Working for Ringwood: Intern Insight with Rachel Harley and Jiyuan Li

For the final episode of Season 3, we've invited fellow interns Rachel Harley and Jiyuan Li to discuss their time working for Ringwood as they finish their duties and bid us farewell soon. They speak to their roles and responsibilities during the course of their internship, the skills they've learned, their favorite aspects of the job, and their plans for the future. Thank you Rachel and Jiyuan for your hard work and dedication to independent publishing and its authors, and we wish you all the best for the future!

Season 4 will return in fall, so keep an eye out on our socials and website for future news about new episodes.

Check out the Ringwood Publishing website here for more information about our work and to support our authors.  

Transcript

Julia: Welcome to the Ringwood Publishing Podcast. I'm your host, Julia. 

Annemarie: And I'm your host, Annemarie. And each week, we are joined by a series of authors, colleagues, and guests to talk about all things books and publishing.

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Julia: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Season 3, Episode 7 of the Ringwood Publishing Podcast. My name is Julia Pujals Antolin, and I'm one of the co-hosts for this season, along with fellow intern, Annemarie Whitehurst. 

Annemarie: Hello. 

Julia: In this episode, we've invited two fellow Ringwood interns, Rachel Harley and Jiyuan Li, to discuss their time at Ringwood.

This is the last episode of Season 3. So, we'd like to close this chapter of the podcast by having a conversation with two interns that are finishing up their duties at Ringwood soon, just as Annemarie and I are. Rachel and Jiyuan, thank you for being on the podcast with us today. 

Annemarie: Could you give us a brief self-introduction?

Rachel: Uh, so my name is Rachel. I'm originally from Fife, Dunfermline represent, but I moved to Glasgow to study English literature and history at the University of Glasgow a few years ago, and I've been with Ringwood about a year now. 

Jiyuan: I'm from China. I did my, uh, Master's in Comparative Literature at the University of Edinburgh. I've been working with Ringwood from September 2023, so it's about, almost about a year now, in two months. 

Annemarie: Great. Why did you both decide to apply to be interns at Ringwood? 

Rachel: Well, when I was younger, I just kind of knew that I wanted to do something vaguely to do with books, or like writing, or like maybe a magic fantasy quest, but that didn't end up happening. So, uh, I stuck with books and eventually I figured out that my job couldn't just be books. So that was when I decided on uni and uni kind of showed me that a part of me really liked deep-diving into texts and like picking them apart under a microscope and writing about them. And I then discovered Ringwood, because of a friend and because of its short story competition, which I actually later got to coordinate and be a judge on, which was amazing.

But I, I kind of thought that I would get to try out all these different things in publishing and I would get to work with this Scottish literature and, like I'd been doing at uni, and so I applied. And here I am. 

Jiyuan: So, it started out actually by a coincidence because I knew about Ringwood from one of my former classmates in my Master's program course.

She worked for Ringwood before I joined. Um, so she told me about this independent publisher and the idea of it really appealed to me at that moment, because my program was about literature, so I also wanted to do something, something that is related to my major, which is literature, or books, in general. So I thought, “Oh, this might be a good place to start.” Um, yeah, that's basically my motivation of joining Ringwood. 

Annemarie: Great. What aspects of the internship were you most excited about when you first applied, if you knew anything about it, or if you had done any research? 

Rachel: For me, it was definitely, like, peeking behind the curtain, like, getting to see how it's all done, especially in a small publisher's, where, like, we all get to know the authors and each other so well, and then work on every step, like, submissions, and then editing, and then marketing, and I think it's just really special to see every step of the book's journey.

Jiyuan: Uh, I really agree with Rachel because that's also part of the, uh, part of what is about publishing and about Ringwood that attracted me, uh, which is this behind-the-scenes kind of progress of how a book is, kind of, comes into being. All this effort, you know, that is devoted to this process. Uh, but in addition to that, it was also my friend who introduced me to Ringwood told me, um, as an intern at Ringwood, you get to have, um, the opportunity to work on a whole, like, a wide range of responsibilities.

So, yeah, that sounds like a very, very fun process to me, because she told me that what you're going to do at Ringwood is not only about reading the manuscripts, editing stuff, you can be doing other kinds of work as well. For example, now I'm working as the website manager at Ringwood, which I didn't envision myself of doing, but I turned out to be liking it, to be enjoying it very much, so that's a bonus.

Julia: There's a lot you can do at Ringwood for sure, and I think most of us all come, all end up here because of editing. Because we really want to like, as you said, Rachel, to like peek behind the curtain. Um, and it's because, like, publishing can be so gatekept a lot of times. But then you'll get to Ringwood and there's just so much more going on. It's kind of crazy. 

Can you like tell us, uh, both of you, a little bit of what work in specific did you do for Ringwood? 

Rachel: Yeah, uh, I did a lot of reports. Um, so that's like reading a new submission and then like saying either yes or no, and kinda explaining my reasoning on essentially whether or not I think it meets the criteria for Ringwood to publish it.

And more than that, kinda if it has that quality and if Ringwood want to publish it above all the other entries that they might get, but they can't publish. Um, I think it's been, it's been cool to work out what has that soul and what doesn't.

Like, otherwise, I think, uh, sometimes I help out at events when they need, like, an extra pair of hands, and, like, setting up mics and Facebook live streams and things like that. Um, I had a lot of fun actually just sitting at a table and selling books at one event, but I think one of my favorites, we had this short story event where we held one for writers to just, like, get together and just write without hesitating. And that was really fun. 

Julia: Yeah, I think I was at that one and it was like, yeah, it was really interesting because a lot of times you could, just saw people's faces and they were just so shocked and like, “Oh, my God, how am I gonna like, I haven't prepared anything.” But then when you actually lead someone to like write something down like whatever comes to their mind, it's actually quite productive. It was really interesting. I really enjoyed that event. 

Jiyuan: So for me, and like Rachel, like every one of us, I believe we have done the, uh, uh, the reports on manuscript for one report to, and the proofreading tasks.

And other than that, um, I would say, uh, the kind of tasks that I've enjoyed the most is, like I mentioned earlier, the work that's related to my role as the website manager and part of the social media marketing team, uh, because my work mainly focused on websites, so I would make posts and put them up on the websites or editing our web pages, some articles, and such as the new books’ information pages or the author's pages, etc. And they're very fun to, kind of, to play with, because before joining Ringwood, I've never done anything related to managing or even operating or even editing a website. And I thought when I first started doing it, I thought it must be really overwhelming, but, um, it turned out just bit by bit, I'm learning bit by bit, and it's actually quite fun. It's more fun than difficult. 

So that's a nice surprise to me. Yeah. 

Annemarie: That's cool. That's cool how you did it, you had no experience beforehand because it looks really daunting to program and yeah, edit the website and it's a big responsibility because Ringwood has a really active website. 

Rachel: I know I was kind of the same, like my two biggest jobs were coordinating the short story competition and being the assistant editor on Song of the Stag and both of those when I was first approached I was like, “Oh, no”, but they actually turned out to be my favorite.

Annemarie: You both touched on it a little bit. Are there any other new skills or experiences you've gained while working at Ringwood? 

Rachel: I mean I got really, really good at scrutinizing tiny lines of text painstakingly, for like the most obscure grammatical errors and I think as much as that was a skill it's kind of been more of a skill to just know when to let it go and just like embrace what the author's given you.

But also sending emails, I count that as a skill. Like, who knew you had to send so many emails to so different people? Like, I've been, like, supporting authors, working with different interns, and like, reaching out to celebrities for reviews. It's, it's its own skill, for sure. 

Jiyuan: Yeah, so I would definitely agree with Rachel. And it's, yeah, writing emails, I didn't, I don't think I ever wrote emails this often before I joined Ringwood. And it turned out to be, I'm kind of getting used to communicating work stuff through emails. And I think it's probably in the sense is a very good, uh, preparatory work for, uh, stepping into the real, you know, real working scenarios where you actually have to communicate and send materials back and forth.

You know, so yeah, it's very, I would say it's definitely a very useful and practical skill. And also, where Rachel said to reach out to people, it's also a skill, new skill to me, because I always feel, I'm always scared to reach out to people I don't know. And I feel like sometimes the work kind of requires you to write to people you don't know.

And after a while, you just, at least for me, I just don't really care about if they're going to respond or not, if they're doing well or not. I'm just doing, doing it as part of my job because I know if I didn't write to them, I wouldn't even get, for sure, not getting any response back. It's a good lesson to have learned.

Julia: I think also in the beginning, I thought it was going, I think like the absurd amount of emails, like we write at Ringwood, I thought it was due to the remote aspect of the job, like how a lot of us just work in our own houses. And then like, we do meet up for events, but like, because we did not see each other on the day to day, like it's not office based at all, that it was because of that, but like, there are so many departments within a publisher, like even Ringwood, and it's still so small scale that like, I guess you would have to do that either way in a bigger publisher. So it makes, it is definitely a really good skill, not even only for book publishing, but for other jobs as well. But yeah, it was daunting at the beginning, definitely. Just the remote, just the fact that like, oh my god, all these people that I have to be in constant contact with. 

Were there any other challenges that you guys faced during your time at Ringwood? 

Rachel: Yeah, I think as much as working with the small publishers is really rewarding, there is a lot of self-management and that can be hard to adjust to, um, like especially when you're learning all of these new skills at the same time.

Um, like in the short story competition that I mentioned last year, we had an insane amount of entries. We had so many, and we didn't expect it at all. Um, and working through those was a job and a half. But it took a village and we ended up getting to grips with it with a really wonderful team. 

Annemarie: Yeah, I guess, for me anyway, it just kind of reminded me like sometimes you get unexpected amounts of work, and you have deadlines that are all, kind of, around the same time. Like back in April, I had a big picture and a small picture edit and a proofreading job to do, and like a stage two manuscript, all due within like the same three weeks. So, sometimes it just, it ebbs and flows, um, the workload. So definitely time management was a big one. 

Jiyuan: Yeah, I totally agree with that. I feel like, one of the, uh, I would say one of the major difficulties I've ever faced working with Ringwood is, lies in the very fact that the work, the tasks, they don't come in a steady flow. You have a few, maybe a few weeks, even without anything to do, but suddenly you have several things to do at the same time. 

And I would say, but that also has sort of taught me a new skill, which is to say no, like, politely, but no. Um, because before that I was very bad at saying no, so I ended up picking up too much on board while just not like, kind of, spreading thin in a way. But now I've learned to, kind of like, gauge my own ability of my own capacity, basically/ And if I don't think I can, you know, deliver all the tasks with quality, if I take on too many, I would just say, “Sorry, I'm, I'm having too much on my plate right now.”

So, yeah, I would say I would add that definitely to my new skill set that I've learned in Ringwood as well. 

Annemarie: That's a really good skill set, is that self-reflection. You guys touched on this, but if you had any other points, what were your favorite parts of being a Ringwood intern?

Rachel: For me, it's definitely been working on Song of the Stag. Um, like I got to be assistant editor on this book, which is a fantasy re-imagining of the fight for Scottish independence. And it's got it all, it's so wonderfully written and it's so intelligent and it has this host of interesting and like diverse and queer characters. And it was really my favorite thing to work on. Like, I still can't believe I got so lucky. Um, and it's, it's like the biggest affirmation for me that I want to work in publishing again. And because there's, like, gems like Song of the Stag. It's definitely my big favorite. 

Jiyuan: Yeah, um, so for me, I would say my favorite parts are also in reading all those manuscripts because sometimes we will come across some not so good manuscripts, but a lot of times they're pretty amazing, and they just come in all, I don't know if that's the right way to put it, but all shapes and forms, like all genres or topics, themes, and, you know, different periods of time even.

And it's really an eye-opening experience, especially for me as someone who always find it hard to find a new book because I have no idea what kind of book that I really want to read, but because of the, um, reports tasks at Ringwood, I get to kind of force myself into reading manuscripts and they tend to be very rewarding experiences at last.

So, it's definitely my favorite part. Yeah.

Julia: I think similarly to Rachel's for me, working as an assistant editor for Remember the Rowan that's coming out, like, September, I believe, is, was just such a great experience because I feel you get, like, uh, such a connection to the book and you, it's developed, like, over time and, like, it's, it's a weird love-hate relationship because, like, it's such a wonderful piece of work and it has so many interesting themes.

And as a Comparative Literature student, for me, I just really want to, like, get in with it and, like, really dissect the text. Um, but at the same time, you have to, like, teach yourself to, like, step back and be like, “This is not my book, I need to, like, treat it carefully because it's the author at the end of the day who has to, whose name is going to be on it.”

You get so into it and at the same time you, it really, it does, like, take so much of your, like, mental power and it takes so long and you end up, like, sort of hating the text because you've read the same sentence a thousand times. But it was definitely the most rewarding because I think it's something that I definitely, if I end up choosing to go onto publishing, uh, further on my career, it's definitely something that, it's just skill set that you cannot develop any other way. 

Do you guys have any future plans after the internship, that are related to it? 

Rachel: Yeah, I've just, I've got one year left of my degree. Um, and then I hope I'll get back into publishing, but got to get past that first.

Julia: Yeah, I feel like it's this ever-evolving field and there's so many jobs like popping up constantly. So, it is very competitive feel, but I think it is, as we were saying, it's just like, it is very exciting to be working with books constantly. 

Jiyuan: Yeah. So for me, I definitely know of the competitiveness and kind of the, uh, I don't know if that's right, but I feel like still there are not as many opportunities in the publishing industry up here in Scotland than down south. But it's definitely something that I, even though I probably don't see myself getting into a publishing job immediately after this internship, but I definitely see myself going back to it in years after, you know, after whatever I'm, I will be doing in the future years, but I definitely would see myself going back and because I know how, how much of a fun experience it is.

And it kind of brings me back in touch with my passion for reading somehow. I would definitely say, yeah, I would not just quit it or leave it. 

Annemarie: Do you want to go and do any kind of web development, website content in the future? 

Jiyuan: I don’t think, I tried, I actually, um, two months ago, I was at home. I went home visiting my family for two months and during that time I did this online course on, uh, HTML and CSS. It was, it was fun, but I also realized how challenging it would be.

And so, and I realized it takes actually so much more than an online course to be actually qualified for a proper web developer kind of job, but I'm always optimistic, I'm always positive, and I believe at least this skill set will stay with me and I can put into use at some point in my life, so. 

Annemarie: Cool. That was all the questions that we had for you guys, but thank you both so much. 

Jiyuan: Thank you for organizing. Thank you. 

Rachel: Have a good Ringwood retirement, everyone. 

Annemarie: We now conclude Season 3 of the Ringwood Publishing Podcast. Thank you, everyone, for joining us this season as we dove into the latest Ringwood releases, chatted with our authors, both new and returning, and learned some valuable insight from our fellow interns. A new season will kick off in fall, so keep an eye out on the Ringwood website for announcements about that and other events. 

Julia: As always, thank you for listening. Goodbye!

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