StrategyTalk

I spoke with Ginger from Career Management today. This is the meeting which was put off from last week. And the conversation took a different path than what I had imagined. When I sat down we began talking about her husband who was having heart troubles and my measly trials of the day. It’s a Monday, there were some trials, and her husband is doing well now. I quickly turned it to the difficulty of finding a job, since that was why I was there to start with, and the first thing she suggested was “we need to get you making direct calls”. Now I don’t know if she was referring to follow up calls or cold calls. We’ve talked on both in the past. I assume she meant the follow up kind.

This is when I told her of my meeting with the man who encouraged me to start this blog, and all of his suggestions.

She jumped on the Book Expo idea. The BookExpo America (BEA) is a weeklong expo that showcases the newest books and “everything exciting in the world of books”. That’s taken straight from the website. It’s a trade only expo, up in New York, starting May 24th and ending May 27th. I’ve been thinking on this for a while, and my main deterrent has and still is … money.

Without a job, a trip like this is going to be hard on my wallet. I have family and friends who live up there, but it may be easier to stay at a nearby hotel for cheap. This could end up as my biggest expense; my step dad suggested that I stay at second tier hotels for about $80 a night. If I book my flight now on JetBlue I can get my airfare for $205 (big expense 2) if I come in the Friday before I need to and leave on a Saturday. And that’s not even considering the “special fares” (5% discount) for the BEA that JetBlue offers. Anyway, that time frame will provide me with much extra time while I’m up there to network with people, maybe even set up some interviews if it comes to that. But that would bring my hotel expense up to $640 total. True, it would cut down on transportation costs and the undeterminable risk of public transportation time, but eating is a priority as well. I like eating.

Would family put me up for 8 days? Do they like me that much? Maybe, but where are they in relation to where the expo is; the Jacob K. Javits Center? I have no idea. That’s one research point. Oh, and the networking with people thing, that’s another. This trip will require some major prep work.

I intend to find myself a list of the publishing companies who will be there that week (its provided on the site) and hopefully find contact information for their representatives. From there I will contact them, introduce me and let them know I will be there and would love the opportunity to meet with them to partake of their advice. The plan is that they say “Sure! I look forward to meeting you in person” and I hop on the plane and make good my intentions.

This expo is primarily a networking event for me. I have very few contacts in the publishing business and I both want and need to make more. This will also provide me with an opportunity to meet Alan Boyko in person if he is available; my one contact, who I already know approves of this idea because he suggested it to me.

Big expense number 3 – small in comparison to the others, but hey – is admittance to the expo itself. Pre-registration is $140 as far as I can tell. There is no student discount. I checked.

Wanna hear the plan? Of course you do. (Pause for dramatic effect)

I’m going to attempt to work there.

I’m hoping that they would be willing to place me on their temporary event staff as a volunteer, if need be, in return for access to the expo. I’m praying that at the very least they give me half off or something. That way I can attend at least part of the time and meet tons of interesting people interested in the same interesting things I’m interested in.

So… that’s it I guess. I’ll be starting to work on that this week, so updates will be forthwith. Oh, one more thing – expense number 4… business cards.

Remiss

I can explain. I have been remiss on updating my progress in the whole job search area and here’s why, I haven’t been doing all I can. I haven’t the time. I have five classes this semester, with exactly 3 weeks left of school. This means that every final project is due within these last 3 weeks. The toughest one, my business policy class (a 6 week course); the “capstone” course of Rollins. In a “capstone” course we are required to put everything we’ve ever learned into one project, as if we haven’t been doing so already, and that project is a business plan. Now, some of you may be thinking, well, you aren’t doing it alone so it shouldn’t be that much work. You some, would be wrong. It’s a lot more work than even a marketing plan. One thing slowing us down - we are working with people we’ve never worked with before, so we must get acclimated to each other very quickly. The other thing -there’s a LOT of work that goes into starting a business. And that’s what we are doing. We are “starting” a green business. One that runs green not simply produces green.

Any time I’m not working on school work is mental health breaks. I work on school work, Saturday –Wednesday. I try to take Thursday and Friday off because that’s when my boyfriend has his days off from work, but as I have a class Friday morning, some school creeps in there as well. But I’m a firm believer that mental health is very important to a worker. My first year at Rollins we had a week between semesters; the quality of the work the entire class produced was far below that of the first semester and the following ones, simply because we didn’t have time for our brains to rest. Now, you might be thinking, but in the real world you don’t have breaks like that. No, but neither do you take work home with you unless you choose to. Now, now, I know that in some professions you may think you have no choice, but you do. You have a choice to be in that profession. If I’m working in a publishing house, let’s say as an editorial assistant, and I need to take some manuscripts home to read… I’d be ok with that, because I love to read. And I suspect that you can tell if a story will do well by the first couple of chapters. But reading is not taxing on me. If I had to be in academia the rest of my life and bring home homework to do all the time; let’s be honest – it’s not going to get done. But as my JOB I can choose to leave and find something that motivates me. As a student, I can’t. Therefore, mental health breaks. Everyone gets them really, they’re called the weekend, I simply take mine in the middle of the week so I can spend it with my love.

Anyway, with all of this stuff going on, it leaves me with limited time to job search. However, I attempt at least one application every day. The catch - new jobs aren’t always posted every day. On days when I don’t have class, I attempt to follow up on resumes if I have no new applications. And every day I attempt to read up on trends and such to see if perhaps there is something more I can bring to the industry. So yes, I’ve been remiss, but I have a reason.

Who decided to give us a class like business policy the last half of our final semester anyway?

E-Readers

Technology is going paperless, that’s simply a fact now a days. However, technology is doing many other things, which is why I chose to take a technology management course as one of my final electives for my MBA. Best choice I’ve made since entering the school.

In this class, we are to do a PowerPoint presentation about a “living case”. My group chose e-readers, with no push from me I promise, and more specifically how the iPad and other tablets may change the medium on which we read... well, everything. Personally, and my friend Casey would probably hate for me this, but I don’t see the big deal about Apple. Yeah alright, they make awesome stuff, but I almost don’t like them because everyone else loves them so much – I’m difficult like that. Still, Microsoft gets no love from me either and if I could choose to have something from either, I’d probably choose Apple’s iPad at this point. Not that I have the money for even a PS3 right now; which would be my next big purchase (one must have priorities). And despite my hatred for the name of the device – clearly no women were in that discussion – the usefulness of it simply can’t be compared.

But is it better than a Kindle? Better in the sense that it can do more, but it still doesn’t provide the intimate experience that a book does.

Poetic isn’t it? Intimate experience.

I must confess I didn’t think of it. But that description of holding a book in your hand is exactly what it is. I read an article for this presentation we are to do for the class that I wish to share here. “Books in the age of the iPad” by Craig Mod.

http://craigmod.com/journal/ipad_and_books/

This article talks about form. Mod points out that the majority of what we read is formless material; text and nothing more. The layout of text is easily adaptable to any type of e-reader device, be it iPad, Kindle, or even your Smartphone. And when people talk about reading on their electronic devices, they generally don’t mention the content. Because the words on the page don’t change. They comment on the comfort of reading it on a screen. Mod seems to think that this will improve with time. I’m not really sure about that; because as he points out, when reading for fun, turning a page gives the reader a sense of contact with the content that simply cannot be generated through a screen.

Additionally, another presentation on a similar topic in this technology management class pointed out that the average number of pages that we can read at one time is diminishing. If you think about it, people generally don’t read more than four pages of text in one sitting on one article on the web. It can be argued that we are reading more because the materials are more readily available to us, but think back to how much you actually read of one article you've see on the web. I’ve finished very few, and I’ve mainly printed them out to do so.

So, for now at least, if someone were to spend a day reading a book, more than likely it’ll be print. But the day that isn’t so is coming soon, I just don’t think that future generations will ever receive the same amount of intimacy that preceding generations did.

Still, convenience counts for a lot these days. And no one will deny, e-readers are much more convenient.

Publisher's Marketplace

Ok, so in my fit of lazy, I never got around to following up on any of my resumes. I did however find a moment, because I don’t have it in me to be completely unproductive, to look through the publisher’s marketplace job site. In comparison to the other sites I’ve used, this one is by far better. Don’t get me wrong, the other sites are great if I’m looking for something specific in a bigger publishing house; which, if you’ve read my past postings, I am. However, I like the various opportunities that this new site provides me.

There were publishing companies I had never heard of before. Upon some research into the companies, I realized that they were independent. One biggest difference between independent and the big houses, independent seems to ask up front for people who can provide ideas for stories. Now, I know his is a common practice in many publishers, but I thought it interesting that it was in the job description to have ideas for books, the particular job I’m referring to was for a children’s book section. I’ll be honest, I don’t think I can deal with the pressure of coming up with an idea for a book unless I’m following through with it. Control issues. To clarify though, I know I would automatically come up with ideas and gladly share them with people, but for that to be demanded upon me… my mind blanks. And if I do come up with something, if it’s not in a brainstorm session, and I’ve spent time thinking about it, I would have some trouble handing it over for someone else to write. Of course, I’m so detailed oriented and tend to complicate stories that it’s probably not a good idea for me to try to write small children books.

My own five book series is so complex that I have a giant notebook dedicated to it as well as more than a few word documents. I’m all about foreshadowing and setting things up. Every action has a reaction and that reaction isn’t always immediate.

Anyway, I’ve sent out three resumes today within a period of an hour; all with independent publishers. A couple of those jobs were for literary agent assistant positions. I’ve entertained the idea previously of becoming an agent, and when reading the job description it seems like it would be a good fit as well. I simply haven’t ever applied for a job like that because I haven’t seen any openings for it. That’s a big plus for this site, it seems to have a lot of openings for positions that I thought simply weren’t hiring right now. We’ll see how it goes.

From this one usage today I can tell you, the publisher’s marketplace, has earned its place as my number one resource for jobs. I’ve even signed up for the newsletter, which I hate doing, because who needs more things you’re not going to read? But with this, I think I might actually use it. Yay.

http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/

Viable Backups :/

I made an attempt at finding for myself a backup plan, should this whole bookworm journey not pan out in the nearest future. A couple weeks ago I set up a meeting with Ginger in the Career Management Center. She’s a nice person and in general you can tell she has an avid eagerness to help. I’ve been going into her office frequently and informally since I started my real job search– not internship- last semester. Because of all the requirements needed to graduate, which many of my class do not have complete, her time has been pretty full. She never has a free moment. So, I did the right thing here and made an appointment. I need to know when I should give-up-for-now on the possibility of getting a job in the publishing business. Or to put it a different way, when I need to get a job to pay the bills until I get the career/dream starter one. I also wanted to discuss the types of jobs that might give me skills that I can transfer over to a trade job at a later date. The meeting didn’t happen. She had to reschedule. So now I get to wait another week before I have this discussion.

I’ve not been idle on this front however. I went to a career fair last week. I think I can see how an associate management position at Target would be a great benefit to me, and I’m a loyal customer of theirs to boot. The leadership skills managing a team of people would be wonderful experience that can be applied to any field. There are even positions available from there to move up in the company. But retail isn’t my target industry. There was another company, for technology, that didn’t actually tell me what the position was for. I was called over by a classmate who was talking about the marketing research project we did last semester. He needed a few details filled in, I was happy to do so. The product this company develops (the company at the fair) is a keyless keyboard with applications for children with autism. The man we spoke with was very interested in our marketing research because it concerned QuestKids, the local provider for certified ABA therapy here in Central FL. Like I said, I’m not sure what position he was hiring for – came in the middle of a conversation remember? - but my assumption was marketing. And since I like and am familiar with the cause… well, there’s no harm keeping in touch with the man. I suppose I should contact him soon though huh?

All this isn’t to say that I’m ready to throw in the towel with my journey. What point would there be in updating this blog if that was case? For tomorrow alone, I plan on continuing my follow up efforts. There are moments where I’m absolutely, so glad, that I make a record of every position I apply to. I’ve found in the past that it can get rather confusing. In order to keep it all straight, I generally email a record of the position to myself, the company of course, and the day that I applied for it. I’m sure there are some new positions I have yet to look at as well. My newest database, the publishers market, has yet to be fully explored and exploited of possibilities. That’s on my agenda as well. A fun filled day to be sure.

The Growth of the Business

Today I had planned to talk about self publication, independent publishers, and the e-publishing movement. But to be honest I haven’t made up my mind yet about my opinions on such things. I can see the trend of self publication and where it’s going, I can even understand why this trend is going the way it is. Sure the stigma of self publication is diminishing, but for me, there’s a sense of accomplishment to be published by the big names. I know that, when I get to that point, even if I eventually self publish, I’m going to hope and pray that a big name picks me up. Additionally, I truly want my books to be distributed worldwide, and maybe this ideal stems from a lack of knowledge, but a small publisher can’t give me that.

Now see, that’s where my mind goes, you’re an idiot. Because with electronic distribution becoming more and more popular, the customer base grows as well; and point in fact my book would probably be even more worldwide than a publishing house can make it, or at least equal. So that point of contention becomes moot.

Which begs the question, where do the publishing houses fit in this electronic era? Bookstores like Barnes and Nobles, Borders, and even Amazon.com have come out with e-readers and are in the development stages of their own e-publishing departments, and if they aren’t they should be. But so should the big dogs. An article I read today equated the changes in the publishing industry to the Wild West. I thought this was a pretty accurate description. Things are changing and growing rapidly and right now, no one’s in the lead, unless of course you count the authors. But I don’t necessarily trust just anyone when it comes to my reading materials. I’ve wasted enough of my time in too many creative writing classes with so called “writers”. Now that they have the power to be published anyway they’d like, I’m afraid sifting through the muck will be a lifetime job.

Granted that is a job I’d like to have, but at least my muck sifting will have a purpose other than for my own pleasure. I still feel like publishing houses give some validation to a writer, those authors lucky enough to be published by even an independent press have written books that I can trust to have some decent standard to them. I’m not saying that all self-publishers aren’t any good; getting published is a difficult business. Harry Potter was rejected by how many houses before it found its home at Scholastic? I mean really, you know anyone who passed on that is kicking themselves really hard. So it happens that sometimes publishers can’t see quality work and authors simply give up on the houses that reject them and go out to do it for themselves. But there are also those who were rejected for a valid reason.

Still, I guess it all comes back to what the customer is willing to pay for a product. Oh wait. The Kindle has free books available, so… never mind.

How does all this concern my journey to finding a job? Well, I need to know where the trends are going; that’s first and foremost. Additionally, based on some research I think it’ll be more difficult to find a job in an independent publisher versus a larger publishing house. Especially now that book publishers in general, need employees who will help define the publishing business as to where it’s going. I can be one of those people. My mind may not be made up yet, but I’m not the only one. Like thousands of consumers, I love to read. And this helps me because I can understand the reluctance to give up the feel of paper under your hand, and the black smudges obtained on your fingers from turning the pages. But convenience and the amount of space you can save by having your library as a bunch of bits on a memory card... I like these concepts to. I am the target market for all publishers. The more people like me in their business the better. The most important reason however, is to ensure that whatever department or publishing house I go into, it needs to have a future. There’s no guarantees of that though is there? Fine; I guess this information simply helps me to stay informed and to be aware. The current trends determine the market and in this Wild West industry, one needs to roll with the punches. And it’s smart to see them coming I suppose.

The Journey so far...

I began my job search about a year ago. It wasn’t as full blown as it is today, but the career management class Rollins forced us to take, encouraged us to figure out what we wanted to do and where we wanted to do it. Those who took the class seriously actually did the assignments generated to help us hone in on the perfect job. That’s when I began my research about the type of position I’d like to hold.

I knew, not because of the economic times or even my experience level that I would start from the ground up. I am a big fan of CEOs who have some real idea about the struggles and the amount of work their employees have at all levels. And while I currently have no aspirations of becoming a CEO, that doesn’t mean that when I become a manager, I don’t want those same skills. I’ve already learned from experience that the best managers have been where their employees are and know from that what works and what doesn’t in terms of processes and procedures, etc. So I knew even then, that my first job will be entry level, because I want to be able to empathize with my employees when I get to a point where I’m managing people. Additionally, my interests lead me to three departments; marketing, editorial, and production. In each of these divisions, I would begin my career as an assistant.

Now it was time to target my companies. The advice given to us in this class suggested that using a shot gun approach to job searching rarely works in the seekers favor. Instead, one must target their perspective companies and hound them until they relent. Mine are all large publishing houses, and my reasoning is this, there are more opportunities there, through imprints or otherwise; chances are they have all of my interested-in-divisions and more. However, a friend recently advised me that publishing is going more independent. The self publisher no longer has the stigma attached to their books and smaller independent book publishers would more than likely have these same departments and services in house. I’ll be looking into that further, so stay tuned.

Anyway, back to what I was saying, my targeted publishing houses are the big ones. Besides the opportunities available, this has an added bonus of getting me out of Orlando, as most publishing companies reside in NY, CA, or MA. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here, but I’ve been here all my life. I’d like to try living elsewhere, have an adventure or two before I have kids and have to start worrying about school zones and money for private school and whatnot. If I end up living in Orlando after the whole kids are born thing, I’d be ok with that. I have family here. I have friends here. Sometimes I can’t even tell the difference between the two. But for now, I preferably want out.

So, I have a list of where I want to go, and I know what I want to do. Since then I’ve been handing out my resume to these companies like they were candy. I have slightly different resumes highlighting different skills for each department. For every company, I have a unique cover letter describing what I think makes that company worth working for. For the positions that I really, really want to get called back for, I even try to use the same language they do in the resumes. All of these are techniques told or taught to me by people who are supposedly experts at getting a job. So far, I’ve received very little correspondence back; and none of it asking to meet me or have a chat on the phone. Sad face.

But I’m thinking it’s my salary requirements. Only recently have I gotten a reliable salary guesstimate for these positions. Apparently, in the real world, an MBA doesn’t actually raise your pay, unless you have that and a large amount of experience in the biz; any biz.

So, from here on in, I’m putting the right pay scale on my applications.

What confuses me though is that in interviews, is it not taboo to discuss pay during the first one anyway? Is it not the rule of thumb to wait until your potential employer brings it up? Why then is salary requirement included in the application process? To weed out those who ask for too much? But how does one know what’s too much? Like I said, I’ve been researching, and every source I’ve found has the pay at much higher than my contact (the reliable one) told me to ask for. So, how do recruiters simply cut those resumes out of the running when it could simply be a misunderstanding? Everything is negotiable.

The good news is that now I know. And at least now I can pinpoint a reason for not getting called back. Additionally, it gives me a reason to follow up with the applications that are sent through email. Hell, it gives me a reason to follow up with all the positions I know haven’t been filled yet. It’s just with the online application database ones I’m going to have to cold call some people; a lot of people. Well, I am supposed to be hounding them.

Beginning: A History of Me and this Blog

In speaking with the President of Scholastic book fairs, Alan Boyko, he suggested that in order to get my name out there and increase my viability in this market, I should start a blog. But not just any blog, this blog needed a purpose, it needed to be something personal, a recording of trials suffered and a journey to the top of the mountain. Well, maybe not the top, maybe just a journey to the mountain base. Every journey… single step… blah, blah, blah. Point is it needed to be about me doing something; specifically trying to find a job in the publishing industry.

What is baffling, is that just hearing about my credentials you would think I’d be swept up faster than you could imagine, but that’s just not so. I have sent out resume after resume, I hear all the same advice, I try to follow all the same advice, and here it comes, 4 weeks from graduation from my MBA and I haven’t heard from ONE person. Sigh.

I’ve been telling stories since I can remember, and in eighth grade I wrote one of them down. It was my first book. It was horrible. I wrote it all on loose leaf paper and in trying to transcribe it, my secret island princesses suddenly became aliens from outer space. I have no idea what happened, and I’m sure other writers will tell you; sometimes the characters take you places you weren’t intending.

So, I’ve been writing since I was 13, books mostly, series fantasy. I went to college for art though. I was trying to “follow my passion”. Yeah ok. In reality I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I knew I enjoyed art and I had to pick a major so I took the easy road. I don’t regret it for a second though. I learned more about art than I ever wanted to know. More than that, I learned how to communicate to an audience in a completely different medium, without words. It’s also where one learns to take criticism. Of course, one must be constructive in such things, but I’m sure there were a few times when my professor wanted to say to me, what were you thinking?

Anyway, I figured, since my major was art, my minor needed to be something I could fall back on. I tried computer science, art history, graphic art, and finally creative writing; in that order. As you see, I tend to lean on the creative side and all my interests ended up going that way. At one point I considered getting a business minor in Italy one summer, but the program was cancelled. In the end that made me start thinking about my next step in education, but I’ll get back to that. So… I chose creative writing as my minor. It wasn’t intentional; it happened because I took a creative writing for non majors’ class. The other students in that class were … let’s just say not writers, the professor was excellent and she encouraged me to continue.

Unfortunately for me, I had to be officially in the program to take any more classes. So I signed up and suddenly I had two concentrations where the answer to the question “what are you going to do with that?” was a shrug and a mental scream.

By my last year, I was taking more creative writing classes than I was art, and I realized belatedly that I should have switched them in order of preference. Through my minor, I began to see the amount of work a writer truly needs to put into something like a book and it struck me that of all the things I’ve ever done, writing was the one thing I didn’t get tired of. Of course there were things I got tired of writing about, but actually writing, not so much.

But I was still left with nothing to fall back on career wise. That shrug and mental scream was starting to worry me because graduation came and went and I was doing nothing with my degree. My brother, awesomeness that he is, helped me get a job as an intern, writing technical documentation. VASTLY DIFFERENT TRADE, but incredibly valuable; If you ever want to learn how to talk to stupid people, write a “how to” guide.

Turn on the power button which is located on the top of the cell phone, signified by the upside down Q on the left hand side of the-

…

If you don’t know how to turn it on, it’s too complicated for you. Next page.

While on intern status I set my sights to Rollins College. The Crummer Graduate School of Business program is the “most prestigious” in FL. There’s no doubt of that. Researching other schools, there is simply none that would have been able to grant me the level of education I was looking for. It was well rounded, I didn’t need pre-requisites, and I didn’t even need to know anything about business. It was harder that way, but that’s probably why it took them so long to let me in. I spent 13 months trying to get into the EAMBA program. I took the GMAT twice ($300 each) and a GMAT prep course taught by the school. With all that, I managed a GMAT score below what they were asking from all other students. Don’t let anyone tell you persistence doesn’t count.

Of course once I was in I was required to do the work. More times than I care to mention I asked myself what I was doing there. I told myself I didn’t belong. I never questioned my abilities in terms of capabilities. I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to. Life has proven this again and again. But the work required a different way of thinking. Gone was the creative, what set in was panic. I was trying to catch up to my peers, and I was doing it alone because my first team saw me as someone who didn’t like to work. No matter how many times I told them I didn’t understand, they refused to believe or help and in the end, we parted very gladly. Regardless, I made it through the hardest part.

And now, I’m almost done.

During the summer, when I was catching my breath, I met a friend of my parents, Nina Wright. She’s a murder mystery writer and has a few books published. Because of her I joined the Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). Through this organization I have met other writers in the central FL area, started a critique group, and gone to a very expensive national conference. I have also taken the opportunity to work on my leadership skills through a critique group, which I started. It’s small, but the people in it are great. Everyone is very supportive and even though we don’t meet very often it satisfies my creative need and has the added bonus of getting me writing again. Not that I’m anywhere near finished with the first of my five book fantasy series.

Back at school, my MBA classes reaffirmed the lessons about what a writer needs to go through when writing. And more than ever the process from start to finish is fascinating to me. Through editing papers for my teams, from 40 pages of marketing research reports to two page case summaries, I find that I enjoy school. Not enough to stay in it for the rest of my life, but enough to know that I have grown from where I was.

But now, at the end, I'm ready to bring that knowledge, passion, and drive to the publishing world. I want to be a part of the authors dream. I want to see those books made. I want to see my own book made. So here it is I guess. My blog. Describing that journey. Worming my way into the Trade.

Get it? Book Worm/ Trade Publishing. Don’t judge me.