Created May 02, 2024 by Laurent Sewell
Author Rebekah Manley covered the nuts and bolts of having an intern at our March meeting. Hiring interns for help marketing your book, copy editing, managing social media strategy and more can be a win-win situation.
Rebekah Manley, author of ALEXANDRA AND THE AWFUL, AWKWARD, NO FUN, TRULY BAD DATES (Simon & Schuster, 2020), walked us through the processes and benefits of hiring interns. Rebekah holds a Master of Fine Arts in Children’s Literature from Hollins University and runs the Texas Center for the Book, working to encourage literacy, reading, and library use.
Meeting Highlights:
Working with Interns:
– Conduct frequent communication and check-ins
– Be a mentor to your interns (they will be thankful!); mentoring can be a two-way street
– Be clear about your expectations, including time commitment
– Create a clear schedule
– Respect interns’ time (they are often juggling school and multiple jobs)
– Let interns have opportunities to be the expert
– Give opportunities for big dreams and big wins
– Learn, lean on them, and grow together
– Identify your needs before hiring interns
– LinkedIn is a great way to advertise for an intern (then, sift through applicants carefully)
– Give interns homework to vet and find the right match
– Help interns discover their strengths and identify their goals
– Let interns know what you can offer them
– Allow interns to build the skills they want; help build their resume/portfolio
Interns are Helpful for:
–Query drafting/research, creating blogs, social media, website creation, planning, submissions, and more
*Use Google Docs: Project Task Sheets, Timesheets, Query Spreadsheets, Intern Database, etc.
See more of Rebekah Manley's work here!