A Day in the Life . . . Grace Menary-Winefield, Editorial Assistant
What is a day like in the life of the Entice Team? After a fabulous Piatkus Blogger Party last week, we began to fully appreciate how brilliant it is to put a face to a name and wave away the smoke screen of a computer screen and social media presence. How well do you truly understand what we do here at Piatkus? We imagine that in the same way some people are surprised when they come for work experience, you might find the life of an editor is different than you think.
This week, we’re writing our days down for you (Bridget Jones-style!) so you can see the fun (and sometimes not so fun) work we do, starting with Piatkus Fiction (and Non-fiction) Editorial Assistant Grace . . .
Monday:
9:00 am: Enter the building 100 Victoria Embankment. I know around ten people in this lobby and the walk to work has made my hair look like a failed project from Grand Designs. Can I sneak past without them noticing? If I push the elevator button frantically enough, perhaps it will close before they – oh, hey Charlie! No . . . yes, I walked to work . . .
10:30 am: Little, Brown Book Group Editorial Meeting. Lots of important people. Lots of big projects. Stop staring at my pink pen. I am a SERIOUS PUBLISHER . . .
11:00 am: Type up minutes and send office-wide for corrections. Move on to a morning of spread sheets, sales figures and finding clever and beautiful photos for my Twitter day tomorrow. Try NOT to get distracted by the wonderful and inevitable Piatkus Facebook feed of authors posting cover models and funny memes. We really do publish some hilarious people . . .
12:00 pm: Have just been marking up a cover sheet and seen that Jillian in Non-fiction has put out a GIANT Toblerone. Why are they SO BIG? I could literally knock out The Hulk with this thing. Or play a game of cricket. The Carpathian staring out from the page is admonishing me for even thinking of partaking.
12:15 pm: Picture Carpathian with Toblerone. Have a private giggle. Realise it was not so private and rather loud. Retreat into my blush and pray for lunchtime.
1:00 pm: LUNCH TIME!
1:01 pm: Pea soup. Ick. Lunch time.
2:00 pm: Piatkus submissions meeting. Anna, Caroline and I continue to narrow down the entries for the Entice Writing Competition. So many lovely writers out there! Luckily, the hard decision is not left up to me but Anna and Caroline.
2:30 pm: Claudia in Non-fiction has just poked her head in to let us know of the office-wide e-mail giving away free wine. I think my elbow might have come into contact with Anna’s face in the rush to get out the door.
4:00 pm: Meeting ended and am now back to marking up reprints, chasing publication dates and making final corrections for a few proofs that have just come in. Darkness Splintered is up next. Looking at the clock, I have exactly an hour to finish my work. I simply can NOT give in and read the entire thing.
6:30 pm: . . . Oh crud . . . where is everybody?! Darn you, Keri Arthur!!
