The intern experience: Starting out in the book industry

Monday, 7 October 2013 Books+Publishing

Internships are a common way of breaking into the book industry, but they’re also an opportunity to try out different roles, reports Eloise Florence.

For Natalia Cheng, an internship at the Melbourne Writers Festival (MWF) was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up, even if it was unpaid. Luckily for Cheng, she was able to incorporate the internship into her degree in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne. ‘At first it was more like “Yay I got an MWF internship! Now how can I work this into my university degree?”’ Natalia went on to secure a role as marketing manager at MWF in 2013.

However, Cheng’s story is becoming less common in a job market that has seen unpaid internships grow at a fast rate. In a report from the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) earlier this year, internships were found to be increasing in areas where there was high demand but few positions, including media, marketing and PR, with evidence that ‘a growing number of businesses are choosing to engage unpaid interns to perform work that might otherwise be done by paid employees’. The report identified university-supported internships as a way of avoiding unfair treatment of interns.

Like many Australian publishers, the University of Queensland Press (UQP) has close ties with a number of university courses in writing, editing and publishing. UQP publisher Madonna Duffy believes that these internship programs are ‘a way of finding and nurturing a new generation of publishers, editors and publicists and giving them valuable industry exposure and experience’. Duffy also notes that many interns from the UQP program have gone on to work for publishers across Australia and even internationally.

Simon & Schuster managing director Lou Johnson thinks that even if an internship doesn’t lead to a paid position with that particular employer, interns gain skills that make them more employable. ‘It shows focus and a level of knowledge on their part,’ says Johnson. ‘As an employer I would pay more attention to an application that included an internship.’

Jo Case, a senior writer and editor at the Wheeler Centre, says she is ‘definitely in favour of unpaid internships’. ‘It’s how I got my start in publishing, and I was hired at the end of a week’s internship at Wakefield Press, then paid $50 a day for a few months before transitioning to proper pay. I have never regretted it, and I don’t know if I would be here without that opportunity,’ she says, before name-checking several former interns at Sleepers, Australian Book Review and Kill Your Darlings who now work in paid positions in the industry.

Case says it’s important that the nature of the internships and expectations of both parties is made clear up front, and that interns ‘aren’t just fetching coffee and sending out mail, but also learning skills’. ‘If the internships go on too long, unpaid, that’s a problem. And if companies are hiring interns in place of hiring people, that’s a problem too,’ she says.

There is also more to an internship than just getting a job at the end, says Cheng. ‘An internship is a process of self-discovery as well that I think you perhaps wouldn’t get in a paid role because there’s so much pressure on you to be fulfilling the work, rather than just experiencing what it’s like in the workplace,’ she says. MWF director Lisa Dempster agrees, suggesting that internships can be a way to ‘try a role to see if it’s right for you’.

Dempster is also keen to point out that internships are not the only way of getting your foot in the industry’s door. ‘I think there’s a growing number of people who are saying no to internships and just creating their own opportunities, like maybe making their own magazines, getting involved in student journalism, or setting up their own PR business. So I think there are now more than ever lots of different pathways for people to get into the industry—whichever path they choose will probably suit their personality and character.’

The bookselling experience

While internships are less common in bookstores, many stores offer work experience placements to high school students. Melbourne’s Readings offers 11 positions per year across three of its stores, and human resources manager Jan Lockwood says the positions are ‘always oversubscribed’.The program is designed to give students an insight to how bookstores operate across a wide variety of areas. In the smaller Hawthorn and St Kilda stores, this is usually done through staff ‘shadowing’. However, in the Carlton store there is a structured, week-long programin place.

Lockwood says the Carlton program includes jobs such as web ordering, shelving and tidying, research, returns, receiving, buying, marketing and events, website maintenance, and database and point-of-sale training. Students are paid $5 a day to cover lunch and travel costs and receive a free book of their choice at the end of the program.

Category: Features