Mentor Corner: Jennifer Delaney
Senior Vice President and Director of Production at Charlesbridge Publishing
What was your first job in publishing?
My VERY first job was writing the calendar section for a tiny local newspaper in Vermont, called The Vermont Times. But my first job in color publishing, where I also did editorial, design, and production, was when I was a team of two (both of us learning together) running a travel magazine called Discover Connecticut Magazine, for a realtor who knew nothing about publishing.
What was your career path like getting to your current role?
I call my career the “long and winding road.” To give you the play-by-play, I was first introduced to publishing, as I said, at the Vermont Times, when there was nothing electronic, and it was all paste-up by hand. Then I transferred in my Junior year to Connecticut College and got the job publishing Discover Connecticut Magazine. When I graduated, I got a job at Bob Adams, Inc, which became Adams Media, and then F&W Publishing. I was producing, with a small team, 3 career magazines called Careers and the MBA, Careers and the College Grad, and Careers and the Engineer. Those then got sold to Kaplan and I got a job (my dream job) in the Children’s production department of Little, Brown. I was Senior Production Coordinator for a few years, and then got promoted to Reprints Manager for all of Time Warner Trade Publishing (including Little, Brown, Warner Books, and Bulfinch). I had also started a freelance production business at the same time. After almost 10 years there, they decided to move all the creative departments to the New York office. I was just about 2 weeks away from delivering my daughter, and didn’t want to raise a baby in NY, so I helped them with the transition and went on maternity leave.
I was a stay-at-home mom for 14 months and was about to go out of my mind, so I went back to work part-time at David R. Godine, Publisher. David couldn’t pay me (and didn’t have a large enough list) to warrant full-time, so I pieced together two other part-time jobs, at Nicolas Brealey Publishing and Applewood Books, in addition to freelance work. Then, in 2013, I decided to start my own publishing business, and quit Godine but kept the other two. It was a co-venture publishing model, and it was successful, but juggling all of this and two little kids was incredibly overwhelming. Nicolas Brealey got purchased by Hachette, so I left that and only worked for Applewood part-time and my company. Then, Applewood decided they liked my business model and wanted me full-time, so they bought my company from me in 2016, and kept me on as publisher of JMD Publishing, as well as their full-time production manager. Then COVID hit, and Applewood went down pretty quickly. So, I went looking and found Charlesbridge. I have never been happier having ONE job, and being able to focus entirely on the production of children’s books, which I love.
What advice would you give to those who are either just starting out or are in their first few years in publishing?
LEARN, LEARN, LEARN! Learn everything you can about the business as a whole. Take every opportunity, network, and push yourself to take on as many varied projects as possible. Go to meetings that don’t seem directly related to what you are doing, but where you might learn something new. I lean toward working in smaller companies that give you more of an opportunity to step outside your silo. It is all about relationships in this business, and the more people you meet, the more you will learn and grow.
What are your current favorite reads?
I enjoy popular fiction, as well as nonfiction that is inspirational, especially with spiritual/holistic themes. I am currently reading The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell, and I just finished Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.
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