The most frustrating/challenging part of the internship so far has been trying to create an author’s booklet. I have never created a booklet, at least not since I was 12, and I’m only just now realizing the amount of creativity that it takes to form a whole book. I understand now why most books by a publisher have a standardized formatting, coming up with a new one for every book would be hell.

I didn’t expect making a booklet to be easy, but I didn’t expect it to be so difficult either, if that makes sense. I expected to be able to put the information down and then get the formatting to make sense generally easily. That’s not what happened. Firstly, I have to gather information about many organizations, awards/scholarships, and higher education programs, and then concisely summarize the information in one or two sentences. That was really hard to do at first, but I slowly got the hang of it after realizing what was important information and filtering out what wasn’t. It still takes a significant amount of time to do though.

Then there’s the issue of formatting. Some sections look better with one format, since more information is provided, and others look shabby and messy since very little information is needed so the original formatting is a poor fit. I’ve realized that I haven’t been very observant of the structure of the world around me, I just take it for granted. So when I end up in a situation like this, I don’t have any past knowledge to pull from. It’s crazy how much about book production I never noticed (headers and footers are important!).

Despite these challenges and frustrations, I think this experience is rewarding and helpful. Having to create an entire booklet from scratch is beneficial because I am learning through experience how to make a booklet. Having to push through these difficulties has taught me to be more observant in the future and think critically about why things are formatted the way they are. It has also taught me how to concisely and professionally present and summarize information in a way that is helpful to readers. Further, it has taught me to write and think from an informative perspective rather than a creative perspective. For these reasons, I am grateful for this experience since I think it will help me approach future endeavors with a greater skillset.

From the beginning I’ve hoped that this internship would give me a better insight into the world of publishing. I began this internship with practically no knowledge of the field. And in that regard, my work here has been very fruitful. I have learned very broad strokes of what goes behind publishing, from looking into various distributors and printers to editing and developing the journal. I’ve even gotten more than I expected. Because of SPD suddenly going under, a lot got upset in the small press industry. I got to sit in on a meeting between Nicholas and Emily Cook where I got to see them trying to figure out how to get profits back to what they used to be before SPD failed. One of the most interesting tips I heard was to identify what your audience is and to try to keep that audience. Usually it helps for that audience to be regional, or, as in the case of Bordighera Press, the audience is Italian-American. Apparently, many small presses have tried to expand to a wider audience and have found that it actually hurts their profits. I also learned that various distributors are helpful for different size presses and that upgrading to a larger distributor, if you have larger output, can help to increase profits.

My aspirations have evolved with my time at Bordighera Press. I have begun paying more attention to minute details that at the beginning of my internship I couldn’t hold onto because I had to get the hang of being in the new environment. A dream of mine would be to start my own small press, but a shorter-term goal is to work as an editor at any press, whether it be large like Penguin or small. I want to do this to continue to grow in my knowledge of the publishing industry, since a few months is obviously not enough to learn all I need to know.

A regular day at work is pretty straight forward. I begin the day starting up the incredibly slow computer while Nicholas gets together what I need to do for the day. As the journal’s compilation has progressed, my work has changed. At first I was filtering submissions and writing reader’s reports, then I began drafting rejection letters (I didn’t get the pleasure of drafting acceptance letters sadly), then came editing the accepted pieces, and copyediting the journal a few times while it was nearing completion. The journal is complete now and I’ve been compiling an Author’s Handbook to provide resources like small-press support; scholarships, competitions, and award opportunities; higher-education opportunities in the Italian-American sphere; as well as Italian-American/diaspora organizations. Around one or two in the afternoon I take a lunch break which nicely divides my day into 3-4 hour chunks and allows me to get a breather. As filler for when I get tired of my main assignment, I update the book links on Bordighera Press’ website so that individuals can order books directly from the distributor.

My idea of what working in publishing would be like was airy, ungrounded, and not very specific before this internship. I’m grateful because now I have a realistic understanding of what publishing is. I both had the idea that I would enjoy the work (in a far too easy sense) and others told me that it was an incredibly difficult job. Now that I’ve done it, I see both sides realized themselves. I have a love for the work that makes the job “easy:” I want to do it. It is also incredibly difficult. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, in situations I’ve mentioned in the past like when I have a lot of big edits to make or when I am beginning a project (like the author’s booklet) that I have absolutely no experience with. However I have learned a lot of techniques for managing the stress and my expectations which have made it easier. On top of that, I find the end result of what I do to be very rewarding. I hope in the future to find a job in editing for this reason, I find it good that it challenges me while also rewarding me at the same time.