just for fun

Getting Settled, Getting Familiar

I’ve been working at Dundurn for just over a month.  I like to think (rather, I hope) I have been settling in well. Each day I get more comfortable with my role here in the publicity department and each day I learn something new.

Starting my position, I knew there was going to be quite a bit to get familiar with: working in a completely new industry full of technical jargon to which I was completely oblivious; new responsibilities and adjusting my skills to suit the field; a new routine; new office equipment…

Perhaps the most daunting of all the “new girl adjustments” was getting familiar with Dundurn’s extensive catalogue of titles. As a publicity assistant, I am speaking to media and other individuals to hopefully garner some coverage for our books. How can you convince someone to write about a book, or interview the author, if you don’t really know anything about it? As Dundurn publishes close to 80 titles a year, you can imagine the shellshock I experienced my first few days in the office.

I focused immediately on getting up to speed with the titles I’d be working on: Combat Journal For Place D’Armes , A Great Lakes Treasury of Old Postcards, and the books that were just released under Dundurn’s new imprint, The Genealogist’s Reference Shelf .

But far more challenging has been finding time to read all of the books that Dundurn has already or recently published that I may not be working on directly, but for which I will certainly be assisting authors with requests, attending events, or speaking to outside contacts about at tradeshows. There are a lot, and even some that I’ve wanted to read just for my own interest, and while getting settled at work it’s been hard to make doing this a priority.

This week I finally started delving into the stack of books I’ve been accumulating on my desk. With the benefit of a 45 minute commute to and from the suburbs each day, I tackled two titles from our Young Adult authors: Free As A Bird by Gina McMurchy-Barber (which actually made me cry on the Go Train, no joke… the man sitting across from me must have thought I was a bit crazy) and the Silver Birch award-winning, The Third Eye by Mahtab Narsimhan.

It’s a bit biased for me to say that I loved them both (it’s true, though!), but reading our catalogue is encouraging me to read even more of our titles, and I have a feeling that the more titles I read, the more I will plow through my stack, and in no time I will be up to speed.

There is a hidden benefit to all of this, of course. A very nerdy, “social-media lovers will understand!” hidden benefit.

I keep a Visual Bookshelf application on my Facebook profile. For those of you who aren’t familiar, it’s basically a feature where I can add all of the books I’ve read, and my Facebook friends can check out what I’ve been perusing. I have about 120 books (and yes, I’ve read them ALL) collected and now, as I’m reading Dundurn’s books, I can add more to my virtual shelf. The more I read, the more I can add to my shelf, and the more books I have on my virtual bookshelf, the cooler I feel.

Although I’m sure having a visual bookshelf is the very opposite of “cool”.

But while I add books to my shelf, I’m also indirectly promoting our titles. Maybe one of my friends will be interested in The Silver Anklet (which I just started) or Something Remains (which I plan to start afterwards). Maybe they’ll read it and enjoy it and pass it off to someone else to read. Maybe that person will do the same. And then that person, and the next, and so on and so on.

I still have much to read and learn about the publishing universe,  but the longer I’m at Dundurn, the more the book/PR/social media nerd in me is emerging.

© 2010 Defining Canada.