Mika’s Marketing Internship with LitKanmani

I first came across this internship opportunity in the weekly newsletter at my university back in December of 2021. It was towards the end of first semester, right about the time when I was finishing up turning in all of my assignments. Having no publishing experience, I thought that LitKanmani would be a great opportunity for me to dive into the industry to figure out what I’m interested in. So without second thoughts, I applied and waited for a response. 

I found out that I had gotten the role as the publishing marketing intern during my self-isolation period in Tokyo and jumped right into work from my hotel room. My first task was to do some research on the Indian publishing industry and the effective marketing techniques used by companies outside of publishing. I also started creating social media content for LitKanmani’s instagram account where I got to polish my design skills. Once I was accustomed to the LitKanmani brand, I also had the chance to create an agenda of marketing posts of which I had the helping hands of other lovely interns. During the process, I had meetings with Akshaya and the team to build the concept of each post and the message I wanted to send across. Apart from marketing tasks, I also wrote a short story for the first time in my life and proofread the stories of other interns which was fun to do. I never had the courage to write a fictional story ever so this was a great chance for me to work on my creative writing skills and learn how to give constructive and professional feedback. 

Overall, I think this internship taught me a lot about the marketing and editorial aspects in publishing as well as the administrative side of a publishing start-up. I was working remotely from the UK so the time difference made meeting face to face difficult, but Akshaya was very encouraging throughout the internship and made sure that I was learning and enjoying the process. I should include that I was encouraged by her enthusiasm and passion for YA books! I also got to join a few group meetings with the team in India which was great fun. I’m very thankful for this opportunity, and I hope all the best for the current and future team and I look forward to LitKanmani’s next big moves!