Ten things I learnt as a UQP Intern: Emily Baulch

I research Australian book culture at the University of Queensland, where I am a PhD student and sessional academic. I was lucky enough to do a placement at UQP in early 2022. As someone writing in an academic context about books and publishing, I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty detail and try out the industry. I tried to absorb every bit of knowledge during my placement and talk to as many people as possible!

Here are the top ten things I learnt while completing my internship at UQP:

1. UQP staff are delightful.

You might have thought publishing was full of professionals harbouring secrets and performing magic behind closed doors. But Jacqueline Blanchard and the staff at UQP took care of me from day one, making time to discuss my goals and interests. My time at UQP covered COVID and floods. Throughout all of it, the team were always so generous with their time and knowledge.

2. There are so many more manuscripts than the final list.

Many publishers have quite a targeted and small list – the books they produce over a year. But behind that neat list is a mountain of manuscripts. I did a lot of work reading solicited and unsolicited manuscripts, providing reader's reports for Clair Hume, Aviva Tuffield and Madonna Duffy. Manuscripts were flying in from everywhere! I read over 20 solicited works and logged over 200 unsolicited manuscripts…

3. There are more paths to publishing than just the submission process.

I practised editing Rhiannon Wilde's wonderful new YA novel Where They Left Us. Rhiannon’s earlier work, Henry Hamlet's Heart, came to UQP through the Queensland Literary Awards Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer. A conversation with Aviva – a UQP Publisher – opened my eyes to the numerous avenues that UQP staff are tracking to find new talent and new works.

4. Manuscripts are far from finished when they are submitted.

You might think a book is done when you send it to the publisher. It turns out there are several rounds of editing, a team turning over every word, and a huge pipeline of design, art, and marketing. As someone who also writes creatively, it was reassuring to know that there is a team of people to help you make the perfect final product that you see on the shelf at the bookstore.

5. Picture books are a different art.

Children's books are some of the hardest books to write and edit because the fewer words, the more they matter – and picture books are even harder. Fewer words, more precision.

Picture books also come with images (of course!), either through the author or an illustrator, adding a whole new range of processes.

6. I actually enjoy editing.

Editing is often positioned as a writer's chore. There's a level of intimidation to it – you need to manage minute grammar, a macro-level sense of pace and story, and understand industry conventions and standards like genre.

To see yourself set up beside pros is scary, but, again, the people are UQP are so kind that I found myself coached into editing before I knew it. It was very satisfying to get those 'aha!' moments when I realised that I could suggest changes to the manuscript I'd been sucked into to give the author another option to improve it.

7. Covers are a negotiation, not a template.

The cover design process was much less formulaic than I would have thought. It was an iterative and conversational design process. And it was okay to play around with tone and feel across a few versions – you didn't have to land on the perfect cover straight away.

8. UQP has an international footprint.

I worked on UQP's Bologna Children's Book Fair Catalogue, which lists a range of their titles for the fair held in Italy. It was fantastic to see the reach UQP, as a highly regarded Australian literary press, had in international markets. For Bologna, a range of awesome children's authors had their work championed in the catalogue. Go Aussie children's authors!

9. Titles are works of art.

They're just a few words, but we all know how much writers will agonise over a manuscript's title. What was interesting was seeing that the publishers agonise over them an equal amount. Conversations around titles and subtitles, changing an article here or there, verb tense, all of these tiny elements had a magnifying glass held to them to create the best version.

10. Rainbow bookshelves are a controversial topic at UQP.

Think bookshelf trends are only controversial at home? Nope! Publishing Director Madonna Duffy can't stand the idea of organising a bookshelf by colour. I have been researching different practices of organising home bookshelves, and amongst organising by genre, size, favourites, and publication date, organisation by colour has often proved controversial given the penchant it has for splitting up series and introducing a general air of rainbow chaos to your house.