Belinda Leon is: stark, asymptotic and tremulous.
Belinda, you applied for my job but ended up with a different one instead. (Strangely, we’re not mortal enemies.) What happened there?
I got this job in a fairly roundabout manner. I went to about 50 websites before I found the ad for your role, then umm’d and ahh’d for a couple of weeks while I organised my resume and drafted cover letter after cover letter. I finally screwed up my courage, and rang Debra James — who was listed as a contact on the ad. This was the Thursday before Easter, and I ended up leaving a message, and spent the whole weekend fretting over it all. I eventually got through to her a few days later, introduced myself, asked about the job, and gushed a little bit sillily about how much I wanted to work in publishing. I sent her my resume the next day.
About a week later I got a call from Debra, I began to panic at this — the deadline for the job hadn’t passed yet, and she started off by telling me I didn’t need to panic. Of course I panicked. I calmed down a little when I heard she was telling me about a different role, and asked me to interview for it.
I think I stood out because a) I had exactly the types of experience in the kinds of roles they wanted (I’d worked as an Admin Assistant for a tiny information publishing firm before), and also, I’m a raging nerd, which interested them. I did a Multimedia degree at uni, and am really interested in digital publishing, iPhone applications, and studied XML as part of that, which is increasingly important in the publishing world. The combination of being literary/publishing minded and comfortable with technology and programming appears to be a little unusual in publishing.
What does a publishing assistant do, apart from giving the editorial intern copious snacks?
I run around the office carrying stacks of books, draft up the contracts for authors, fill in scary amounts of forms, tie ribbons on the new books that come in so that the authors can untie the ribbon to see their books, help out with some of the editorial stuff, go to meetings, sit at the front desk one Friday afternoon a month for 10 minutes, drink large quantities of tea, discuss loudly the virtues of the different dogs on the calendar each day (though mostly I’m just calling out things like ‘where are the cats?’). There’s much more, which suits me. I’m constantly changing what I’m doing, and it means if I’m finding something boring, there’s lots to break it up with, and it’s usually over before too long.
You’ve done an IT degree and a diploma in English Literature. What was it about publishing that made you go ‘mmmm’?
I’m a huge book nerd. I love reading, and I love books. All about them, the smell, the feel, opening a new one fresh from the store, opening an old one from a second hand store and finding someone’s writing in it. There was also something about the process of a book that seemed so mysterious. How do you get from someone tapping away at a screen and turn it into a book? Do authors write in Word? is there a special program they need to use to make a book? HOW DOES IT WORK?
I seem to have figured out many of these questions now (yes, authors do generally write in Word. Some might use googledocs, or iWorks though) but the process is as interesting as ever, and I love being involved in it.
What’s your current favourite Youtube video?
How to pick just one?
A goat, on a cup, on a tightrope, with a monkey doing hand stands on its head is possibly the greatest thing ever.
But then again, how can you go past a fuel truck singing ‘Ring of Fire‘ by Johnny Cash?
Can I have an Express Post envelope?
No. I only get two a week, and you guys have stolen them all… but there are some Jaffas in my desk still, you’re welcome to some of them.
