Day in the Life (In Office): Sequoia Ahren
Publicity Assistant, DK Publishing.
Day: Monday, August 25th, 2025
8:50 AM: I arrive at the Penguin Random House office in New York. Once I settle in at my desk, I make myself a coffee and grab a quick breakfast.
9:00 AM: Go through emails and write down any priority tasks for the day. I check my calendar to see what my meeting schedule looks like for the day ahead. I open my to-do list and prioritize tasks and plan out my day.
11:00 AM: First meeting of the day. I meet with the publicity team to discuss anything outstanding, upcoming books, events, and projects that we are working on together. Right now, we are focusing on assigning spring 2026 titles (I know it’s still summer!). We go through what titles are priorities for the spring and assign publicists to each book. Depending on the status of the title, we assign either 1 to 3 people to work on the book. 3 people are reserved for our “Superlead” titles.
12:00 PM: Attend author meeting. This was a fun meeting as it was the authors’ publication day! We discussed the upcoming events we scheduled for him and went over any updates and outstanding questions that he and his team may have.
12:30 PM: Quick lunch break! Nothing exciting here. I packed my lunch today.
1:00 PM: Attended the Alpha Monthly Meeting. Alpha is an imprint of DK that focuses on cookbooks and lifestyle titles. We met with the Alpha publisher and editorial team to go over fall 2025 books, press, and events.
2:00 PM: Marketing and Publicity meeting. This meeting occurs twice a week, it is very informal and we use this as a time to chat with team members about books we’re working on, any important information we need to share, or just a time to catch up with colleagues we don’t work with every day.
2:30 PM: Weekly meeting with my manager. We use this hour to go over any projects that I am working on. This is a way to keep track of my work and make sure things are moving forward. We also use this time to go over any general questions I may have. As I am only a year into my publishing career, this is a great opportunity to ask questions about the company or get advice on things that may have come up the week before.
3:30 PM: Finished with meetings for the day. I use this time to reorganize myself and go through any emails that I may have missed.
4:00 PM: Today I worked on submitting December titles to the trades (Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Bookpage, LJ, SLJ).
4:30 PM: Continue pitching DK’s holiday gift guide. The holidays seem to start earlier every year. My colleague and I have started pitching for holiday gift guide coverage and have created a splash page to showcase our biggest titles from the past year.
5:00 PM: Check on anything outstanding and go through emails to see if there is anything urgent before I log off for the evening, pack up, and commute home!
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