing business for writers of all kinds in all categories, all ability levels. Check it out at goodstorycompany.com and thank you so much for watching this video.
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