Life as an Angry Robot
(mirrored from my blog)
It's been just over a month since I started with Angry Robot Books as the North American Sales & Marketing Manager.
Here are some thoughts on the new job:
- The working environment is awesome. I liked my Wybel gig, but my co-workers at AR are much more My Kind of People. Everyone is in the genre fiction world, so my geekdom isn't just an Outside Specialty that helps some of what I do, it's a core facet of what I bring to the table.
- Having greater dispensation to read for work is very fun. With my last job, I had to read a little bit of everything, since we had dozens of client publishers. For AR, it's all genre fiction, all the time. I've been devouring novels as fast as I can, in SF/F, YA, and Crime/Mystery, across our three imprints (Angry Robot, Strange Chemistry, and Exhibit A, respectively). As expected, I'm getting great use out of my Nexus 7, which has become my primary reading device for work.
- Working conventions is very hard work, but totally worth it. I attended WorldCon as an Angry Robot, and spent most of the show working the AR booth, reconnecting with my bookseller roots and meeting tons of people in order to send them away with big armfuls of books. :)
- Since AR is a smaller publisher, there is a lot of 'everyone does everything.' I'm learning about all aspects of the publishing world -- P&L reports, acquisitions, ad buys, publicity best practices, title presentations, cover design, everything. It's awesome. :)
- The gig has been great for my writing. Now that I have a more regular schedule, it's easier to order my weekly and daily schedule and be consistent in my writing time. I've also had the chance to meet lots of AR/SC/ExA authors, and more writer friends means more people to brainstorm with, more people to cross-promote with, etc. Learning even more about the industry from the inside has made me a more appealing guest for podcasts/interviews/etc., since I can talk to the publisher side as well as the author side. The bonuses keep coming!
- There's also been a fair amount of press about the appointment:
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.html?issue=1826#m17449
http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/2012/09/people-88/
and the most recent issue of LOCUS.
- And not to be overlooked is the fact that I'M MOVING TO NEW YORK CITY! I visited NYC last week and signed on an apartment in Queens, which my girlfriend and I will be moving in to next month. It's a nice and safe neighborhood, and the apartment is gorgeous, with lots of features in the building.
All in all, becoming an Angry Robot has been fantastic. And I'm only getting started.