The Inkling Volume 1
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Interview in Industry<br />
Aimee Oliver, Senior Marketing Executive at a<br />
publishing house<br />
What attracted you to the profession?<br />
I’ve always had a love for books but never knew how they were made, or what<br />
goes into turning a Word document full of typos and errors into something you’d<br />
see in a bookshop. Going into publishing also seemed like a good way to get free<br />
books!<br />
How did you get into it? What did you need to do?<br />
Firstly, I studied for a degree at university - it’s very common to find yourself<br />
surrounded by English Literature graduates in publishing. Before graduating, I<br />
made sure I found some work experience at small publishers so that when<br />
applying for jobs, I could demonstrate that I had related skills. I then got an<br />
internship and worked my way up to where I am today. I moved around<br />
departments at first; I knew I wanted to be in publishing, but not which area I<br />
wanted to be in (did I want to edit, or be a publicist, or work in the production<br />
team, etc) Eventually I settled on marketing, as it’s a very creative and varied role.<br />
How does your average working day look?<br />
I usually start at 9am and end the day at 6pm. On any given day I’m working on<br />
marketing campaigns for books by myself – that could be sending briefs to<br />
designers, using social media, uploading articles to a number of websites,<br />
creating fun things to send out in the post (I’ve just finished some creepy advent<br />
calendars) and a whole number of other tasks. I also assist my colleagues on<br />
larger campaigns, do quite a lot of departmental admin and speak with my<br />
colleagues in other departments.<br />
What is the best thing about your profession?<br />
It’s really exciting to be part of the creative process of bringing a book to life, and<br />
to see how all the separate departments come together to create something that<br />
can be read. I also love how publishing (and marketing in particular) is so varied.<br />
Just today I worked on several crime books, a women’s fiction title, some<br />
historical fiction, a cartoon book, a cookery and diet book, and a young adult title.<br />
Tomorrow will be different: every day is different, and that’s a lot of fun.
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