AN INTERVIEW WITH HANNAH AUERBACH NEWMAN COMMUNICATIONS ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Translating English

While At UMass Majored in English Interned at the Lisa Ekus Group Interned at Campus LIVE Inc. Tutored privately Graduate Assistant for NCAA Graduated a year early

Grad School Started a Masters in Secondary Education (English) at UMass Liked working at the Lisa Ekus Group more than going to Grad School Dropped out of Grad School after a semester

After UMass Continued working at the Lisa Ekus Group as a paid assistant Waited tables at Rafters Pretended to be in college for a semester

Vantage Press While working at the Lisa Elkus Group, Lisa's old friend had just bought Vantage Press (a self publishing company) and needed a publicist Lisa knew Hannah was looking for publishing jobs in NYC and recommended her Hannah got the job and worked there for a year Launching a new imprint in a struggling economy didnt pay off Hannah decided to look for another job Owner ended up cutting the entire PR staff a few months after Hannah left

In Between Hannah interviewed at a few big publishing houses to no avail She had worked on a few books with Tess Woods, the VP at Newman Communications Authors and publishers hire companies like Newman for additional publicity support In conversation with Tess one day she let it drop that she traveled to Massachusetts every other weekend to visit her boyfriend, and she said "keep us in mind if you ever move here Hannah immediately ed her and they happened to be hiring, so she went in for an interview

Newman Communications Hannah got the job at Newman Communications Her job responsibilities now include: Getting clients and books press Reaching out to national and local TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and online outlets Social media Finding angles to get press interested UPS and office supply ordering

How English 491AC Helped Hannah had no interest in publishing until Professor Janis Greves English 491AC class She had to do an interview like this with two different people who have two different careers that she admired One of them was a teacher The other was a successful literary agent She wanted to be a literary agent after this interview

How English Was Useful Prolific communication skills Attentive reading skills Eloquent writing skills All are used daily

Current Job vs. Dream Job Publicity has a lot of parallels to being an agent, mainly advocating for the authors and essentially begging people to consider your book

Next Step I am not sure this is what I want to do forever. Publicity is a bit thankless; you can try and try and try, but if your book isn't of interest to the media, there is no way to get the results expected of you. I would also like to try my hand at a bigger company with more upward potential. But yes, I absolutely enjoy it for the most part and think it is a great starting point to make contacts and learning a really unique and adaptable set of skills.

What I Learned From Hannah I will be okay if I graduate early but I might feel like I missed out Its okay if my first job isnt my dream job Every step of the way is useful for networking and gaining experience and transferable skills I will probably be low-balled at my first job Be patient…I am graduating in a bad economy and the English major jobs are taking the most hits Keep in contact with everyone…network!