Denver Publishing Institute

It's that time of the year when students are restlessly checking the mail in hopes of hearing that they have been accepted into one of the three publishing institutes here in the states. I was one of them last year and fortunately I did get in. What am I talking about? I'm talking about the programs at Denver, Columbia, and NYU that are set up to help folk like me break into publishing. 

I had never heard of the Denver Publishing Institute until about two years ago when a friend of mine who was in the process of earning her Master's in English told me I should apply. I did some research at what turned out to be the very last minute, but got my application in on time and was accepted (THANK GOD!). 

The class is designed to give students a brief look at just about every aspect of the publishing industry. We had line editing, copy editing, and marketing workshops. We had guests from every different division you can imagine, buyers, sales reps, marketing folk, publicity folk, magazine folk, online marketing people, agents, acquisitions editors, you name it, they were there. Reps from big houses, small houses, university presses, and everything in between made appearances to tell us all about what their jobs are all about. 

It was an amazingly helpful tool for me and I already had some working knowledge of the industry to begin with. If you are interested in working in publishing, check it out. I highly recommend it. You will meet a ton of people who can help you to get where you want to be. If you know that you would like to work in publishing but aren't sure what you want to do, they can help you with that as well. The class is small, about 100 people, the people in charge are fantastic. It's a learning experience that is well worth it, take it from an '07 alum!

http://www.du.edu/pi/