• Asked and Answered

Asked and Answered | May 26, 2016

“If you could work in any other department in children’s publishing, what would that be?”

“If I had a chance to work in another department, I would love to spend some time in Sub Rights. Earlier in my career, I had a position in which I wore more than one hat, and one of them was handling translation rights. I loved meeting editors and agents from Europe, South America, and Asia; learning about the intricacies of their markets; and placing the right books with the right publishers in the right countries. Now, watching the superb work done by all the Sub Rights folks at Hachette, I’m reminded of how much fun I had moonlighting in rights sales and wish I’d had the chance to spend more time in that world.”

—Andy Ball, Senior Managing Editor for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, Orbit and Redhook, and Yen Press LLC

“If I could work in any other department, I’d be interested in working in Audio. I am intrigued by the unique reading experience audio books offer to listeners and wouldn’t mind learning more about this fast-growing part of our industry!”

—Isa Caban, Marketing Coordinator for Simon & Schuster

“If I were to try out a different position, it would be within Sales. While I am likely romanticizing the role in my mind a bit, I love the idea of getting the books we publish out into the world, particularly in schools, libraries, and independent bookstores. I have sound people skills, and it would be satisfying to use them for a different purpose.”

—Amy Carlisle, Managing Editor at HMH Books for Young Readers

“I have worked in Subsidiary rights now for over 12 years so it is difficult to imagine myself in a different department altogether! But at this point in my career I know where my strengths and interest lie and would have to say publicity. In rights, we work across a number of different departments on a day-to-day basis and interact regularly with finance, marketing, editorial and publicity.  We frequently collaborate with publicity on international author tours, helping to manage schedules, interviews, and material and I really enjoy working directly with Scholastic’s talented authors and illustrators.

A few years back, I was able to accompany R.L. Stine (Goosebumps) and Kathryn Lasky (Guardians of Ga’Hoole) on tour in Paris for the Salon du Livre. It was the most amazing time and I found I loved working with the authors one-on-one and being a resource for them during their trip.  I think that there is some overlap in the skill/ sets or traits that would make one successful in both Rights or Publicity: being organized and detail oriented, having real enthusiasm for books and their creators, the ability to multi-task and prioritize – and being open to travel!”

—Janelle DeLuise, Associate Director, International Rights, Scholastic

“I would have to say I’m torn between sales and editorial. Working in editorial would be very rewarding because you get to work with an author on their manuscript from the very early stages. Watching stories go from being word documents to being real live books and knowing that you had a hand in that transformation would be a pretty great experience. On the other end of the spectrum going on sales calls and having the immediate satisfaction of making a sale and getting great books into stores sounds very fun to me.”

—Johanna Kirby, Associate Marketing Manager, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group

“This is an extremely difficult question. I’ve been in publishing long enough to say that I know—without a doubt—I would be a terrible editor, publisher, publicist, sales associate… you get the idea. I would win the award for the worst managing editor ever. Hands down, no contest.

If I could entertain another position, it would have to be in Production. Working in Design, I’m fortunate to work closely with a lot of extremely talented production people. I don’t know how many times I’ve had an image look great on-screen and look miserable on paper. Production always finds a way to get that image to translate successfully.

I can always count on Production to brainstorm with me—help me understand the best process to make a book look its best. I would love to explore that world—to know types of paper/inks/special effect-stuff. Of course, I would fail miserably at the scheduling aspect. (Of which I know nothing about. . . The learning curve would be quite vast.)”

—Sarah Kaufman, Senior Designer, HarperCollins Children’s Books

“I would definitely want to work in Design. Growing up, I never realized that you didn’t have to be an artist or illustrator to work in an art department. I didn’t know there was a job where you could work with artists to help cultivate their work and weigh in on the creative process… and then do the Photoshop dirty work behind the scenes! I’m also really intrigued by typesetting and fonts and the little details on the inside of a novel. As a reader, I always take those things for granted. I’m glad that in my job as a Managing Editor I work really closely with Designers and occasionally get a sneak peek into their world.”

—Liz Lunn, Managing Editorial, Penguin Young Readers