I cannot believe it is my last week at Beaufort! In my first blog post I wrote about wanting to discover the type of book that I enjoy most, and finishing books even if I am not a fan of them from the start. While the later is proving to be more difficult, I definitely think I took a step in the right direction and did some experimenting with different genres this summer.

Memoirs, unless written by Bill Bryson or David Sedaris and filled with laugh out loud jokes, have never been a section of the bookstore I had felt inclined to explore. This summer however, I worked on creating media contact lists for our author Jennifer Pharr Davis’ book tour centered around Called Again: A Story of Love and Triumph. About two weeks ago I decided, that after spending so much of my internship promoting Jen’s unbelievable hiking memoir, and of course after meeting her and her beautiful daughter Charley at BEA, that I should read Called Again. Being obsessive about reading books in order, this required reading Becoming Odyssa first.

Let me tell you, if you haven’t read either of these books, especially as a young female, you are missing out!  Picture a 5-foot tall female who can’t run more than 3 miles without having an asthma attack, attracts mosquitoes like it’s her job, and loves curling up in a blanket, on the couch with a cup of hot tea more than anything else.  Now picture this person actually contemplating hiking the Appalachian Trail in its entirety, all 2,180 miles, as a thru-hiker. If Jen’s books can move my lazy self – with my far from athletic stature – to even consider a day hike, much less a four month journey, then she has quite possibly performed a miracle.

All jokes aside, both books give a beautiful look at her journeys through the Appalachian Trail, their expected hardships, and their unexpected joys – all of which will make the reader wish they had been right alongside Jen for the experience.

I came into my internship at Beaufort with expectations of learning about the publishing industry, both from the publicity side and the editorial side. While I’ve learned so much more than I could have imagined about the industry, it also allowed me to determine my answer to the popular question “What is your favorite kind of book to read?”  I no longer feel pressured to have a distinct genre in mind, but can take pride in my answer: I like a little bit of everything, and am still exploring my options.

At my last day here at Beaufort I am reflecting on what a great experience this has been.  I have learned more about publishing than I could ever imagine, and I am now an expert mailer! Although some tasks may have been quite mundane, I have a new appreciation for and perspective on how labor intensive the publication of books is. This is a detail oriented industry.  No matter how many “passes” are done on a book, there is always something that someone will want to change—perfection is something to strive for, but not to achieve.

I am thrilled that I was given the opportunity to take a dip into the publicity area of publishing (writing pitch letters is fun!) and it was something I had zero experience in.  However, one of my favorite moments of this internship was meeting a foreign rights representative. She told me one thing that has since become embossed into my mind: people who are passionate about publishing can never stay too far away from books, and most of them are convinced that if they do anything else, they will fail.  I can honestly say that this internship has allowed me to become enthralled by an industry that is driven by passion. On that note, when I leave here today, I will not say “good bye” to my fellow associates, but “see you later!”

To new interns and to people who think they may have an interest in publishing: jump in head first! You won’t regret the experience, and the knowledge that you will gain is invaluable.  

-ElizaBEAU                        

As an intern, the Book Expo of America is, initially, hugely overwhelming.

 The colossal floor of the Javits Center is lined with booths from publishing house giants to independent booksellers, and hundreds of people are busily making connections and shilling books. By the second day, it all falls into place, and I moved easily through the aisles, pausing to scoop up the best complimentary tote bags, sample snacks from cookbook writers, and even getting to speak to authors!  The variety of writers was one of  my favorite aspects of the expo—I was able to talk at length with fledgling authors signing their first book, and catch starry-eyed glimpses of famous authors as well. Or, in the case of Internet sensation Grumpy Cat, a famous cat with a book due in the fall. 

BEA is a great opportunity to get people interested in Beaufort books, and as an intern one of my chief assignments was to publicize our author’s book signings. One of our most popular authors was certainly Jennifer Pharr Davis, shown here with her lovely and well-behaved baby Charlotte. Called Again is an engaging memoir about a record-breaking hike on the Appalacian Trail—Jen was walking an average 47 miles a day!

Another Beaufort favorite was Jeff Alt’s Get Your Kids Hiking—BEA has a tons of kids books, so as a result there were lots of children’s librarians, booksellers, as well as excited parents and kids who wanted to meet Jeff and receive a signed copy of the book. Get Your Kids Hiking is especially timely now, with school letting out for the summer and kids often leaning more towards Super Smash Brothers than getting outside.

The carnival aspect of BEA is also fun—there were Lego sculptures and balloon animals and people dressed as pirates and fairies, sprinkling glitter on enchanted passersby. While the days were long–most exhibitors arrived by 8 in the morning and stayed until 5—there’s an absolute sense of camaraderie to be surrounded by so many book-loving people. The sheer scope of the expo was also reassuring: if you want to write, publish, or just read books, there is certainly a place for you at BEA.

Here it is: my last day interning at Beaufort Books. It’s been a surprisingly quick five months, and I’m definitely going to miss my thrice-weekly trip into Manhattan. Last week was my first-ever BEA, and it was absolutely the best ending to the best internship.

I went into this internship with very few expectations, and a very little knowledge of the publishing world. I knew I liked books, and I liked reading, and publishers made books, so that sounded fun; but I had no idea of the breadth of work that turned an idea in someone’s head into a completed book on a bookstore shelf. Now I do. And I’ve managed, in my small part, to contribute to that process.

I walk out now, having met and talked to authors, proofread manuscripts, helped arrange blog tours, cultivated relationships with reviewers and bookstores, learned publishing lingo, messengered books and press kits all over the city, and even designed my first book cover. I’ve experienced BEA in all its footsore, backbreaking, lack-of-sleep, starry-eyed wonder. And, what’s more, I still want to work in publishing.

Even with all the unexpected and sometimes monotonous tasks, the plethora of papercuts, and the long commute (where, let’s be honest, I got a lot of reading done), I would not have given up this internship for the world. I’ve gotten such a better understanding of the publishing industry and the place I want to have in it, and I’ve picked up and honed the skills I’ll need in my future career. I’ve met a lot of great people, interns and professionals alike, and hope to run into them all again someday, preferably when we’re all high-level publishing executives who have single-handedly courted a dozen best-selling and award-winning authors apiece.

So to Beaufort, I say so long, and thanks for all the fish.

-Placebeau

P.S. Incidentally… anybody in the market for an Assistant Editor? *winkwinknudgenudge*

Hello! I’m Theresa, a new intern here at Beaufort, henceforth known as  Beau Soleil. I feel my moniker is appropriate for two reasons–beautiful sun, for a summer intern–and it’s also a coy nod to my other job at an oyster bar–Beau Soleil is, of course, a boutique oyster from Canada.  But anyway! Back to books!

A used bookstore in my neighborhood in Brooklyn has some vintage copies of my favorite books–not expensive first editions of classics, but hardcovers from the 70s with fantastic covers

It’s hard to justify buying a copy of a book I already own–but the delicately frayed jackets, the charmingly dated font, that old book smell–and how nice they would look displayed on my bookshelves! (Once I have bookshelves, I mean–my library is currently supported by a wire kitchen rack.)

While you really don’t need more than one copy of a book,  a beloved book  is hard to say no to–especially if the cover is unique, ancient, or foreign. New covers on classic books, while fun, don’t have the same thrill as unearthing a dusty relic with crumbling pages, last read decades ago. And especially treasured are old books gifted to you by someone you love–a book of my grandmother’s whose title frightened me my entire childhood (The Naked and the Dead), or my father’s copy of War and Peace from college, with his notes scratched in the margins.

So sometimes buying books is no longer just about reading them–they are for collecting, to remind yourself of earlier days and people from your past, for displaying as art objects, in lieu of wallpaper–

But yes, mostly for reading.

Do not worry, I am not the six-year-old beauty pageant diva “Honey Boo Boo,” I am just one of the humble new interns at Beaufort! While Honey Beau Beau will be my pen-name for the summer here in New York, my real name is Emily and I am a junior from Elon University. While The Big Apple is a drastic change from North Carolina, where I spend most of the year at school, my humble abode for the summer is just an hour away in New Jersey.

There is one thing that Honey Boo Boo and I do have in common, and that is our diva-like tendencies. Honey Boo Boo is a diva when it comes to beauty pageants; I, Honey Beau Beau, however, am more of a diva when it comes to books. If a book doesn’t draw my attention within the first chapter, I will put it down. My shelves are filled with half-started books, that I refuse to get rid of because “maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood,” or “that is more of a beach read and less of a before-bed read; I’ll take it to the beach next time I go.”

From a family of book-worms, each with a distinct reading preference, this diva has felt a pressure to answer the age old question: “What is your favorite kind of book?”  While I could tell you my grandfathers answer to that question would be crime and mystery novels, my mother’s: fantasy, my grandmother: historical-fiction, and my father: anything that can manage to make him laugh out loud, I have always struggled with deciding on my favorite genre. Making decisions is hard enough for me, but decisions about books – even tougher!

So with this in mind I have set two goals for myself this summer:

1. To stop being such a book snob, to shake free of my Honey Boo Boo tendencies and to give those seemingly slow-reads a fighting chance.
2. To try and find an answer to the age-old question: “What is your favorite kind of book?”