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Month: April 2015

  • How I Got into Publishing

    Publicist at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Saga Press

    When I was looking for my first job, I’d ask as many people as I could how they got their start in publishing. I would collect stories from internship mentors, interviewers, people I met at networking events, whoever, in exchange for bright-eyed enthusiasm. As I found out, there’s no single path to publishing, but rather a network full of detours, twists, and forks that make up our small (yes, small) publishing village.

    On the surface, my path seems straightforward. My junior year at Columbia, I joined my college’s alumna mentor program as I began pondering life after college. Since I specified that I was interested in publishing, I was matched with the excellent and wonderful Juliet Grames, now associate publisher of Soho Press. Juliet was invaluable to me. At her advice, I did three internships before graduating in 2010: at an agency, in children’s editorial, and in adult trade marketing. She introduced me to other people in publishing, and I lived in her spare bedroom in Harlem while job-hunting in New York.

    After graduation, I laid out my plan for intense networking: interviews both informational and professional, panels, coffee dates, lunch dates, Kid Lit Drink Nights and KGB Fantastic Fiction Nights, basically anywhere I knew publishing people would be. Five months later, I began working as a publicity assistant at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 

    But even on my networking-heavy path, there were divergences. Though I had loved books all my life, I didn’t even consider publishing a career possibility until I met Juliet. My Chinese immigrant parents had always encouraged me to go into a technical field, and for my first two years at Columbia I’d majored in environmental engineering. When I’d transferred to anthropology, I was met with confusion and anxiety. Less “What is anthropology?” and more “Can you get a job with that degree?”

    Chastened but not surprised by this response, I decided to write my undergraduate thesis on books and the transformative power of reading and libraries in immigrant communities. Yes, I thought, I will use academia to validate my personal choices. I learned about Pierre Bourdieu’s forms of capital: cultural, social, and economic.

    • I learned that I had a fairly good base of cultural capital, combining the values of education and a hard work ethic I’d learned from my parents with the the knowledge and worldviews I’d gained from voraciously reading books.
    • Financially, my parents had dragged themselves out of poverty into a comfortable suburban life in New Jersey, and had saved enough to send me to college without loans, so I considered myself lucky on that front, too.
    • As for social capital, well–that’s where the networking came in.

    Looking back, I’m keenly aware of the opportunities I had as a Chinese-American woman–and the hiccups I had to overcome. A love of books is not enough to work in publishing. Some candidates can’t afford to accept an unpaid internship to get their foot in the door, let alone three. Some need to consider higher paying industries to pay off their loans or take care of their families. Others don’t live near New York, or have any publishing companies near them. And some, like me, never knew what publishing was until the “aha” moment when I realized that people worked to make this book I was holding in my hands. And these reasons are inseparably tied to diversity of race, ethnicity, class, geography, and more.

    I am the sum of my acquired experiences by learning, reading, and talking to others. I keep an open mind about others’ paths–whether they came to publishing later in life, or after working in another industry, or moved from rural Missouri–knowing each one is equally valid and worthy. Through the efforts of CBC Diversity and a focus on diverse recruitment, I hope that publishing village turns into a metropolis.

    Faye Bi works as a publicist at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and Saga Press. She tweets at @faye_bi.

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: E. Lockhart

    A call for compassion in E. Lockhart’s suspenseful page-turner We Were Liars (Delacorte Press/Random House Children’s, 2014): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: Frances …

  • Five Questions with Kids' Comics Authors

    Comics for kids are reaching a time of unprecedented acceptance in the American literary scene, and it’s now true that there are comics for everyone. (Mac Teen Books) Throughout April …

  • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Convenes Key Stakeholders to Advance National Dialogue on Early Education; Launches Conversations on Early Learning Symposium Series

    Washington, D.C. – Global learning company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) today will gather early learning stakeholders and experts to advance the national dialogue around the fundamental role of quality early childhood education in …

  • Television Personality Ty Pennington Teams Up with Scholastic to Give Mathematics an Extreme Makeover

    NEW YORK, NY — What are two things you need to build a house? Ty Pennington, best known for hosting ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, will show students in grades 4 …

  • Librarians Who've Created "Unlimited Possibilities @ Your Library"

    Here’s a look at some of the pioneer youth librarians that made the list: Lewis Caroll: Did you know that before penning the children’s classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Caroll …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Neil Gaiman

    Draw courage from Neil Gaiman’s fantasy Coraline (HarperCollins Children’s, 2002): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess Quote #2: …

  • The CBC and We Need Diverse Books™ to Partner on Resources and Programming for Publishing Internship Program

    New York, NY – April 14, 2015 – The Children’s Book Council (CBC), the non-profit trade association for children’s book publishers in North America, and grassroots nonprofit We Need Diverse …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Malala Yousafzai

    Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai shares the power of literacy in her memoir I Am Malala (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2014): See other quotes in the series, …

  • HarperCollins Children's Books to Publish Final 'Discworld' Novel From Sir Terry Pratchett

    New York, NY – This September HarperCollins Children’s Books will be publishing THE SHEPHERD’S CROWN, the final Discworld novel by Sir Terry Pratchett. Jennifer Brehl, SVP, Executive Editor & Director …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 Preview

    We have your favorite Children’s Book Week traditions and exciting new events heading your way! Here’s a look at some of the highlights: Free Comic Book Day: The Children’s Book …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: John Green

    Spark your imagination with this line from John Green’s novel Paper Towns (Dutton Books for Young Readers/Penguin, 2008): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: …

  • National Student Poets Lead the Way for Youth Writers During National Poetry Month

    New York, NY — The 2014 class of the National Student Poets Program (NSPP), the nation’s highest honor for teen poets presenting original work, is leading the charge to engage young, diverse …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Katherine Rundell

    Embrace possibility with this quote from Katherine Rundell’s whimsical novel Rooftoppers (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: A.A. Milne

    Here’s a warm fuzzy from A.A. Milne’s classic Winnie-the-Pooh (Dutton Books for Young Readers/Penguin, 1926): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: Frances Hodgson Burnett, …

  • LBYR Polls Fans to Decide On a Cover For a Libba Bray Short Story

    The story follows two best friends, Agnes and Leta, and how these two characters handle new developments in their friendship. Bray revealed in a blog post that the piece originally …

  • We Need Diverse Books Gains 501-c-3 Nonprofit Status

    Under the direction of founder Ellen Oh, WNDB has launched the Walter Dean Myers Award and grant program for diverse authors; a publishing internship program; a WNDB in the Classroom …

  • Children's Book Week 2015 #storylines: Sharon Draper

    Here’s a powerful phrase from Sharon Draper’s novel Out of My Mind (Simon & Schuster, 2012): See other quotes in the series, and share your favorites! Quote #1: Frances Hodgson …

  • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Unveils David Wiesner’s Spot – A Unique Digital Storytelling App from Three-Time Caldecott Medalist

    BOSTON, MA — Global learning company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) today released David Wiesner’s Spot, the latest visual masterpiece from three-time Caldecott medalist, David Wiesner. Designed to inspire imagination, discovery and playfulness in users …

  • J.K. Rowling Lights Up the Empire State Building to Launch Her Children’s Non-Profit Organization, Lumos USA

    New York, NY — J.K. Rowling today (April 9th) lit up the iconic Empire State Building in New York to mark the launch of Lumos USA as part of the NGO’s …

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