TBP Work Experience Initiative
Work experience within the publishing industry is notoriously difficult to come by, particularly if you don’t have an aunt or dad’s best friend who works for a publishing house, we decided that armed with this knowledge, we could make a change and open up the potential for a career in publishing to a vastly more diverse range of people.
We took advantage of lockdown and the pandemic to create a work experience programme that was entirely remote, so students from anywhere in the UK could apply. We approached lots of schools and not-for-profits to spread the word of our programme and share details with their student of how to apply. In the end we had a cohort of about 20 students that were ready to pilot the programme.
At the start of the week, we assigned each student to a group and gave each group a pair of group mentors; staff from TBP and Pottermore who would support them and guide them through the week. Their first webinar was with Hattie, our fabulous agent, who set them up with their task. They had to choose from 3 books they were given a sample or proposal for and create a plan to launch that title, not only in English print, but also internationally and digital versions. At the end of the week they would present this plan to our esteemed judges.
Each group went away and discussed between them which title they wanted to move forward with and went into Day 2 where they learned about the value of having strong legal and royalties functions in place and why these are such an asset to the agency.
Day 3 saw the teams meet with our product development and marketing teams where they were taken through various examples of what works well for books, in addition to where it can go horribly wrong. They were given an insight into how you can think ahead of how you can grow a brand from your book and how it reaches and speaks to its audience.
Day 3 saw the teams meet with our product development and marketing teams where they were taken through various examples of what works well for books, in addition to where it can go horribly wrong. They were given an insight into how you can think ahead of how you can grow a brand from your book and how it reaches and speaks to its audience.
Day 4 was an information-filled day about international and digital publishing. How do we know if a book will work well when translated? What territories receive certain types of books well? How do you cast an audiobook? What kind of things do we need to thing about when moving a book from print to digital? All these questions and more were answered and gave our students plenty of food for thought.
Day 5 rolled around quicker than any of us were expecting. The students had time with their group mentors all morning to hone their presentations and pick up any last tips their mentors could give them before it was time to meet the judges…
The judges were OVERWHELMED with the quality of the students’ presentations and all they had absorbed over the week. In the end, there could be only one winning group but the feedback from the students showed that even those who weren’t in the winning group had gained a huge amount and were grateful to have participated.
We look forward to welcoming a new cohort of students in the summer…
Some feedback from students:
- ‘I just wanted to say a quick thank you to all the staff at the Blair Partnership for providing this work experience. Everyone has been so kind and insightful and has left me with some motivation and direction for my future.’
- ‘Thank you for an amazing week! I thoroughly enjoyed it and would do it all over again!’
- ‘Thanks for such an amazing week, I’ve had soo much fun its crazy.’
- ‘it was an amazing experience to have participated in, and I’m really grateful for all the advice and knowledge I gained in the last week. It was great to spend a week alongside those in the Blair Partnership and I’m really thankful for everything I learned’
- ‘I loved all of it so much and I’m sad it’s over!’
- ‘Thank you so much for this work experience week I had so much fun and met some wonderful people along the way. I walked into this work experience week with my mind set on possibly becoming an agent and now I really want to look into pursuing a career in marketing. It was a really eye opening experience for me and I loved working with a team to pitch the book. I also learnt so much and I loved it’
