My week as an intern

This week, Templar's editorial team have been lucky enough to have the very lovely Katie with us. Below, she shares her thoughts.

My time as an intern at Templar has been short but sweet. During this week I have learned a lot about the world of publishing, which I’m sure will help me next year when I begin studying English Literature at university.

Everyone has been so lovely to me. I have been allowed to help with many different things including testing games and puzzles, proofreading ozalids and learning that there is more to editing than most people think – it’s not all correcting typos.

I would have loved to spend even longer here, as clearly there is so much more that I could learn; but unfortunately everything must come to an end and I am so grateful for what I have seen and done. Thank you, Templar Publishing!

The Paper Watch Project

Templar Publishing is proud to announce that The Paper Watch Project is now live! Find out more about the project and how it came about through the eyes of our intern, Sarah Yewman, who created the blog and the auction pages.

Our lovely logo courtesy of Emma Yarlett

by Emma Block

What is 'The Paper Watch Project'?

The Paper Watch Project is Templar's creative charity initiative. A one-off opportunity to bide on a unique piece of art (in this case a paper watch) created by illustrators all over the globe, in aid of charity. We have over 80 beautifully designed watches up for auction over the next 10 days, by some of the country's best loved illustrators. So get over there and take a look.

The Paper Watch Project.

Benji Davies - beautifully packaged

Why Breast Cancer Care?

After shocking news that 2 inspirational members of the Templar team were diagnosed with breast cancer, the company set about raising funds for Breast Cancer Care.

Who's involved?

James Brown

Hoping for possibly 10 volunteers, we ended with almost 90 illustrators willing to give their time to our initiative. You can see the illustrious list here. The project is one of many fundraising ideas and is the brain child of the lovely Emma O'Donovan, aka my boss/The Book Sniffer. Before I started work here, I loved the concept of this project, so creating the site and auction pages was a real treat!

Leilah's sock alien

How do I bid?

Pop along to our Auction page.

Choose your favourite (good luck with that one!) then simply click on the link underneath the image to place your bid. Simples!

NB each watch has a minimum bid of £15 and 100% of the proceeds go directly to Breast Cancer Care.

I can't tell you how much fun I've had and how honoured I feel to have played my part in this fabulous project. Please go and place a bid. These watches are a one-off opportunity to bid on a unique piece of art and all in the name of charity.

Intern-al Workings of Publishing

In the run-up to the Frankfurt Book Fair, Templar's editorial department recruited brilliantly helpful Andrew to help out. Here are his thoughts...

Starting an internship at Templar felt a lot like the first day of school. Polishing my shoes, combing my hair, not quite knowing what to expect and worrying if the bigger boys would steal my dinner money (they didn’t, they’re all lovely… and I brought a packed lunch just in case. Smart.).

As it turned out, working at Templar is EXACTLY like school, in a good way. So far this week I have cut out shapes, completed crosswords, created collages, checked my times tables and attended ‘show and tell’ – next week I’ll bring my hamster – but all of it is relevant to crafting great books for kids of all ages.

Joining Templar in the lead-up to Frankfurt Book Fair means that ideas have to be tested, lots of proofs need to be read and massive deadlines charge towards us like surprisingly large hippos (which this week – as part of my ‘work’ – I learned can run at 30mph!).

It makes for an exciting time and a great opportunity for me to learn all elements of the publishing world, but most importantly I’ve learned that all those years at primary school REALLY paid off. Not just the boring bits. There are great jobs out there for everyone, no matter what your favourite lesson was.

Frankfurt Book Fair: behind-the-scenes

Team Templar thought it might be time to give you a bit of an insight into what the editorial department do – and where better to start than with the work we do to prepare for a book fair?

Part of my job as Junior Editor is to co-ordinate the editorial push towards each fair, so right now it's all-systems-go for the Frankfurt Book Fair taking place in early October. This is the world's biggest book fair, and it's a valuable opportunity for Templar's sales team and creative director to meet foreign publishers to discuss buying and selling book rights.
 

Meetings at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair

As such, there's a massive in-house effort to prepare the best possible material for our sales team so they can shout about the brilliant books we're producing – nothing makes us happier than when we know the hard work of our talented authors and illustrators is being enjoyed by children around the world.

Preparation begins months beforehand, as we start to tie down the list of titles that we'll be taking to sell. If the books are already underway, then all that's left to do is to carry on putting it together – but if it's a new project, then development work by authors and illustrators needs to start, editors put together book plans, production controllers start discussing prices with printers and designers start thinking about cover designs.

At the end of August, things really start to hot up. I build a document known as 'Frankfurt in 5 Minutes', in which editors cram their books' specification, content, schedule, RRP, publication date and cover into a tiny entry. About 200 books go to the fair, and we arm our sales team with as much information as possible in just 20 A4 pages.

'Fair in 5' documents going back years...

That document is invaluable to sales team when they're out at the fair, but it's also used in-house during 'Show and Tells'. Here, the creative, production and sales teams all squeeze into the boardroom for day-long meetings in which editors and designers show the sales guys the amazing books we're developing. Hearing about the books straight from the people who are putting them together means that the sales team go away fired with enthusiasm, knowing why we decided each book was so brilliant it needed to be published.

I also ensure the editors are busy producing advance information sheets, known as 'AIs'. These A4 sheets are sent out to prospective foreign publishers, as well as bookshops in the UK, to tell them all about our upcoming programme. They're filled with details about the books, the authors and illustrators, how they can order and what the books look like. Last book fair, we created 208 AIs in four weeks – phew.

Hard at work on AIs

 After hundreds of AIs, tens of file uploads to iPads, 3 Show & Tells, and one lorry filled with our sales material, we wave farewell to the sales team and head to the pub! However, at the moment, that feels like a distant dream. Yesterday was our first Show & Tell for this fair, and it went really well. Still, there are two more to go, 150 AIs left to create and about half of 'Frankfurt in 5 Minutes' still to go. In that case, I best be off...

Lucy Serocold: Two weeks in Editorial

Hi, I’m Lucy, a Classics graduate from London. I’m hoping to get a job in publishing, so over the past two weeks the folk in Editorial have kindly allowed me to join them for proof-reading, researching and generally being helpful. I’m very much hoping they’ll let me come back again in the future (hint hint), which is why today I’ve been bribing them with pistachio & lime cupcakes…
(nb. the cupcakes were devine!)

I started off last week with a proof-reading test, using a list of the BSI marks to get familiar with them. This was pretty straightforward, but the second part of the test was much harder: a ‘style test’ to put the information from the test into a format suitable for 5-8 year olds. I found it surprisingly tricky to get the information across in a way they’d understand, as well as being engaging and fun. It’s quite a wide age range to bridge for reading level as well as level of understanding. All in all, a very useful insight into the writing side of the editor’s job, as Templar pride themselves on using their editors’ writing skills as well as honing others’ work. Katie’s example was much better than my attempt – practice obviously does make perfect!

Luckily, for most of the rest of my time I managed to stick to the editing side: I was given lots of proof-reading and tweaking text for books. Being a pedant, this was perfect as it’s the kind of thing I find weirdly enjoyable. One of my jobs was altering the text to make it suitable for different markets: I ‘Americanised’ (or should that be ‘AmericaniZed’?) Penguin in Peril, a gorgeous new picture book, which has recently come out in the UK. Highly recommended, and not just by me!

http://booksniffingpug.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/top-secret-sneak-peek-penguin-in-peril.html

http://paperrobinstudio.com/2013/03/07/book-of-the-month-penguin-in-peril-by-authorillustrator-helen-hancocks/

With Penguin being a picture book, there wasn’t too much to do to make it suitable for subway-riding, movie-watching Americans, but the following week I was presented with the daunting task of ‘Anglicising’ a whole YA novel! Thankfully a freelance proof-reader had already done the hard work of marking up the manuscript, but while putting her corrections into InDesign I discovered a fair few things which had been missed. This just proves that the more different pairs of eyes checking a book, the better. I’m pretty confident I got the majority of the changes such as ‘defense’, ‘-ize’ verbs and expressions like ‘in back’ (which to me just sounds ugly), and as a bonus, I got to read a cracking story as well.

My other major task was picture and sound research for various projects that are in the pipeline (the details of which are all under wraps for now: I even had to sign a confidentiality agreement!) Picture research and fact checking was fun, broadening my own knowledge of a huge range of topics. I particularly enjoyed the sound research, as I got to listen to all kinds of crazy wild animal noises while watching the work of the office going on round me – a great juxtaposition of worlds!

Another ongoing job for any intern is assessing the slush pile. It’s good fun as you get to see the range of writing that people consider publishable – some of it’s good, and some so bad it’s funny. Doing the rejections can be a bit sad, but enlivened by seeing how far some of the letters are going (people send stuff from Australia!), as well as making the discovery that ‘Universal Postal Union’ coupons don’t work at the post office any more. (Readers who are submitting work from abroad, take note!) Templar is usually quite strict about only sending letters to people who enclose a SAE, but we made exceptions for the UPU coupon people, since they really had tried to pay for the postage.

With the help of the lovely George (see his post below), I also categorised a large stock of books from the archive. These are all now sitting happily on some shelves outside the main studio, so that people can wander past and pick up a book for inspiration. It was fascinating to see the range that Templar publishes, as well as how some topics for children are timeless and keep coming up again and again. I also started a ‘reference’ section, with encyclopaedias and anthologies on topics ranging from Ancient Egypt and animals to pirates and poetry. We enjoyed displaying some of the books to attract attention, as well as assembling the concertina books to show off their structure.

Overall I’ve really enjoyed the past two weeks, and can’t believe how quickly the time’s gone by! I’ve loved getting to know everyone here and feeling like part of the team, and hope to return for another placement in the future…(I’ll bring more cake!)

Templar is on the lookout for an intern!

Templar is delighted to be able to offer a six-week internship in our busy editorial department, starting in early January.

Working in editorial is exciting and varied – whilst here you’d be undertaking project work such as picture research and proofreading, as well as helping us go all out in preparation for the most important event in the children’s publishing calendar: the Bologna Book Fair. We're also going to be looking for help reading submissions and creating our autumn/winter catalogue. So if you have a passion for children’s books and a keen eye for typos, please do get in touch!

We can offer travel expenses of up to £15 per day and a small amount of subsistence. If you’d like to apply for the position, please send a covering letter and your CV to liza.miller@templarco.co.uk with the subject heading ‘Editorial internship’.

Deadline for application: 21st December 2012