Katie Bunting on her day at Random House

During Bali Rai's residency, we held a writing competition for teenagers. The prize was to spend a day with Bali at his publisher's. Katie Bunting, the competition winner, blogs for us on her day.

On 8 June I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend the day at Random House publishing in London after winning a competition set up by Booktrust alongside author Bail Rai.

As part of the prize I got to spend the day with Bali, an accomplished author of nearly 30 books. This was quite an exciting concept as it is very rare that someone like me, with a particular interest in writing, gets to meet an author and have the opportunity to ask all my questions and really learn from someone who knows firsthand what it's like to be a writer professionally. I was a little bit shy at first when Bali walked in but it wasn't long before we were chatting away sat in the reception area of the publishing house waiting for the editor. It sounds silly now but Bali Rai wasn't at all what I thought he would be like. I was expecting him to be very serious and proper, but in reality he was lovely! He was very easy to talk to and had very witty answers to all my questions. We talked about how he got into writing, what he did before he was an author and about his particular love for vinyl records! I also got a signed proof copy of his latest novel that won't be out until September this year!

Then I met Parul, Bali's editor. She taught me exactly how all the different departments of publishing work and how they're all linked together. I learnt a lot about what she does as a proof editor and the difference between her job and that of a copy editor; which is the job most people associate with editing, picking out all the spelling and grammar mistakes. A proof editor like Parul has to read the initial manuscript and go through it checking for consistency in things like the narrative voice and plot line, before sending it off to the copy editor. I wasn't really aware that a job like this existed; I thought all an editor did was correct spelling mistakes but later in the day I got to have a go at proof-editing myself. I was given a manuscript and read chapters 1-3 and went about removing exclamation marks and adjectives. I even got rid of a whole paragraph in one place, which made me feel a bit mean, deleting someone else's work, but Parul assured me she only ever cuts things out that are necessary and make the book better on a whole.

I also met the team at Andersen Press, a smaller publishing company within Random House. Talking to them made me realise how hard the world of books and publishing is working to keep up with modern society. They showed me all the events and groups they'd set up on Facebook and Twitter trying to advertise new books and get people interested. I was quite surprised by this and we had an interesting conversation with Parul and Bali about how publishers have to work on advertising and marketing for books, and how much it's changed over the past few years.

Walking around the offices I felt very humbled. Everyone there was really lovely and answered all the questions I had, but I was quite in awe of them really. I always knew publishing was a competitive industry but this made me realise why so many people are eager to get into it. Parul told me there were over a thousand applicants for her job. It just seems like such a great job to do, have the opportunity to be associated with authors like Bali Rai and just be around so many books all the time! At the age I am now, school are starting to ask us to think about where we'd like to be and what we'd like to be doing in the future. I could quite easily see myself at a desk at Random House publishing, maybe not copy editing! But I feel really lucky to have had this opportunity to gain real insight into an industry I'm very interested in being a part of in the future and I feel it's given me a very good advantage when it is time to make those decisions.

I would like to pass on my thanks to everyone at Random House, especially Parul and Bali, and Booktrust for giving me this opportunity and such a lovely day that I'll never forget. And all the free books!