by Amy Norton
It’s been more than six months now since I started the EUP Publishing Internship and what a rewarding experience it has been so far. I was certainly nervous at the beginning; this is my first office-based job so the culture was new to me and I was keen to make a great first impression. Thankfully I was instantly put at ease by the friendly welcome I received from the whole team.
My internship experience started with a series of one-on-one meetings with each head of department in the company. This gave me a thorough introduction to EUP’s publishing process as a whole and was a fantastic opportunity to ask my new colleagues about the structure and operations of their departments. As well as teaching me lots about academic publishing specifically, these meetings granted me a lot of valuable advice on starting my career in general.
A Typical Week
A typical week in my role consists of three days working with the Editorial team and two days working for a different department, depending on my current rotational placement. My three days in Editorial is a constant throughout this year-long internship, which means I have a series of ongoing tasks and responsibilities for this department. These include drawing up and sending out author contracts, dealing with invoices, placing orders of gratis books, helping with the peer review process and compiling abstracts and keyword metadata for Edinburgh Scholarship Online. I also assist with any ad hoc tasks for the team and attend monthly Editorial team meetings. Having this base in the Editorial department has given me great insight into the editorial process as a whole and has allowed me to develop efficiency in my ongoing personal responsibilities.
One month into the internship in November, I was invited to the paperback launch event for Nan Shepherd’s Correspondence by Kerri Andrews, which gave me the opportunity to represent EUP alongside my colleagues from the Literary Studies list as well as the chance to meet the author myself. I also attended my first conference, the linguistics AMC Symposium, alongside our Linguistics Commissioning Editor, again meeting current and potential authors in that field. Events like these have demonstrated to me the ways in which the everyday work Editorial does in the office translates into how the team interacts with academic authors in the community and beyond.
As I mentioned earlier, I spend two days a week working with a different department and so far I have completed placements with Sales & Rights, Marketing and Production. This has been an incredible opportunity to work collaboratively with almost everybody in the company, gaining bits of wisdom from my colleagues in a wide range of roles and diversifying my own skillset as I complete the different tasks.
Working with Sales & Rights
Whilst in Sales & Rights I learnt how to run reports and analyse sales data, completed various research tasks and gathered information, helped deal with translation rights requests and created Advanced Information Sheets for our new publications using InDesign among other things. I was also lucky enough to attend London Book Fair this year with some of the Sales team, which was an invaluable and surreal experience for me. Getting to sit in on meetings, listen to panel talks and meet other people working in publishing at networking events really expanded my knowledge for and excitement of the industry.
Working with Marketing
During my time in the Marketing department I completed various market research tasks, but my main project was to create a social media usage survey to be sent out to the people on our mailing list. I had undertaken an analysis of the social media presence and engagement of a range of academic publishing houses, which allowed me, along with the objectives set by my colleague, to effectively write a set of questions for the survey. This whole process familiarised me with the world of academic publishing and enlightened me on marketing strategies and how companies use social media to their advantage.
Working with Production
With the Production team, I was taken through the entire production process from both the books and journals side. I was taught all about EUP’s house style and how it informs the way our books and journals are edited and formatted before publication. After undertaking a range of smaller tasks, I was given the responsibility to complete a handover for one of our upcoming Film Studies titles which involved writing up copyeditor and typesetter briefs, as well as checking the resolutions of images to be inputted into the text. I had the opportunity of working collaboratively with our Senior Design Controller and even had my own concept for a front cover design approved by an author! Our Production Manager took me through physical book specifications and taught me about the printing process in the factory. I got to quality control a batch of front list books that had arrived at our office. Lastly, I worked with the Journals Production team, checking over full issue typescripts to make sure the editor’s amendments had been inputted correctly at proofs stage.
What’s Next?
That brings me to now. I have just started my placement with the Journals Editorial team and am excited to engage with new tasks and develop my skills further. Getting to rotate around departments during this internship is a rare and incredibly rewarding opportunity. It has allowed me, over the last six months, to piece together so many elements of the whole publishing process at EUP. Each department has given me a new perspective and has taught me about the skills and interests integral to each role within the company. I am so grateful for all the support and guidance I have received so far and look forward to what the rest of the year will bring!
About the Author
Amy Norton is the EUP Publishing Intern. She completed an MA in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh in 2024, before joining the Edinburgh University Press team.
About the EUP Publishing Internship
The publishing internship was created in 2024 because we wanted to create an alternative path into the industry for people who are unable to afford or who don’t wish to pursue postgraduate study. This set us on the road to designing an internship that prioritises widening participation, accessibility and inclusion. You can read more about that process in our blog post: Getting Your Foot in the Door: Widening Participation with the EUP Publishing Internship.
