My time here as the publicity and rights and permissions intern has ended, but there is so much more to do and learn that I am certainly sad to be leaving such a wonderful work environment. Since the first day I stepped into Cambridge, I can proudly say that I’ve always left at the end of each day with a new piece of knowledge regarding publicity and rights and permissions in publishing.

Here is a peek at what I’ve done and learned from my unique roles here at Cambridge.

• E-mail pitch and press release writing: Frances and Nicole, our publicists, have given me so many opportunities to pitch to the media for a range of Cambridge titles. While I had done some of this specialized form of writing, I am still constantly working on being concise and their edits and comments were always helpful for my improvement.
• Building Cision lists and blogger lists: I’ve gotten a better sense of who represents popular media outlets from working on Cision and a feel for the blogosphere, which I am looking forward to taking a greater part in on my own.
• Writing reader’s guides: I wrote reader’s guides for Eruptions that Shook the World and Duels and Duets: Why Men and Women Talk So Differently (September book club pick), which turned out to be both challenging and gave me a newfound appreciation for reader’s guides. I always looked at them as merely extra pages at the end of a book.
• Update a Facebook fan page for Irish Essays: It was interesting trying to build a presence for a Cambridge title through Facebook, something I can definitely explore as I continue in publishing. Not a fan yet? Follow the link and LIKE it!
• Update single article prices for all of Cambridge’s Journals: Working on this project with Marc, our rights & permissions manager, provided a good introduction to a field of publishing that I’ve always heard of, but never looked for the opportunity to learn more about. While it may sound tedious, I liked having 1 day out of the week where I could venture out of publicity to learn about another aspect of Cambridge.

There is so much more that I could list, but then we’d be here for a while. Of course, I wouldn’t mind, but I will try and resist that urge.

As a final note, I just want to thank everyone at Cambridge University Press for providing the perfect learning environment and trusting me to work at my own pace. I will take what I’ve learned here with me wherever I go in the future and hopefully, our paths will cross again!

Nancy Chen is the publicity and rights & permissions intern for Cambridge University Press’ College Sales and Marketing group.