For the next two months I will be interning, crashing on friends' sofas and documenting my experience here on this blog. Like thousands of other English students, I'm thinking about a career in book publishing. I have had this conversation countless times with people who say that they’ve also thought about ‘getting into it,’ but talking our discussion any deeper proves difficult when it becomes clear that no one really knows a thing about what a publisher or agent actually does. Lucky for me then, I have secured summer work placements with both (literary agency) Fox Mason and one of the last great independent publishing houses, Faber and Faber.
Most of the people I’ve told about my work placements have marvelled at what invaluable ‘networking,’ opportunities they will be, and thats a fair assumption. I’ll be honest though, I’m still only 19 and so networking isn't exactly at the forefront of my mind. At this point in my life I’m looking to be inspired by people who are successful in their field and am planning on using the next couple of months as an opportunity to learn all I can about the actual business of book publishing and figure out if the career I have chosen is actually right for me.
I am Sonny the Summer Intern. This is an experiment.