A Short Insight Into a Literary Internship

Back when I was still trying to figure out how I could express my love for stories, I was an intern for a literary agency for three months. It was my job to the read the one hundred pages of manuscripts and provide detailed summary of what I'd read as well as its marketability overseas (which I assume was the focus of this particular agency).

The review would have a limit similar to this: 

TITLE: 

AUTHOR: 

SUB TO:

SUB BY:

FORM: 

LENGTH:

BUDGET:

GENRE: 

LOCATION: 

PERIOD: 

READER: 

DATE: 

LOGLINE: A short hook that describes the main character, location and major conflict of the story.

COMMENT SUMMARY:

A shortened version of what I thought of the book which will be expanded later on in the review.

PROJECT RECOMMENDATION:

WRITER RECOMMENDATION:

SYNOPSIS:

A thorough analysis that took up most of the review so that the person after me wouldn't need to read the whole manuscript to understand most of the events.

COMMENTS:

I could make comments on the story and the parts that I thought were strong/weak.




The manuscripts I was given would range from nonfiction to children's literature. I wouldn't know what to expect when I opened a new document.  Some left me awed because I would already imagine them on a shelf at a bookstore and some left me uncomfortable due to the strange ways some of the characters viewed the world.

First and foremost this experience taught me I wasn't mean to work in the publishing industry because reading other people's work only makes my desire to write stronger. But I have now gained a deeper sympathy for the poor interns who have to wade through the countless manuscripts. Essentially, when new authors are warned against starting their novel slowly, it is great advice. There was nothing worse than reading the first ten pages and realizing the next ninety would contain the same mindless chatter between characters and the same description repeated in ten different ways.

Of course the window I was shown into the publishing world was very small. I still don't know how the manuscripts given to me were chosen or how much weight they put into my reviews. But when they did contact me they were always pleased with my work.

Due to my undying curiosity I did do some research on the novels I was reading to find out more. A few were set to be published in the coming months after I'd been sent them while others had no trace on the internet at all. My assumption is that the literary agency was in charge of selling books that were already supposed to be published in North America overseas. Oftentimes publishers will sell the rights of books to other publishers in different countries so they don't have to worry about all the added details of the vastly different markets around the world.

The coolest thing I was sent to read was a condensed version of the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman which just came out in 2015. I will forever be puzzled as to why I was sent something of that popularity and why it wasn't the full story, instead some strange shortened summary of it. But I did was I was told and read it.

I enjoyed reading the nonfiction proposals the most. Authors who want to write in that genre often have to sell their idea to a publisher, as well as their image to a certain extent to prove why they are more qualified about the subject than anyone else, before even beginning to write it. I will have an entire post in the future dedicated to how this process works as it is completely different than fiction novels.

But at the end of the day this experience taught me that I would rather work on my own stories than someone else's. Hopefully my next interaction with the publishing industry is when I have my own manuscript ready.