Off the Shelf

Well, after a few false starts, an embarrassing email mishap, and a seemingly apocalyptic tumblr server failure, here it is: my blog.

I’m Teal, and besides being named after a color (well, honestly I’m named after a duck, but that’s a different story…) I’m currently a senior studying English and history at the University of Florida. I’m loosely specializing in Cold War studies, making the leap between how the history and politics of the Cold War played out on American literature and culture. It’s pretty interesting stuff, and even if I’m not able to do much with it once I graduate, I’m guaranteed to have a full repertoire of Nixon jokes.

But, clearly, this isn’t a blog about the Cold War (and I will try my hardest not to make it into one). You see, about two months ago I started an internship with the University Press of Florida. Now, I’d considered the publishing industry in the past but never knew much about it, or how to get into it, so when the opportunity arose for me to actually get a long look into the industry’s inner workings, I jumped at it. Like almost every young, aspiring English major/writer, I thought about how wonderful it would be to be an editor, reading manuscripts and wearing power suits a la Sandra Bullock in The Proposal. However, I was lucky enough to land an internship with the marketing department, not editing, but promoting. While there are no power suits and the amount of manuscript reading I do is limited, I’ve come to discover in my two months with the marketing department that the publishing business is intense and there is a lot more to marketing than making posters (in fact, I’ve yet to see a poster, though I heard talk of making some in the office just today). There’s organizing author events. And contacting reviewers, And sending out publicity announcements. And writing pitch letters. And mailing manuscripts to blurbists. And learning the right term for a person who blurbs. And assessing budgets. And filing. And more filing. And talking to media sources. And submitting for awards. And assuaging anxious authors. And everything.

There’s another part of marketing too, one that I never, ever expected. Social networking and social media on the internet. It seems obvious, when you really think about it, but it came as a surprise to me. My mother managed a Barnes and Noble store for over 14 years, so I grew up in a bricks-and-mortar book store and developed some very bricks-and-mortar ideas about how the book business was run. Nonetheless, those that I work with in the marketing department, especially my boss, have shown me just how important bringing books into the digital age (and I don’t just mean through e-readers) is for both business and spreading love for and knowledge about books.

So that’s the rough premise of this blog. As a marketing intern, I’m going to market. But I’m also going to explore: explore the books that the University Press of Florida offers, explore the way we think about books in the era of the internet, explore different ways of talking about, learning about, and promoting books – explore. I also want to offer insight into the world of publishing that I’m just now discovering; for those of you who might be interested to see how a press runs, or what an internship like mine is like, you’ll see it here. Most importantly, I want to connect with other people who are doing, or are even just interested in, what I do. Publishers, interns, writers, rookies – I want to meet and hear from you all. Leave comments, ask questions, and provide me much-needed advice.

I’ve found a new book on my shelf; it’s about time to take it down and read it. 

-Teal