My SYP Mentorship: Meeting 1

What happens when you do a mentorship when you're older than everyone else? I'm about to find out!

The first in a series of posts about what I learn during my mentorship.

In late 2021, I landed a coveted place on The Society of Young Publishers (SYP) mentorship scheme with mentor Juliet Mushens of Mushens Entertainment.

Quick note: The SYP is a volunteer-run group that seeks to help people in their first ten years of their publishing career. The mentorship scheme matches people relatively new in their career with established members of the publishing industry.

Juliet Mushens started at HarperCollins, and worked there for several years before starting her own literary agency.

If you’ve read a book by Richard Osman, Jessie Burton, Elodie Harper, Stacey Halls, Laura Purcell, Abigail Dean, Claire Douglas, or Jennifer Sain—all bestselling authors—that book was one Juliet helped to get published.

Pretty amazing, right?

Why would a freelance editor need a mentorship with a literary agent, you ask?

Freelancing is to be in a void: there’s no senior members in the “office” to help you work your way up the ladder or offer advice.

So I’m here to learn about the publishing industry trends, to discover new
opportunities and best practices, and to talk to someone other than the cat.*
(*I don’t have a cat.)

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Meeting  1: Getting organized

I spent the majority of the meeting feeling nervous because I had to sit and talk about myself (never fun or ideal). Juliet’s easy-going and gregarious manner set me at ease, and we went over my goals. At the end of our first lovely chat, Juliet wanted me to do three things:

1. Clean the data

First I needed to tidy my work spreadsheet then ask myself these questions:

• What kinds of editing am I doing?
• How much am I earning?
• What can I afford to stop doing?
• What kind of editing opportunities should I start looking for?
• Where can I find more opportunities?

The plan is to color-code the data: what do I love, what do I dread, what do I want to cut.

2. Organize my organizer

So many pretty journals and diaries; meanwhile, I’m using Post-It Notes. There’s nothing wrong with sticky notes, but it’s not the way to run a business. Juliet urged me to do:

• Get a diary
• Add these sections: Top Priority, What’s Tomorrow, Don’t Forget
• Start looking at these lists and working with this organizer every day

3. Do a time audit

I needed to track my working hours and find the answers to these questions:

• How am I spending the hours of my day?
• Am I wasting time scrolling on social media?
• Am I being as productive as I think I am?
• Why am I spending so many hours on one project when she can do five projects in that time?

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Updates from Meeting  1

• It took me over two weeks of all-day work to organize my spreadsheet. It went through seven iterations (I know, I numbered them) to get it right. I did this work over the holidays because there wasn’t time for it during the workweek, and I couldn’t face it on weekends. I don’t dread opening it now, and it’s helping me make better decisions about what editing projects I can accept.
  

• Despite all the beautiful diaries available, none worked for me. I took an old notebook, tore out and recycled the used pages, and am now experimenting with how I want my schedule to be organized.
  It’s only the end of the second week of the year, but I accomplished so much I’m shocked. Having everything laid out in front of me is making a huge difference. It’s a pared-down bullet journal, but all the tasks I need to do in a week are constantly visible. Because I see how much else there is to do, I’m not wasting hours noodling around.
  

• The time audit was the best exercise I could have done. I’m now auditing my time for the month of January. I may even try to keep it up all year. It’s fascinating to see where the hours go, and the next post will be all about the audit.

 
If you’re feeling unproductive, or aren’t sure where your days go, I highly recommend tracking your time. I can tell you two points right away: (1) there aren’t enough hours in the day and (2) you’re probably super ambitious and you need to start prioritizing. The organizer will help you with that!