Internly Insights: End of Another Internship

I guess if you’ve been following me on my twitter account you’ve had a glimpse of my internship life. I haven’t updated in a while so I decided to answer Romona’s question. I actually get this one a lot but I don’t remember if I’ve actually told the story on how exactly I got this internship at Big Publishing Company – a publisher some of you have already guessed, and if not: Simon & Schuster.

Romona asked:

It`s Romona from the YA fairy. & i was just wondering how did you go about getting your internship?

Way back in January during my really long winter break from school, I felt a bit productive. I was basically doing nothing every day for about a month so I felt inspired to look up some internships through BookJobs as well as the careers pages of publishers. I was planning on applying for a spring internship when I came across a listing for summer internships.

I sent in my cover letter and resume and filled out the application form online. I didn’t really expect to hear back from them since their website said that they mostly accepted juniors and seniors in college. At the time, I had only completed my first semester of college so I thought my chances were slim. It might have been in February or March that I received an email from Big Publishing Company that they wanted to interview me. I was a bit shocked. Me? Really?

When I submitted my resume, I had only done one internship since I did not know that I would have a spring internship at the time. I had no idea that one internship experience could count so much in my favor! I ended up going through a phone interview and then a face-to-face interview before I secured my position.

Eight weeks later, I am almost done with my third internship. This one has felt more official than the others because I am really in an office setting. I worked Monday – Friday, 9 to 5. I feel like I’ve been doing a bit less editorial stuff and more administrative jobs with this internship especially because I’m no longer reading slush. The materials I do get to read are going to be published. With this internship, I also have been doing more of the typical internly duties than my previous.

The Top 5 Things I Learned at Simon & Schuster

  1. Every (or just to be the safe side almost every) Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing book has their pub date somewhere on the book. Here are a few different examples: YA hardcover, YA paperback, and MG hardcover. I think the imprints are different as well. I don’t have an example of a picture book, but I can assure you that those have the pub dates as well. :)
  2. Everyone is addicted to the free books bookshelves. No matter how many times you pass by the shelf, you just have to take a peek.
  3. There’s only so much you can do to make the free coffee in the kitchens taste great. After that much experimentation, the other fellow interns and I are making our way to becoming great baristas.
  4. I know all my Dora and SpongeBob books. I guess one of the things that I’m walking away from this internship is the knowledge of the frontlist and backlist of Simon Spotlight and Little Simon – the two imprints I interned under. I read a lot of picture books.
  5. While the experience was great, this will most likely be the last unpaid internship I ever do. It felt like a job but it’s hard to feel proud of working so hard when there’s no reward of some sort. Yeah, yeah, experience but we’re talking about a whole summer here. The perks were great, but in the end I still spent a lot of money just to have this experience.

With that said, you probably won’t see Internly Insights for a while. I am officially taking a break for internship. Two semesters in a row has worn me out! I might try for a winter internship, but spring is probably more likely. But I can definitely say that I will have another internship next summer, but that one will be paid. :P

4 Comments

  1. Whoa, I didn’t know about the pub dates! That’s ubercool. And picture books. SO underrated. :heart:

    Just wondering, can you brief me quickly on what kind of questions they asked? Like, are they looking for in a candidate? How does someone with no publishing experience get an internship?

  2. Whoa thats really cool! I’m actually going to start internships at my HS this year! But since mines is a health and medical HS I don’t think I will be doing anything related to books or the library, and your internship sounds really cool! ?

  3. Aw, I will be sorry to see these posts come to an end, but I’m sure you’re happy to be finished with an UNpaid full time job. :) Thanks for all the info you’ve shared!

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