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.