Intern Corner: Peishan Yu
Design Intern, Charlesbridge Publishing.
What is something surprising that you’ve learned, be it the particular department you are interning in, the publishing house, or the industry?
This was my first ever internship and I did not know what to expect. I was surprised by the many different types of meetings there are at Charlesbridge. There are meetings for production, design, marketing, backlist, frontlist, Visual Trade Analysis, etc. Publishing is a highly collaborative industry, and the different departments work in tandem with each other like a murmuration of birds. There are so many roles and positions in publishing that I had no idea about previously. When I went to visit the Hachette Book Group’s headquarters in New York, I discovered they even had a Sound Department.
Is there anything about working in this department that you weren’t expecting?
I was not expecting the amount of emails I needed to send. Even though I am an intern in the Design Department, most of my projects needed to be approved by the editors and other designers. At first, I suffered from the “I hope this email finds you well” syndrome, but it is way better to get straight to the point and skip some of the unnecessary formality. Perhaps it is because Charlesbridge is a smaller publishing house, there is a pretty tight-knit sense of community and people are very friendly. Another general advice I would give is to find an organization/time management method that works for you. It kind of ties in with the emails. Editors and designers work on multiple books at the same time, being straightforward is time-efficient but also makes it easier to keep track of everything. I also find having a physical reminder super helpful.
What’s the coolest thing you’ve done so far?
The coolest project I worked on during my internship was redesigning an import book. The book was published originally in England, and it is a very wholesome story about a little girl and her mom playing catch. I got to work on the book from start to finish, including designing the jacket, picking out a new font for the text, and even choosing the endpaper color! This was also the biggest project I worked on. Before this, I mostly helped the other designers by working on smaller tasks. It felt like playing Mario, the levels started easy and became increasingly more complex. Putting down my name as the designer on the copyright page was the “saving Princess Peach” moment for sure. It was the physical manifestation of the accumulated experience and knowledge I gained during my time at Charlesbridge. When you are interning, every little thing counts! I am very appreciative that my first internship ended up feeling very personal to my growth.
Any advice you would want to give to others starting out in Publishing?
I would suggest people go on LinkedIn or Google, find people in the publishing industry and reach out to them. Be polite and ask about their publishing journey and how they got to the position they are in. Keep the emails simple and if they are open to it, I would suggest setting up an informational interview. Cold emails are very scary. I am still terrified of sending them, but the worst thing that could happen is not getting a reply. If you think about it that way, it is not that bad.
I would also recommend anyone just starting to look into the We Need Diverse Books Internship Grant. I think it is currently only for people who applied and got into a summer internship with WNDB’s partner publishers and literary houses. It is worth it, you get to attend their online boot camp and informational Chat & Chews with people currently working in the Publishing industry. Plus you get grant money! It helped me relocate to Boston for my internship. On a more practical note: if you can, get a pair of blue light-blocking glasses! It sounds very silly, but it is no joke how many hours you spend looking at a screen at least when in the Design department. Please make sure to look out the windows once in a while, eye health is no joke.
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