The Elon professional writing and rhetoric major has an internship with Abrams Books in New York City, allowing her to see different aspects of the publishing world.
Sarah Sandak ’26 cast a wide net when looking for a summer internship.
“I basically applied to every single publishing house I knew of, and even more,” she said.
It was a job opening on LinkedIn that led to her digital production internship with Abrams Books in New York City. Founded in 1949, Abrams says it was the first company in the U.S. to specialize in publishing art and illustrated books.
“I always knew that I wanted to do something in the English realm,” said Sandak, who is a professional writing and rhetoric major. “I was always good at English in school, and so around high school, I figured out that I wanted to be an editor of books.”
As the digital production intern for Abrams, Sandak primarily works with e-books, checking them for errors as the company converts physical titles to electronic. Sandak also works on title management, updating information about the books behind the scenes. When reviewing books, Sandak gets a list of common mistakes made by the conversion company and focuses on looking out for those issues – something she says has taken time to master.
“It’s a little difficult because you worry that you missed something,” she said.
Editing the e-books has also given Sandak some experience in coding, where she can go into an online application and fix the code of the book to correct the issue on all platforms.
Last summer, Sandak – who is from Westfield, New Jersey – completed an internship with a social media influencer, which gave her experience and eventually helped get the internship with Abrams.
“It was a nerve-racking applying because I didn’t have any experience in the publishing and editing realm because everybody wants you to have experience, but you don’t have experience until they take that chance on you,” she said.
She also learned to start looking for internships early, months before summer, along with getting advice from a family member on cover letters and resumes. Elon’s Student Professional Development Center also offers a host of resources for students looking for jobs or internships.
Sandak says her work in the Elon Writing Center and the professional writing and rhetoric courses have been instrumental in her internship. With a curriculum that is process-oriented rather than product-oriented, professional writing and rhetoric courses prepare students to be more critically reflective communicators in their daily lives and, primarily, workplace contexts.
“I’ve taken publishing and editing classes, which have been great because I’ve learned a lot of terminology about the publishing universe,” said Sandak. “We’ve learned a bunch about the motivations for why people write and the different ways that people write to elicit an emotion from somebody, and I think that that information is helpful because when you want to understand something, you want to understand the bare bones version of it. It’s taking writing back to the very beginning.”
The relationships Sandak has developed with faculty have made a difference as well, including Travis Maynard, assistant professor of English.
“He does a really good job of creating a nice classroom community,” said Sandak. “I have always enjoyed the way that he teaches. He has a very open classroom.”
The internship has been a pivotal opportunity for Sandak, who feels, going into her final year at Elon, she is becoming more and more prepared for post-graduate life.
“I have had the chance to sit in on all of the meetings where the editors pitch the books to the publisher, and I’ve met with people from the design team and people from the law team,” she said. “It’s cool because not only am I doing the work that I’m meant to be doing, but I also get to see every facet of book publishing.”