In February of this year I began a  4-month internship with Edinburgh based children’s and non-fiction publisher Floris Books and have greatly benefitted from this experience by enhancing my classroom learning in a professional environment. Mainly focused in the marketing department, I learned valuable new skills and was able to improve the abilities I had prior to my time interning. Although most of my tasks were marketing focused, one benefit of Floris being a small publisher is that I was given the opportunity to work on a wide range of tasks across other departments too and develop a greater understanding of the ways in which departments work together to optimize the effective running of company procedures.

Although Floris are a small Scottish publisher, they publish a wide range of non-fiction titles in areas such as biodynamics and holistic health as well as their popular children’s books. I was able to work on many projects across the different lists published by Floris and enjoyed working on marketing different books to different groups of readers.

At the start of my internship I was warmly welcomed by the lovely Floris team and was introduced to the extensive Floris tea collection that I was encouraged to enjoy as often as I liked, before getting straight down to work. Throughout my internship I was able to work on a wide variety of tasks for the marketing department including writing press releases, drafting advance information sheets and designing promotional materials for events. I was unaware before my internship how often I would be utilizing my InDesign abilities in creating marketing materials and my first few weeks interning encouraged me too really practice these skills. However my tasks were not restricted to marketing, as I gained valuable editorial experience proofreading content and reading and reporting on submissions for the Floris annual Kelpies Prize, which encourages Scottish writing for children. I also helped assist the Floris team at the awards ceremony for the Kelpies Design and Illustration Prize, which awarded designers and illustrators who reimaged the cover of a classic children’s book in the Kelpies range of Scottish children’s fiction.

I’m very grateful for my time spent at Floris as I have received support, guidance and feedback from such a dynamic company. I have learned many essential skills that will benefit me in my future career from a fantastic, passionate small team. My internship has given me much more confidence in my abilities and has encouraged me to work on other skills to improve my employability when looking for my first job in the publishing industry. This experience has been completely invaluable to me by providing me with a hands-on approach to publishing practices and helped me to feel more enthusiastic than ever before about my future endeavours.