In a moment Catherine Moss is going to say a few words about her work experience with us. This is me introducing her. Throughout the piece you'll notice a few little brackety things - this is me, checking in, and offering my two-penny worth. One day Catherine would love to become an author, over to her...
Hello, I’m Catherine and I’ve been at Biteback for two weeks for my work experience. When my school’s careers adviser first started badgering [poor school careers adviser] my year group about sorting this out, I initially turned to fiction publishers like Egmont, Bloomsbury and Random House. However, I was two years too young to fit their work experience criteria and soon I was looking at long lists of publishers, [on this occasion we'll forgive Catherine. No we weren't her first choice but the lady does make splendid cinnamon cookies. And she cares about us, she even checked if any of us had allergies before we indulged (even though we eyed them like a pack of starved wolves)] desperately searching for somewhere that would take a sixteen-year-old. [We'll take anyone, just look at Hollie Teague.]
The careers adviser suggested emailing newspapers, but I’m not as interested in journalism as I am in books and writing. Ideally I see myself writing books; I’ve wanted to be an author since I was nine and I’ve been starting and giving up on book ideas ever since.
I really wanted to learn about the publishing process – I had no idea of what exactly happened when the book was pitched, or what publishers look for and how easy it is for a company to accept your proposal (not very). How did the editing process work? How long did it take? Who exactly designs the glossy covers of the books we see in bookshops around the country? [Nam-designer-man, that's who!]
In my first week I was given a stack of proposals to look through and it was interesting to see the variety of proposals sent to Biteback. There was one explaining how women got the vote in different countries, one about how Britain’s rise to one of the most powerful countries in the world brought about some quality alcoholic beverages [*ahem* forgot about that one] and one that detailed the speeches nobody will ever forget.
I also began the most gigantic spreadsheet known to man [err...] – I was given a large book with every single bookseller in the British Isles. Cutting out Waterstones, Tesco and Sainsbury’s certainly helped a bit, and I am finishing it off today, hopefully! I only have Ireland to do and I’ve made quite a dent in the Cs. I hope it’s useful. [OK so that sounds a bit exploitative, but it will be REALLY useful!]
These two weeks have been extremely beneficial [phew]. I am definitely still holding out for publishing my own book one day and I understand how that would happen now. I know what a proposal is made up of, why publishers will choose a book, the technicalities of the editing process and what comes afterwards (the interviews, the book signings, etc). I’m very grateful for the experience and I’d like to thank everybody at Biteback for putting up with me and making me feel very welcome.
I promise that Catherine has retained her editorial integrity and that I had nothing to do with that last sentence! All that's left is to say our thanks. Catherine, it's been great having you here and thank you so much for everything you've contributed to the company in your two weeks with us (you can see we need all the help we can get). You're a dream to work with and I might add for our readers' benefit that Catherine's piece didn't need an ounce of editing - perfect punctuation and grammar - setting you up in good stead for being an author one day, at least it's a start, it's certainly kept you in the good books of our editorial staff!