The Children's Book Council's Early Career Committee (ECC) is dedicated to enriching the careers of those in their first five years in the children’s publishing industry, contributing to the vitality of the industry as a whole, and fostering literacy. Learn more
When I first started in publishing, I didn’t know how often different departments collaborate with each other. When I started in Editorial, I thought I would be reading and editing books all day! But between strategizing with marketing, publicity, and school & library, working on the cover and layouts with design, working with production to fix any errors, I work with so many different people. There are many hands that touch a book, and it really is a team effort.
Name: Kaitlin Loss (ECC Chair)
House: HarperCollins Children’s Books
Position: Associate, Subsidiary Rights
Time in the position: 5 years
Book pick: Currently just finished A QUESTION OF HOLMES by Brittany Cavallaro—the whole Charlotte Holmes series is one of my favorite that we publish.
9:00am – Got to work a bit later than anticipated (thanks, MTA!). We had our Winter 2020 launch the last two days, so I have a lot of emails that have been neglected. Typically, when I get in each morning, I read through everything and quickly flag what needs to be done and sort away what is already finished. (I love a clean inbox.)
9:30am – I create my to-do list for the day. A lot of items are just things from yesterday’s list that keep moving… On Thursday mornings I also like to read the entire NY Times list, after spot-checking the Children’s lists on Wednesday evenings.
10:30am – Bologna is coming up! In addition to handling my own schedule for the fair, I also manage the rest of my team’s, so four schedules total. Most of the scheduling is already done, so I go through and check in with those appointments that are still unconfirmed. My boss comes over and asks if it’s possible to move someone on her schedule, so I reach out to the publisher to attempt the change.
11:00am – I need to upload some picture book files for one of our sister companies. Of course, the system we use (Basecamp) freezes every time I attempt to upload. I fight with it for a few minutes before switching to a different computer. After some muttering to myself—success!
11:30am – My team is starting a big project that involves checking contracts for over 900 titles. I’m acting as point person on the project, so I meet with my boss to chat about some of the details.
12:40pm – Lunchtime! Usually I eat at my desk and read the news (or celebrity gossip), but since Bologna is only 6ish weeks away, I try to get a bit of manuscript reading done. It’s sunny, so when I finish eating, I go outside for a walk.
2:00pm – More Bologna prep! I need to mail our materials soon, so I do a final run-through to make sure I have print-outs of all picture books. We’re missing one, so I quickly put in the order with our Copy Center.
2:30pm – One of my colleagues asks me to work on an “annoying project.” It turns out our publicity team needs some sales figures, but I can easily pull those from our system! I show two of my colleagues how to do it, and it isn’t so annoying after all.
3:00pm – I’m a member of our Diversity and Inclusion Working Group, and we have our bi-weekly meeting.
3:30pm – The last mail pickup is quickly approaching, so I mail some finalized contracts back to our subagents.
4:00pm – I create a monthly newsletter for our subagents that outlines our acquisitions, news, deals done, and starred reviews. I start working on it, pulling acquisitions and gathering my list of starred reviews received this month.
5:00pm – I start tackling some of that big project mentioned earlier. I’m checking for a lot of things in contracts that I don’t typically have to look for, so it takes a bit until I get the hang of it.
6:00pm – I’ve gotten through a few titles, so I save and leave for the night. I tell myself I’ll need to get through at least 50 pages of a manuscript tonight; our first pre-Bologna scout meeting is next week and I am woefully unprepared.
What was your first job in publishing?
I first got an internship with Bulfinch Press at Little, Brown and Company in Boston, and told everyone I met that I was trying to get a job in children’s books. Just as the internship was about to end, the publicity and marketing assistant at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers left for a job in New York. Word soon spread that there was an intern at Bulfinch who was interested in children’s books, and I was lucky enough to get the job. In addition to assisting the department, one of my favorite parts of the job was managing the fan clubs for the Arthur series by Marc Brown and for Matt Christopher’s middle grade sports series.
What was your career path like getting to your current role?
I was at Little, Brown for four years—while simultaneously working on a Masters in Children’s Literature at Simmons University. After that, I moved to New York and worked my way up in children’s book publicity at HarperCollins, William Morrow and Company, Simon & Schuster, and Scholastic (where I have been for the last thirteen years).
What advice would you give to those who are either just starting out or are in their first few years in publishing?
First, I would advise reading widely across the industry—and especially beyond the books published by your own house. I also think it’s very important to learn as much as you can about jobs/departments other than the one where you are working. If you are in editorial, learn as much as you can about sales, marketing, publicity, rights; if you are in marketing, learn about editorial, production, copyediting, design, sales, etc. Ask colleagues out to lunch or coffee to tell you about their jobs—both fellow assistants and managers/directors of other areas, visit bookstores and libraries to see what is on display, and attend author readings and events. Understanding how all of the roles and areas of publishing come together to bring a book into the world—and how your role contributes to that effort—will make you better and more successful in your own job.
What is your favorite title you’ve worked on?
It would be hard for me to choose between The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Olivia by Ian Falconer.
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