A while back, my mother's friend, Pauline, mentioned that she had a friend who worked in publishing and gave me her contact info to set up an informational interview. When I gave her a call, she steamrolled me. She (without even seeing my resume or asking about my experience) told me that I was under-qualified and needed to do a lot of freelance work to be taken seriously. She introduced me to a website where I could get freelance work, although I never actually used it with everything else going on in my life.
But a few days after the informational interview, she sent me a link to the internship program at PR by the Book. Intrigued, I applied. Shortly thereafter, I was informed that they were not, in fact, hiring interns at this time, but would keep my resume on file for when they were.
So I moved on with my life and more or less forgot about it.
A few months later, I got an email. They were once again hiring interns and were wondering if I was still interested. Of course I was. I did a phone interview. It went well.
A few days later, I got an email. They had decided they did not actually need another intern, but really liked me. Was I interested in an internship at the magazine they also work for? Sure, why not?
That is how I came to work at Texas Lifestyle Magazine, but the story doesn't end there. I kept applying for jobs. ICM Partners asked me to fly out to NYC for an interview (you can read about that trip here). I decided to post on Facebook asking if people had recommendations of what I should see and do while I was there, since I ended up making a mini vacation out of it. Marika, the travel editor at TLM, saw my post and happened to be in NYC the same few days. So we met up for breakfast.I told her about my book publishing aspirations and she offered to start sending me work for PR by the Book so I could get some more experience under my belt.
Our trips overlapped with Book Expo America, which she was attending. While there, she had meetings with many publishing professionals. One of which was Brooke, the publisher at SparkPoint Studios. Brooke mentioned that she needed someone new to help take on clients. She wasn't really sure what the role would be yet, but she knew she wanted someone passionate and driven and looking to get into book publishing in some capacity.
Since I had just told Marika about my ambitions in book publishing, I was top of mind. She mentioned that she knew someone who might make a good fit and offered to introduce us.
Dozens of emails, two months, and a Skype interview later, I found myself being flown out to Arizona to meet the team and do final interviews.Everyone was so lovely. It's a small staff of loud, vibrant women who want to do great work. It reminded me a lot of my internship with the Les Turner ALS Foundation in that way. Most of them are also really young, especially on the publicity team. They all seem to be 22-26, which is something I wouldn't have even dreamed of.
If I were to join SparkPoint Studios, I would be on the publishing team, managing authors and their titles as they go through the entire publishing process. It's an amazing opportunity, because it would allow me to be involved in so many parts of the process, and give me direction as to what part of publishing I want to pursue.
I should be hearing back soon, so wish me luck!
Bonus: The office looks like it came straight from Pinterest.
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