My Internships Ends, But I Leave With Knowledge and Love

As the summer comes to an end so does my internship at Berrett-Koehler.  By this time next week I will be back in Michigan and finishing my last semester at Eastern Michigan University.  As excited as I am to see family and friends and sleep in my own bed I know I am going to miss San Francisco. In particular, I'm going to miss interning at Berret-Koehler.

At my farewell lunch I was asked why I chose Berrett-Koehler Publishers to have my internship. Two other publishing companies offered me an internship,one in Washington D.C. and Berkeley, but Berret-Koehler felt right from the beginning. Though my family tried to convince me to take the internship in D.C. so I could live with my brother rent-free I liked the atmosphere that Berrett-Koehler presented, even from 3,000 + miles away.   It may have been easier to go to D.C. but I don't think I would have got as much out of it as I did here in San Francisco.

So what felt so right about BK? Perhaps it was their clear focus in what they promoted.  While many publishing companies I looked at had a vast amount of subjects, BK focused on only three-Life, Current, and Business.  To me, this meant they gave their full attention to all their books.  It wasn't about making as many books as possible, but making a few books that were great and had an audience.

While their mission stuck with me, the environment Bonnie presented to me in her emails was what convinced me to take this internship.  From the beginning Bonnie told me that at a small company like BK I would have a chance to learn about many aspects of a publishing company.  While I would be the Digital Community Building intern I would also have a chance to work with editorial, marketing, publicity, and operations.  Bonnie's words were true, the majority of the time I spent working on digital publishing but I also spent lots of time working with and contributing to editorial, marketing, sales, design, and operations.  If I wanted to work with another department all I had to do was ask and it happened. I learned a lot at BK about what goes into creating a book, not just one aspect of it.

The other internships never mentioned the idea of exploring other departments. Most, if not all, my focus would be on editorial. While I was leaning towards wanting to work in editorial after I graduated I knew I wanted to explore other aspects as well.

What made Berrett-Koehler a great place to intern was the causal, family atmosphere of the office. While it was certainly professional, I never felt stuffy there. Casual clothes and conversation kept the office from feeling like a regular desk job.  Author meetings and lunch excursions between departments happened quite a bit. All the departments tried to keep each other in the loop as much as possible.  The departments weren't just separate entities, but mixed together a lot. 

From what I learned it is quite rare that a publishing company has authors come in and present their book to the whole staff.  But this is something Berrett-Koehler does regularly and I can't believe more publishing companies don't do this!  This practice once again connects every person involved in creating a book. I learned a lot from going to these Author Days alone.

I leave BK with all my goals checked off.  I learned a lot about how publishing works and I feel confident in my ability to work in this field.  But now I am excited as ever to graduate and start a full-time career in publishing.  I just hope I end up in a great a place as Berrett-Koehler!! If not, I may have to steal the idea of Author Days.