The team at Scotland Street Press were delighted to welcome a student from a school in the Highlands this week who is interested in a career in publishing to experience life working in the industry. Here's what she had to say about her time with the team...

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For the past week I have been doing work experience at the independent publisher, Scotland Street Press. I was lucky enough to be part of the publisher and learn more about the industry.  I am very grateful I was able to do this as it has been a very valuable experience which has given me an insight into lots of different sections of publishing.

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During my week I counted the stock in the office so that we were able to see all of the books which needed ordered. I also helped to make an Instagram post for the Scottish Books Showcase which just took place in Munich. I made a cover banner on Canva and organised the photos and videos. This illustrated to me the importance of social media marketing in publishing, but also in wider society today and helped me develop my design skills. I also had a chance to read a manuscript for a possible book which I made annotations and notes on. I learned about the process of editing and how a book is physically published. I was even able to sit in on a meeting where I learned about the process of designing a cover for books and how much input the writer had. I was even able to do sketches for the cover of the manuscript I read.  All of these tasks throughout the week showed me how publishing companies functioned and gave me a useful lesson about all of the difficult factors which go into making a book and marketing it.

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I am very grateful to have been given this opportunity, and to have been a part of an industry which I have been interested in. Everything I have done this past week has taught me something new and developed my current skills.  I also plan to apply everything I have learned to my studies for the next year.

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