Week 1 at Penguin Random House

I have arrived way too early. I decide to awkwardly wander up and down the streets into random shops until a more suitable time. I finally pluck up the courage to enter the tall, tall, glassy building and I enter the Penguin reception. I pick up my visitor badge and take a seat. Next to me is a friendly looking woman who turns out to be doing two weeks work experience in the Publicity and Marketing Department of Penguin Children's too! I have a found a friend - good start. 

My new friend, Anami, has already done work experience at Penguin before so she knows the ropes and gives me a tour of our floor. Of course, this includes the 'Pulp shelf' which is where you're allowed to take two free books per day. BEST THING EVER. When I read this line of my contract I was incredibly excited, who doesn't love free books? 

And to work. We begin by updating the Puffin display board with some new newspaper clippings about Roald Dahl and his books which involves much printing and guillotining but is quite fun. Then we are presented with a huge (and I mean huge) stack of boxes that are full of ARCs of All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven - the new big YA release. If you're one of the lucky people I've just sent a package out then I'm so jealous of you! 

Was sent an email by the Publicity officer, who'd found out I was a blogger, asking me to participate in The Infinite Sea (The 5th Wave sequel) blogger campaign. Um... yes?! I need to create a post detailing what I'd pack in my apocalypse survival backpack in order to qualify for an arc of The Infinite Sea which is heavily embargoed.  Yayay!

That's pretty much it for day 1. There was much posting and printing but I think I'm getting the hang of things now so it's only up from here! 

The four books I managed to pick up today were: Beautiful Redemption by Garcia & Stohl, Skeletons by Jane Fallon, Working on my Novel by Cory Arcangel and Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari! 

Day 2

Still packing All The Bright Places. Finally finished!! I know there are more to come, but that's a problem for later. I actually rather enjoy packing the books into bags. It makes me feel like Santa's Little Helper or something, bringing joy to bloggers and reviewers all over the country!

I had the very important task of going to Tesco to buy two bars of Green & Blacks chocolate. I think they were to send to a *famous chef* to persuade him to get in on a Penguin campaign.

Chapter 1 of Half Wild by Sally Green needs to be sent out to lots of bookish people so I get to work on putting these neat little scrolls into tubes and I try (and fail) and try (and fail) and try (and fail) to create these cool Half Wild address labels to stick on the tubes. After what seems like hours, I give up and move onto the next task. I've wasted quite a lot of sticky labels but I'm at my wits end with this project and can't figure out what to do. (Even Google didn't help).

Books picked up: Oh Dear Sylvia by Dawn French, My Husband Next Door by Catherine Alliott and The Mysterious Affair at Castaway House by Stephanie Lam.


Day 3

I finally got the labels right! Rejoice! I think I may have jammed the printer, but when I come back a bit later, someone seems to have fixed it. After some time, I manage to get to the printer and get my labels all printed out. Stuck them all to the tubes and they're ready to go!

Need to note down all the important dates for our social media channels e.g. holidays, bookish events etc. Sounds easy but it's actually pretty difficult trying to find the official dates of a lot of events and whether they're for the UK or whether they're international. I've arranged them all into a spreadsheet but it looks rather messy so I play around with this for a while.

Books picked up: Love, Nina by Nina Stibbe, Man At The Helm by Nina Stibbe, Ecological Intelligence by Daniel Goleman and Expo 50 by Jonathan Coe. 

Day 4

Revisions of my calendar of dates again. Will I ever get it right?! I must admit the way I laid it out was really retarded but now I've sorted that out it should all be fine.

A box of biscuits from The Biscuiteers, to be used as a competition prize, came in today. They are all Charlie and the Chocolate Factory related and they're SO cool and they smell amazing!!

I had the exciting task of going out and about in Covent Garden to quiz people about what books they read as a child and what stories they'll pass down to their children etc. I had to wear these big headphones and carry a penguin microphone which was all rather cool but very clunky and it probably looked quite intimidating to the people I spoke to! There was a very varied response from people with some people very willing to share their stories with me and others who clearly wanted me to clear off. In the end I think I got about 6 or 7 good stories and managed to have a good chat with people about children's books which was nice. It was certainly a nerve-wracking experience but it was cool I must admit!

Everyone in the office has run off to a meeting so I wrote my review of Half Bad (see here), which I wasn't that taken with but it was a good read.

Helped Anami, my fellow work experience buddy, fold up lots of song sheets for the upcoming Roald Dahl event next Monday. Attaching pens to the song sheets was an absolute nightmare because they kept falling off.

Books picked up: Girl Heart Boy 3 - Un de Trop by Ali Cronin (French translation), Cousin Bette by Balzac and Republic by Plato

Day 5


Need to print 20 Manuscripts for 'Girl Online', Youtuber Zoella's autobiography which is coming out in November this year. The printing takes years and then I had to punch holes in the pages and load them all onto the binding machine. I eventually managed to squeeze all the pages onto the binding machine and get the ring to shut but it's such a tight fit that I'm afraid all the pages will tumble out when their recipients get them. Got to order in bigger binders. Still printing copies. Other people in the office seem frustrated because the manuscripts are taking so long to print and the other printer is out of toner. Whoops? Off to Mark in the stationery store again to order in some binders and card.

Cut and paste lots of competition entries to the Roald Dahl invention competition that Penguin were running. Some of the entries were so cute, but some were just plain weird ngl.

Spinebreakers requests are in! It was so nice to be able to do something Spinebreakers-related as I'm
still so sad that the scheme is ending. To all you Spinebreakers reading this, your books are on their way!

Packed a big box of promo materials for goodie bags for the upcoming Bath Festival. If you're attending, then you'll no doubt be receiving one of these awesome bags with an assortment of bookish/Puffin related goodies!

Back to folding Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Cards and attaching pens. I also had to make question cards for the show next Monday but I get this tragically wrong and end up doing it again and again and again. And still getting it wrong. By this point I have run out of card and the stationery store is closed...

Books picked up: The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey, City of Women by David Gillham and The Party by Ricard McGregor.

So that's it guys! My first week of work experience at Penguin was pretty awesome. It's so cool seeing what goes on behind the scenes of the publisher that worked on pretty much all of my favourite titles. I think I did a lot more than what I detailed above, but I forgot to note down what I was doing during the middle of the week, which is why I haven't mentioned some stuff. I've picked up loads of new books to read but now I've got nowhere to put them! Looking forward to what next week brings!

a Rafflecopter giveaway