Welcome Books

Alexandra Peterson, 2008.5

During my Winter Term internship at Welcome Books I was thoroughly introduced to the workings of a publishing company, a three-decade-old company, which is connected to the historic publishing house, Random Books.

Welcome Books, Inc. has multiple divisions, but it is renowned for its coffee table books: The Constitution and The Farmer, for instance. These books have large photos, but what I like in particular is the informative nature of each book. I wanted to intern for the company because of its small size and good values. Everyone was very thoughtful to explain the company’s inner workings, as I was hoping they would be. I took it slow, as I have not walked into a situation with so little background in a very long time. I think it is great that I’m ending my college career with an opportunity to experience something different – a liberal arts education at its best.

I had no experience in the book business nor in a small company so I requested to be sent around and help as many different people and projects as possible. I was able to sit down during brainstorm meetings: meetings for book ideas, illustration ideas, cover ideas, pitching ideas, etc. I looked a many mocks to see what issues there were with text, image and layout. I had to double check finances of the company, help go through bills and projected income and also go through financial possibilities with the economic crisis. I took notes at meetings regarding negotiations of contracts and staff assignments. I assisted with events to help promote upcoming and existing books.

I learned that it is all about ideas. Good, unique ideas. What is the book that no one else is going to think of? What coffee table book does not exist yet?  What is a children’s book that will be of interest for generations to come? What children’s adventure has someone NOT written about yet? What type of photos or illustrations have not been on the market that should be? It is an inventive industry, to say the least. It is about pitching an idea to an author to have them agree to do business with you. You’re a sales person who must have unique ideas. This was not something I’m used to. I’m not a creative person. I am a person of logic. I think analytically and therefore am better at working with an existing problem, rather than coming up with one.  This is what Winter Term is all about – experiencing something, you otherwise might not ever experience.

The competition between publishing houses is worse than ever with this failing economy and I learned about how a publishing company works, but more so, how a publishing company works when there is no money. So one of the challenges is not finding the people and books, but to get them under contract as soon as possible. I understood the negotiation process, but not the lingo. There are standard fees and times for new writers, a certain amount of money for a year’s work. The corresponding time spans and prices I still can’t remember. I like the negotiation side of it – the chase, the challenge. It seems that is what I have found most enticing throughout learning about the industry. Even though I think it is important to exercise my very little creative side, I find that I gravitate towards the business end of publishing.

Last J-term I worked for Diane Sawyer at ABC News, an enormous corporation. Working at a small company has shown me that what a successful small company needs is a group of hard workers and self-motivators. This business is full of very well educated, thorough workers. Everyone has his or her own specific expertise, but at the same time, everyone checks everyone else’s work.  This has been my first experience in a small office. I’m not sure if my work style is best for this environment, but it is without a doubt interesting.

At the end of this internship I realized that I’m more of the independent type, and therefore not one to work in a company that is “family style.” I did without a doubt need this experience. I needed to know what it is like to depend on members of the team and to have to have many people check your work and to have many voices on a topic rather than a single boss.

I knew before I entered that the publishing world was not for me, but it was important for me to see it as a student of international relations. I read books – all the time – and these books go through a business to before their final product. I wanted to know the capitalist tweaks (or something along those lines) it goes through during the publishing process to make it to the public eye. It was all fascinating, but professionally, not for me.

Wanting to know the process of what I consume was the same with ABC News. I watch the news all the time; I depend on it for my professional and personal life. I wanted to know what the filters were, the economical benefits for certain frames, the relationships between news corporations and other businesses. I think it is very important to understand the business of a product that one consumes on a regular basis. It could even be like reading, Fast Food Nation, for meat-eaters (I’m a vegetarian). I like to know the details of an organization or company, what are the pressing issues, what are the small issues that the public does not know. It all gets complicated and I think the only way to really get to know something is to throw yourself in the middle of it. And that is what I did.

I now have greater knowledge of the book industry. I also have greater knowledge of a small business. The two combined were so informative because I was basically starting at ground zero. I took in as much information as I could get and at the end of my internship I made an assessment of what I learned and compared and contrasted that to who I am. Neither of the two, the publishing industry, nor the small business, seemed to work well with me, but I would not have known that had I not been able to do an internship during Winter Term.

This was an accomplishment. What I believe, J-term is all about. Experiencing. My final college experience, a new one, a never done before, what a great way to lead into the real world.

Contact the Career Services Office for more information on this internship!

Remezcla.com

Sylvia Mendez, 2010

During my January term, I interned with Remezcla, a Latin media company that focuses on local Latino culture in five different cities, including: New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. Unlike other Latin media outlets, Remezcla covers the local Latino scenes of these cities in addition to up-and-coming artists, musicians, filmmakers, and other Latino movers and shakers. As an intern, I researched events relevant to Latino culture in those five cities. I also wrote about music shows and other happenings across the country and in New York City in their blog called “El Daily Remix”. I also contributed content to the Myspace Latino music page, where they feature new up-and-coming artists every week. I greatly enjoyed interning with Remezcla because they provided me hands-on experience in the Latin music and media industry, while giving me space to use my own creativity.  In my five weeks at their Williamsburg office, I learned a few important things.

Firstly, in order to stand out, you must provide your audience with interesting and original content. Remezcla has been successful because they filled a void that existed among younger Latinos. Remezcla in itself arose when two Colombia University friends, Nuria Net and Claire Frisbie, realized that there was no outlet that listed or talked about local Latino concerts or events. Before the days of Remezcla, media giants like Telemundo, MTV, Univision dominated Latin media, but provided a very limited scope of the culture. Therefore, they joined forces and have been developing Remezcla ever since as the website’s co-editors-in-chief. Most often, Latino culture is misunderstood; so most people think that it consists of Shakira belly dancing, Ricky Martin’s living la vida loca and Chipotle burritos. In reality, a fresh scene of emerging Latino musicians, artists and writers is alive. Remezcla audience consists of young bilingual Latinos professionals and students who refer to Remezcla for their smart and hip content. The recent culture that has been developing among young Latinos (who are often first-generation American) is interesting because if combines aspects of their Latin American culture with their own experience living in these bustling cities. Now other companies, like MTV, which recently launched MTVtres (a Latino oriented music channel), has picked up the trend.

In my five weeks interning, I recognized that the best way to develop news and discover rising movements is by exploring your own environment. Remezcla produces original content through contributors from all five cities. My best ideas for blogs and articles came from attending concerts or taking a closer look at what I saw around me. As part of the internship, I surveyed the Latino culture of two different neighborhoods, El Barrio in uptown Manhattan and Jackson Heights, Queens by spending afternoons in those spots. I looked out for places where people were hanging out; parties, concerts, and performances in neighborhood venues; and any circulating publications. In checking out the neighborhood, I discovered the El Barrio has a strong environmental movement already in place among its Latino inhabitants. Moreover, I also wrote about a Brooklyn-based band called Contramano, who I would have never discovered without attending their show.

Finally, by observing the co-editors-in-chief and CEO at work, I realized that the best way to conduct business is by making relationships with people wherever you go. Remezcla works at different levels. They often feature small restaurants, businesses and unknown bands, while working with large giants like Microsoft and Myspace. Making connections with others you come across is important because you never know when you can collaborate with them in the future. Putting yourself out there and going out to events in order to meet people is crucial in the music and entertainment business. Every day and event is an opportunity to meet new people and learn about what they do. No matter how talented you are, you also need to promote yourself and get your name out.

Overall, I had an amazing time at Remezcla. I feel extremely grateful for the opportunity they gave me to put myself out there by contributing to their website. I have developed an eye for looking at people and projects and seeing the bigger picture. Most importantly, I have found a new appreciation for my own cosmopolatino culture in New York City. The cosmopolatino scene in these five cities and throughout the U.S. will only continue to thrive. Check it out for yourself by going to www.Remezcla.com .

Contact the Career Services Office for more information on this internship.

Author Intern-Dr. Lynne Lawner

Catherine Ahearn, 2011

Being that Lynne’s studio has no staff and I was the only other person assisting her, my work over the month was directly collaborative with her at all times. Everyday I would arrive at 9:30 and check my file on her computer. There, Lynne would list comments on my work from the day before, tasks to be tackled that day, and miscellaneous other notes that were relevant to my work there. My days varied drastically because we worked on three different projects that all demanded different types and amounts of time, skills, and attention.

The major focus of my time there was on a collection of Lynne’s poetry and photographs called Engadine Impressions. During my first week I read and re read about 120 of Lynne’s original work and together we chose 60 of these pieces to be included in the manuscript. After we picked these out, which proved to be very time consuming, we had to divide the poems into four sections and order them within their respective sections. Lynne picked the four section titles and asked me to sort them as I saw fit. After this she had me order them as I saw fit and we went through the final order together moving around anything she felt was out of place. It turns out that even after this was done Lynne kept going back to it and we ultimately re- titled the four sections, moved poems, replaced a few of the poems with others. Even though we started this project on the first day, it was not until my last week that we sent off the manuscript to Lynne’s publishers in Italy. Before we sent it off I did get to look at the images that Lynne was sending off with it, but as I am not familiar with photography, the photographs were something she worked on over the weekends with another intern.

Of course, this was also partially due to the fact that we worked on others things throughout this time. In between work on the poetry manuscript, I also helped organize a book foundation that Lynne is setting up as a legacy and a university in Perugia, Italy. The library will be composed of hundreds of books that she has personally collected throughout her life as well as all of her notes and video interviews. The majority of the books are concerned with culture and art, however more recently Lynne has decided to include any and all books of great merit so that the library is a bit more well rounded. My work on this project revolved mainly around organizational tasks. For example, I often had to catalogue new books so that Lynne had a record of what she was sending overseas and then package them according to genre. This often proved to be tedious and frustrating although I am very appreciative to have been given the chance to lend myself to such a great, selfless, endeavor. Although this work was more organizational and less academic I learned a great deal about my love for books and literature. This project proved very frustrating to pull together and if it were not for my genuine desire for these books to become a part of, not only a library, but a legacy, I would not have been able to do the work as effectively and whole heartedly as I did.

The last project we worked on concerned publisher’s catalogues. Each publishing season about 30 different publishing houses send Lynne their catalogues so that Lynne may order books in hopes that she will review any of them. Going through these catalogues is something that Lynne takes very seriously and her routine is something I had to master very quickly. I most appreciated this activity because I found it interesting to see the different trends in literature as well as the types of books each house published. After going through a few seasons, I could clearly detect the character of each publishing house.

I thought that my performance during this internship was up to Lynne’s expectations. That is not to say that I did not make some crucial mistakes in how I completed some of the tasks Lynne gave me. This was mainly due to the fact that Lynne has a very rigid way of doing things and any variation is simply not right. Taking this into account, I learned quickly to follow her directions exactly and ultimately did so without a second thought. Although the book foundation was the dullest project, I found that it was what I was best at because it predominantly demanded great organizational skills, which many of us at Middlebury already have, and nothing too new or challenging. My work on the poetry was much more fluid and I feel that I got much better at this as time went on because I got a sense of Lynne’s writing style, tastes and expectations from both her poems and comments on them over the course of our four weeks together.

Overall, I feel that my experience with Lynne was very successful in exposing me to many different projects and outlets of creativity. My work on the poetry manuscript was my favorite project not only because I worked on it from beginning to end but also because it combined my love for reading and analyzing poetry with editing. Sitting side by side with the author of the actual pieces I was working with is something I realize I will not be able to do again for many years and I valued it everyday. Lynne was always very open to talking about her work and the work of others and due to this I was able to quickly gain a grasp of what her tastes and feelings toward an array of things are and would be. Her writing is unlike anything I have ever been inspired by and throughout the four weeks I tried using her techniques and style experimentally in my own work. The other projects that Lynne made me a part of were interesting, but more educational for me in the sense that I gained a better sense of where my interests lie and where they do not. I was very lucky to have worked with her and to soak up as much knowledge from her in four weeks as possible. Any Middlebury student should jump at the opportunity to work with Lynne if she offers it.

Please contact the Career Services Office for more information on this internship!