Brandon Buechley graduated from Ball State University with a major in English/CW in 2015. He spent the fall semester of his senior year living in New York and interning at Guerilla Lit Reading Series and at DAW Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. After graduation, he worked at Cardinal Publishing Group in Indianapolis as a publishing assistant before soon after joining DK Publishing/Penguin Random House where he rose to become the Associate Editor, working on cookbooks and other books like Milkshake Monday.
Aaron Picklesimer (AP): Could you tell me a little bit about your time at Ball State? What major were you? Did you join any clubs, or take a class like The Broken Plate?
Brandon Buechley (BB): I graduated from Ball State in 2015 with a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing. I favored fiction writing courses in both narrative and film. While I didn’t join The Broken Plate or any relevant clubs, I was able to take some interesting courses that involved book binding, study of emerging digital media, and more, which I think helped round out my overall English department education and experience
(AP): Could you explain a bit about the work you do as an Associate Editor for DK Publishing/Penguin Random House?
(BB): As an Associate Editor with DK and Penguin Random House, I have been able to experience a wide variety of responsibilities, such as acquiring new titles through outreach to potential authors, developing and editing manuscripts alongside authors and agents, hiring and managing freelance teams to execute editorial and design tasks, and much more. My imprint specializes in highly visual nonfiction titles written by content creators and influencers across all social platforms. While we mainly publish cooking titles, we’re also proud of our many self-help, memoir, and health-focused endeavours.
(AP): When I read an article about you on Ball State’s website, I learned that you spent the last half of your senior year interning in New York before moving on to other publishing imprints. What was that process like for you, going from being a student with little experience to jumping between publishing branches?
(BB): Yes, I was lucky enough to experience a great semester in New York City interning for a science-fiction and fantasy publisher at Penguin Random House through the New York Arts Program in 2014. I also briefly worked for a reading series in the city during this time. Diving headfirst into a publishing internship was quite the experience. Thankfully, I joined a kind and patient team of publishing professionals who were more than happy to help me acclimate at a healthy pace. My tasks involved reading the slush pile of submissions to consider for publication, maintaining the imprint’s social media accounts, and attending and recording marketing meetings. Thankfully, this Penguin Random House internship set me up with a solid foundation and group of connections that helped me secure another role with the copy after graduation.
(AP): In that same article, I learned that one aspect of your job is hiring freelance workers (artists, editors, indexers, etc). I was hoping to know a bit more about that. When do you reach out to freelancers? And what makes potential candidates stand out?
(BB): I’m responsible for hiring freelancers to perform all kinds of tasks when it comes to putting our books together. Here is a list of some of these roles I hire for: copy editors, proofreaders, indexers, photographers, illustrators, accountability reviewers, recipe testers, chefs, food stylists, and more. It might be too difficult to get into the weeds with when I need to hire these freelancers, specifically, but I will say that we’re often looking for the photo shoot team earlier (if the book calls for it) that consists of the recipe tester, photographer, chef, and food stylist. It takes quite some time to plan and execute photography for a cookbook, which results in very early planning. Copy editors, indexers, and proofreaders often come later in the process in that order.
(AP): As editors of The Broken Plate, it is our job to ensure that we publish quality work that connects with people in some way. Could you talk about what that process is like for you? What signals to you that you’ve come across a publishing-worthy piece?
(BB): For the kind of titles I specialize in acquiring and editing, I’m often looking for two things: the strength of the personality of the author and the uniqueness of the concept. I realize this is a rather unique publishing approach, as most of us would imagine looking for the strongest writing and storytelling skills, which I think are so valuable too. The publishing industry is so vast and the business is so diverse and different types of books call for different types of criteria. I hope this might provide a unique perspective for this answer.