Design internship on offer at Templar

Templar is dedicated to providing high-quality internships across our departments that give the publishing stars of the future the opportunity to ask questions, gain experience and hit the ground running in a busy children's publishing house.

With that in mind, our design department is offering a six-week part-time internship to start on Monday 11th February, providing a rare glimpse into the world of design and paper engineering at one of the most respected studios in the business. Our placement is structured to give you a real insight into the work of a book designer. Coming in three days per week, you'll be assisting designers who work on picture books, novelty books and non-fiction, helping to source illustrators for upcoming projects and contributing to the team effort to prepare for the Bologna Book Fair. You'll learn about producing sales material, get an insight into paper engineering and understand the process of making a book from the perspective of a publishing house.

Knowledge of Quark Xpress and/or Adobe Creative Suite is desirable and, it goes without saying, an eye for design and a love of beautiful books is a must! 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 ‘Design internship’.

Deadline for applications: 31st January 2013

If you'd like to know what it's like to intern at Templar, check out these blog posts:

• Tara's first fortnight in editorial
• Sarah's first week in Sales
• Peter's work experience 

Deborah White's exclusive Nefertaru story!

New for January 2013: Deceit by Deborah White!
Paperback 978 1 84877 413 1 £6.99

In the follow-up to the thriller Wickedness, modern-day teen Claire and her seventeenth-century counterpart Margrat discover it is impossible to escape the clutches of the sinister Doctor, who has pursued them across time.

What do you think of our new look covers for the series? 

To celebrate the publication of Deceit, Deborah White is touring UK blogs with a serialisation of her untold story of ancient Egyptian Nefertaru, dancer at the Temple of Sekhmet and the mummy who inspired White's story. 

Follow her story:

Monday 7th January - The Bookbag

Thursday 10th January - Books for Company

Wednesday 16th January - Totally Bookalicious

Tuesday 22nd January - Bookbabblers

Friday 25th January - Dark Readers

Keep up to date with all Deborah's news on her website, or follow her on Twitter - @DeborahJWhite

Karen Saunders UK blog tour!

This week, Me, Suzy P author, Karen Saunders is taking part in a virtual blog tour. 

Follow her guest posts on the blogs below to find out more about Karen, Suzy and the gang!

14th January
Chicklish

15th January
Bookster Reviews

16th January
I Want to Read That

17th January
Readaraptor

18th January
Bookcrazed Reviews

We're looking for an International Sales Intern!

International Sales Internship – Templar Publishing, Dorking based (expenses paid)

We are currently looking for an organised and enthusiastic intern with an interest in children’s books for our International Rights/UK Special Sales department.

The internship will include both International Sales and UK Special Sales administration support. Duties are as follows; helping to draw up and monitor contracts, checking invoices and purchase orders, organising drop shipments and tracking schedules and approvals at all stages of the publishing process. This is a great opportunity to see how an international co-edition team works! The internship may also offer the opportunity to assist with customer presentations in the UK depending on timing.

The internship would be for a period of three months starting mid/end of January.

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 email a covering letter and your CV to helen.binns@templarco.co.uk with the subject heading: International Sales Intern.

Deadline for applications: Friday 18th January

Guest post from Gemma O'Neill!

Hello there. My name is Gemma O’Neill and I’m a UK based illustrator. I’m absolutely thrilled to be a guest blogger today and I’m ecstatic about the publication of my first picture book with Templar Publishing Oh Dear, Geoffrey! on the 1st January.

The tale revolves around a rather tall and clumsy giraffe called Geoffrey. He annoys all the other animals with his long legs and neck, until one day he finds he can show his friends something they have never seen before; the stars.

Geoffrey first appeared during the final year of my degree at University College Falmouth in 2011. I’ve always loved animals and natural history, so it seemed logical to base a story around one of my favourite animals. I love how tall giraffes are and their beautiful patterns. Texture, rich colours, and organic form play a large part in my work, so it was an absolute dream to start developing a giraffe as a central character. Then it wasn’t long before a concept based around the advantages and disadvantages of being so tall took shape. I have a tendency to overcomplicate ideas, so the more simplified the initial concept is the better.

By the time the Bologna Book Fair came around in Spring 2011, Geoffrey had his very own picture book, a cover and four coloured double page spreads. A few friends and I had been planning a trip to the fair since the summer before. So off we went with our illustration hampers. These included dummy books, portfolios, sketchbooks, business cards, sample illustration sheets and other goodies. We even replaced our identification necklaces with our business cards just to stand out.

We visited the Templar stand first and were greeted by the lovely Helen Boyle, who took the time to sit down with us and have a look at our work. We were then introduced to the wonderful Amanda Wood, who invited us to the London Book Fair the following week. I had absolutely no idea that my first book deal was just around the corner. I thought all the feedback would be great for the professional practice unit of my degree and a great warm up for taking our illustration hampers to New York a month later. It was a real adventure, surprise and without a doubt the happiest moment of my life to date was when the Templar team said they would publish my book.

So I left my degree with the book deal. I started developing Geoffrey further after my first visit to the exciting Templar headquarters. The book ended up having a lot more pages than originally planned and even more characters. I was very surprised and flattered not to be told to alter my illustrative style in any way. I work very intricately and traditionally using gouache, watercolours and collage, but tweak the work using Photoshop. The Templar team were an absolute dream to work with and the whole book making process felt very natural.

It’s obvious now, that I’ve been on an illustrative path since my childhood. As far back as I can remember I’ve always been creating, crafting, making, doodling, colouring and inventing. Or if I wasn’t doing that, I was tucked up in my favourite armchair with a book, tea and biscuits. I knew I wanted to be an author/ illustrator well before the end of school and my A-level choices of English Literature, Business, Art and Design reflected this. I was absolutely determined to do a degree in Illustration afterwards. However, I still decided to go through an art and design foundation course. I’m really glad I did, as it confirmed my love for illustration even further and gave me the confidence to travel form the North Coast of Ireland to Cornwall.

Creativity definitely defined my childhood, teenage years and I can’t wait for it to define the years to come. Roll on churning out the next book with Templar Publishing and I hope Oh Dear, Geoffrey brings some warmth to this January for you!

Happy New Year!

Thank you very much to Gemma for starting off our 2013 with this fab blog post! Find out more about Oh Dear, Geoffrey! here or on our website.