Step Two - In Progress

My last few posts have been about actions. I took some today.

My intention was to cold call my top publishing houses who would be attending the BEA. But before I picked up the phone, I thought about what I would say. More than likely, I would be directed to customer service, to whom I would say: Hi, I’m Lisa. I’m looking to speak to someone who will be at the Book Expo on May 23rd. Can you direct me to them?

Then once they directed me, I would say a little something like: Hello, my name is Lisa. I’m a recent MBA graduate who will be attending the Book Expo and I was hoping to be able to meet with you...

Don’t just me too harshly; these are simplistic for a reason and just a starting point anyway. But I saw a flaw in them, in the whole plan really. That flaw… I didn’t know whom I was looking for and I wasn’t positive the customer service would either. So I searched around.

On the BEA website, there is a list of exhibitors at the event. This list is really just a catalog of every publisher who will be there and some details about what that company publishes. However, the BEA has a program that allows you to plan your trip ahead of time; the BEA Show Planner. Enormously helpful. Using this feature, I can filter out the types of publishing houses I don’t need. Therefore, I chose to look at only the publishing houses that worked with children and young adult books, as this is where I, ideally, would like to enter into the industry. Once this list was generated, I could click on a box next to the name and send that company to my personal BEA plan. The other nifty feature, and most important to the story, I can email the people who are going to be there, so long as they are in my planner.

Now, this planner still doesn’t give me a name for the person who will be representing the company. But there are other ways to begin an email than dear so-and-so. It’s more formal, and much more professional to write dear so-and-so. But, I was operating on the idea that I’m simply asking for some advice, a chance to get their points of view on the subject, what they might be looking for in an entry level position candidate. A semi-informal topic anyway, so I gave it a shot. I told them I was a recent MBA graduate, I told them that I was interested in the publishing industry and I told them why I was interested in the publishing industry. I said that the current market changes make the publishing industry turbulent and challenging right now and because of its challenging nature, this would be a wonderful industry to get into.

Someone replied.

Now, don’t get too excited. This person replied saying that she wasn’t in charge of the children books department and couldn’t help me in that capacity. However, she was willing to send my resume along to HR if I could send her a copy. I did so, thanking her not only for her time and consideration, but also for her speedy reply. She emailed me once more with the name of the HR contact who I will be able to follow up with next week.

But that’s not all.

I also received an out of office email from another company, which stated the name of someone else to contact within the company while they were out. I haven’t “spoken” with anyone from that company just yet, but I have the names of two more people who I can follow-up with at a later date.

So things are moving. Or at least beginning to head in the right direction. Additionally, on that list created by the BEA, there are publishing houses I’ve not heard of before, I very much aim to look into those more now that I have a place to begin.

The Future of Publishing

I'm still new to blogging so I've been trying to get this video posted for a month. I know I'm supposed to be super tech savvy and they have a help feature and blah blah blah. I didn't look it up and had I really thought about it I would've figured it out.

Back to the video. It's my favorite, because it really says the truth of where the business is going and how many of us readers and those who, in general, love everything to do with books, feel on the subject of publishing. If you only watched a little of this and didn't bother with the whole thing, you won't agree with this statement. Watch it all. It's worth it.

Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity | Video on TED.com

School's Out

School’s out. Now the real work begins. Someone asked me what my job was. I told them - looking for one. I may also need to sell some of my things till I get one. I’m ok with this.

With the added time I intend to prepare myself for this trip to New York at the end of the month of May, which means setting up interviews and bugging my top publishing houses until they agree to meet with me. I fully intend to make sure they know who I am by the time I get up there. So, that’s my goal anyway. Now all that’s left is to do it.

Step One - Complete

I have my tickets, I’ve pre-registered for the Expo, and my very good friend Debra actually has, or rather will have, room to house me for the seven days in which I will be up there.

I know I said I’d ask family of I could stay with them, but in my defense, Deb is family. I did ask my cousin before her though, but my cousin doesn’t have any additional space. And I refused to ask my friend Cat because I took up every last ounce of space last time I went up there. I cannot live like that for very long. I was hoping not to inconvenience any of my friends this time around, but when my cousin informed me of her situation, renting a room from her sister-in-law, I went to Deb. She’s the only other person up there that I know besides my cousin and Cat. I wasn’t positive of her living arrangements either, but my BATNA as the terminology goes, was to suck it up and pay for a REALLY cheap hotel room. Fortuitously, Deb has the space. In fact she’s going to be moving into her very own condo shortly before I come in. She claims that it may not be fully furnished yet, but hey, she’s going to be a homeowner for the very first time. How awesome is that? So, that takes care of big expense number 1.

In terms of tickets, I ended up finding the cheapest ones on Orbitz.com; $209. There was no additional BEA discounts but the days and flight times were better. Instead of coming into NY on the Friday before which was my cheapest option on JetBlue, providing me time to waste more money, I’m now coming in on Sunday. I’m leaving the following Saturday. Additionally, the cheapest tickets on Jet Blue just happened to have me coming in at around 10 PM. My mom looked at the times and vetoed them. I’m still her little girl she tells me. It’s not safe. I tend to agree but I didn’t have any other options at the time. She was the one who told me to go to Orbitz and the like. Mothers know best. So, this means that my second biggest expense has been taken care of and it’s about the price I thought it would be.

My big expense number three, the actual registration fee, was not the price that I thought it would be; but then actually turned out to be the price that I thought it would be. Confused? So was I. In the previous post I stated that it was going to be about $140. Well, when I called the BEA to inquire about working at the Expo I was told, by three people, an almost flat out NO. Only one of them stayed on the line to answer more questions, others simply referred me to another department. Well, the person who answered some of my questions told me that my cheapest option would be to do a one day pass for $120 as an industry professional. I told him I wanted to be there for three days and asked him what specification I should register under. He said industry professional. I nearly cried, because that particular classification is nearly $300 dollars. Once again, I cannot afford too many things right now.

Anyway, when I went to register, I saw the book club member – for $140. I signed up under that. And it’s legitimate because I am a paying member of the SCBWI. That wasn’t one of the choices for book clubs to register under, but that part wasn’t mandatory, so they better let me in. I have proof of my membership and it is a trade publishing society/club. It’s just a children’s book trade publishing society/club.

The next step in my strategy is to contact people and find out if they are available to meet me during the time that I am up there.