Day in the Life Archives: Kaitlin Loss
Former ECC Chair; HarperCollins Children’s Books; Associate, Subsidiary Rights (March 6, 2019 Issue)
9:00am – Got to work a bit later than anticipated (thanks, MTA!). We had our Winter 2020 launch the last two days, so I have a lot of emails that have been neglected. Typically, when I get in each morning, I read through everything and quickly flag what needs to be done and sort away what is already finished. (I love a clean inbox.)
9:30am – I create my to-do list for the day. A lot of items are just things from yesterday’s list that keep moving… On Thursday mornings I also like to read the entire NY Times list, after spot-checking the Children’s lists on Wednesday evenings.
10:30am – Bologna is coming up! In addition to handling my own schedule for the fair, I also manage the rest of my team’s, so four schedules total. Most of the scheduling is already done, so I go through and check in with those appointments that are still unconfirmed. My boss comes over and asks if it’s possible to move someone on her schedule, so I reach out to the publisher to attempt the change.
11:00am – I need to upload some picture book files for one of our sister companies. Of course, the system we use (Basecamp) freezes every time I attempt to upload. I fight with it for a few minutes before switching to a different computer. After some muttering to myself—success!
11:30am – My team is starting a big project that involves checking contracts for over 900 titles. I’m acting as point person on the project, so I meet with my boss to chat about some of the details.
12:40pm – Lunchtime! Usually I eat at my desk and read the news (or celebrity gossip), but since Bologna is only 6ish weeks away, I try to get a bit of manuscript reading done. It’s sunny, so when I finish eating, I go outside for a walk.
2:00pm – More Bologna prep! I need to mail our materials soon, so I do a final run-through to make sure I have print-outs of all picture books. We’re missing one, so I quickly put in the order with our Copy Center.
2:30pm – One of my colleagues asks me to work on an “annoying project.” It turns out our publicity team needs some sales figures, but I can easily pull those from our system! I show two of my colleagues how to do it, and it isn’t so annoying after all.
3:00pm – I’m a member of our Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, and we have our bi-weekly meeting.
3:30pm – The last mail pickup is quickly approaching, so I mail some finalized contracts back to our subagents.
4:00pm – I create a monthly newsletter for our subagents that outlines our acquisitions, news, deals done, and starred reviews. I start working on it, pulling acquisitions and gathering my list of starred reviews received this month.
5:00pm – I start tackling some of that big project mentioned earlier. I’m checking for a lot of things in contracts that I don’t typically have to look for, so it takes a bit until I get the hang of it.
6:00pm – I’ve gotten through a few titles, so I save and leave for the night. I tell myself I’ll need to get through at least 50 pages of a manuscript tonight; our first pre-Bologna scout meeting is next week and I am woefully unprepared.
