How to Get a Job in Publishing.
A Really Practical Guide to Careers in Books and Magazines.
Alison Baverstock.
Susannah Bowen.
Steve Carey.
Forewords.
On books, by Richard Charkin, Bloomsbury Publishing.
The t.i.tle of this book begs a question. Why should anyone want a job in publishing? By and large it"s a poorly-paid industry, not very profitable, arguably in a slow or no-growth market sector, and with many significant threats to its future prosperity and even survival. And yet and yet ... Every year the Macmillan graduate recruit scheme is oversubscribed a hundredfold; response rates to job advertis.e.m.e.nts are excellent; I receive any number of e-mails from would-be members of our industry.
The reasons for this enthusiasm are neither consistent nor clear but these are the reasons I enjoy this business and have rarely regretted the series of events that led me to it.
1. I like the people. My database of publishing contacts is well over three thousand and there are only half a dozen people in it I would rather not meet again. The rest have been stimulating, decent, hard-working and fun.
2. I like the product. Books and magazines can be good, bad or indifferent and we"ve all been involved in all three categories but, however badly something sells or however badly it is reviewed every book (oh, maybe there are a few exceptions) has a redeeming feature and some intrinsic value. Compare that with, for instance, a poor-selling and badly-designed mobile phone.
3. I like the process. Publishing is not easy. Every product is different and needs individual care and attention. Prices are low. Supply chains are long. Egos can be huge. Everything is more complex than it could or should be. That"s what makes it challenging and constantly interesting.
4. The world of publishing is changing so quickly that speed of action is now more valuable than years of acquired experience. This brings in new people, new ideas and new business models to keep us on our toes.
When I started in the publishing business finding a job was a matter of who you knew or (as in my case) pure luck. Fortunately, things are different now. Human capital is such an important a.s.set to a business based on creativity and entrepreneurism that we take enormous care when recruiting.
This book will certainly not guarantee you a job in publishing. It may even dissuade you from trying. But I reckon that anyone who genuinely wants a career in the book or magazine business should read this from cover to cover and back again. Someone (a cricket lover presumably) once said that the Bible is the Wisden of religion. This is the Wisden of how to get into publishing.
On magazines, by Linda Kelsey,
former Editor of SHE and Cosmopolitan.
Whenever one of the magazines to which I subscribe Conde Nast Traveller, Good Housekeeping, Vogue plops through my letter box, I still get a little thrill of antic.i.p.ation as I tear open the plastic wrapping. Even after more than 30 years in the magazine business, there is something about the glossy package and its glamorous promise that makes my heart beat a little faster.
I"ve worked hard and I"ve been fortunate. I started at 18 making tea and typing (badly) and eventually became Editor of Cosmopolitan, then of SHE, and more recently Executive Editor on the launch of In Style. I did stints on Options (now extinct), Good Housekeeping (still going strong) and Company (ditto). In between I launched two little magazines, both now dead and buried, of which I"m quite proud. One was called Having A Baby, which transformed the frumpy, dumpy image of pregnancy magazines in the early 90s, the other was called Wedding Day, in which I ran an 8-page fashion story called "Here Comes The Pregnant Bride" and upset a few vicars.
I trained as a sub editor, which I loved, became a stylist of food and homes features, a job at which I was hopeless, and then a commissioning and features editor.
The biggest change, perhaps, in the prospects for magazine journalists regardless of whether you work on a small trade magazine or a big consumer glossy is that today you can switch between magazines and newspapers with relative ease, giving you a much broader canvas than when I was training and Fleet Street sneered at the soft, mushy world of magazines. This and the Internet have really opened up what was once a specialist and somewhat limiting field.
Like every field of media, the magazine industry is more compet.i.tive than ever. As the authors make clear, you have to be smart and sharp to get in, dedicated and very determined to get to the top. And if making a quick stash or even a slow one is your main aim, it would be wise to look elsewhere.
But if you know magazine journalism is really what you want to do, it"s never too early to start. Get involved with your college paper. Blag a seat at the London fashion shows and write a report, review an Almodvar movie, or write an impa.s.sioned feature on global warming. Show you mean business.
I like the practical, myth-debunking style of this book. Read it. Get your CV sorted. And good luck.
Introduction.
Over our years (many) in magazine and book publishing, each of us has heard thousands of times:.
"I"ve always wanted to work in publishing. How did you get started?"
So we thought it was time there was a resource to guide people. And, given that no-one else had written it, we thought we"d get in there!
We"ve all been job applicants, employers and freelancers, in many different kinds of publishing. We"ve learned the hard way and we"d like to pa.s.s on the smart tips we"ve worked out between us over the years. We hope this book helps you in your search for your perfect job.
It"s commonly said that the world is moving ever faster - and this book really was created 24/7. Around the time Alison clocked off for the day in the UK, Susannah and Steve started work in Australia. As well as being colleagues, the three of us are friends and have managed to remain so, with no fallings-out over artistic differences or editorial style (so far). The international perspective we offer (dare we use a current bit of publishing jargon and say "boundarylessness"?) is particularly valuable these days; publishers worldwide are facing the same issues and we hope that this book will help you find a job, wherever you want to work.
We will spare you the Oscar-style tears, but there are a number of thank yous to be made. We consulted widely, and are grateful to all the following people. Some others made candid comments and preferred to remain anonymous.
Guy Allen; Amy Blower; Sarah Ca.s.sie; Richard Charkin; Averill Chase; Jane Cholmonley; Suzanne Collier; Tim Coronel; Christie Davies; Suzie Doore; Anthony Forbes Watson; Helen Fraser; Patrick Gallagher; Travis G.o.dfredson; Stephen Hanc.o.c.ks; Greg Ingham; Kristy Jacobs; Ruth Jelley; Andy Jones; Nicholas Jones; Stuart Jones; Su Jones; Linda Kelsey; Anna Kiernan; Jenny Lee; Emma Lee-Potter; Rachel McDiarmid; Robert McKay; Natalie Meylan; Rose Michael; Margaret Mills; Julia Moffatt; Martin Neild; Charles Nettleton; Rob Pegley; Teresa Ponchard; Bridget Shine; Liz Small; Peter Smith; Sarah Townsend; Jeremy Trevathan; Paul Watt; Andrew Wilkins and Louise Wirz.
All job t.i.tles and affiliations of the people we"ve quoted in the book were correct at the time of writing.
Finally we would like to thank our publishers A & C Black, in particular Lisa Carden, who commissioned the work and who always sounds so cheerful; our agent Jenny Brown; and our families for ongoing support, endless listening and the provision of hot meals while we were busy writing.
Alison Baverstock, Surrey.
Susannah Bowen, Melbourne.
Steve Carey, Melbourne.
January 2008.
Part I: Publishing.
- what"s it all about?
Chapter One.
Why publishing and why you?
It took me a long time to get my first job in publishing, but someone (a publisher) said to me, "Everyone who really wants to get in does, so just persist", which I did and it worked.
(HELEN FRASER, MANAGING DIRECTOR, PENGUIN UK).
Since you"re reading this, chances are you are seriously considering a career in publishing. Tell someone that this is your ambition and they"re likely to tell you, "But of course it"s practically impossible to get into publishing, you know". Whether or not this is true (and we explore this in more detail later), a lot of people give up before they even try. This book a.s.sumes a more robust att.i.tude on your part: that you want to find out how the industry works, and what kind of people thrive within it, before deciding whether publishing is for you and then if it is for you, this book will help you get the job that you want.
Why this book got written We wrote this book to do two things: to help you decide whether you really want to work in publishing, and to help you get the job you want.
There are three of us, based in the UK and Australia so you get three guides for the price of one! We all love the industry, have enjoyed working within it for more years than we care to remember, and want to show you why publishing makes a brilliant career. Between us we"ve worked in a variety of publishing houses in many different countries, and on a vast range of published products, from magazines, books and newspapers to CDs and websites, and we have consulted a wide range of people while writing this book. So what you"re about to read is broad- and internationally-based, and applies across all types of publishing and cultural settings.
What this book is not Buying this book doesn"t guarantee you a job in publishing. In fact, however well you prepare, however often you read it from cover to cover, if you"re not genuinely inspired by ideas, or able to take leaps of imagination and think about doing things differently from time to time, you won"t enjoy working in the industry. Publishing is essentially an entrepreneurial profession; it needs people who are interested in ideas and willing to think about why and how the market will be prepared to purchase and keep on doing so.
Publishing is a fantastic career. It"s exciting, challenging and has given me the chance to interview amazing people all over the world. But it"s definitely not for the faint-hearted. Working for newspapers and magazines involves long hours and being away from home often for long spells and at very short notice. It can be highly stressful too. When I started working I was shocked to be asked to write a story in a few minutes flat in order to meet the deadline for the next edition. It was great experience though and gave me loads of material when I started writing novels. (EMMA LEE-POTTER, JOURNALIST AND NOVELIST, UK) Having got that out of the way, here are ten good reasons to work in publishing. Read them and see whether it sounds like the industry for you.
Ten great things about working in publishing 1. You get to work with stuff you like Magazine people love magazines. Book people love books. And, while you can admit that you love magazines when you"re going for a magazine job, you should never, ever under any circ.u.mstances over-dwell on your love for books when you"re going for a book job (more on this later), although a genuine pa.s.sion for the medium is a great starting point for any potential employee.
Of course, in the world of magazines it can be the subject matter that attracts and drives you. For the men and they are almost all men who work on car magazines, for example, what could be better? (Apart from the salary, that is.) I can remember the format of almost every book I have enjoyed; I like their feel, their smell and heaviness and I feel slightly panicky if I suddenly realise that I have time available and nothing to read. I can still remember spending my very first book token, and using it for a boxed set of Paddington Bear books. I read Hardy"s Tess of the D"Urbervilles as a homesick sixteen-year-old, exiled to France on an exchange, and was utterly engrossed. I never throw my books away, but regard them as the most important kind of decoration indeed the first thing I do on visiting someone"s home is to look at the books on display. (ALISON) Reading was just about all I did as a young teenager. I worked in my dad"s fruit and veg shop, and he"d find a shop full of customers, with me engrossed in reading the newspaper we used to wrap stuff in. (STEVE) Since I learned to read and write it"s been the thing I do. I read while I make the bed, brush my teeth, make dinner, watch TV . . . Once I had to take a sick day from work because I couldn"t seem to stop reading a novel I was hooked on (not a particularly good one, either). I"m not complete without a book, magazine or newspaper in hand. I"ve never been so thrilled as when I realised that by working in publishing I could spend my life legitimately surrounded by printed matter. (SUSANNAH) To all three of us it"s a huge bonus to be able to work with a product we value and respect so much. Perhaps if you work with toothpaste, hamburgers, hernias or legal contracts you can get as pa.s.sionate about them as we do about magazines and books. It"s just that . . . we don"t see it, frankly.
2. You get to work with stuff that matters Books stand for something, and magazines exert real influence within the industry or special interest group they serve. Most aspiring politicians (and incidentally, eventual dictators) at some stage package their ideas between two covers rather than rely on dissemination through articles in the press or media interviews. Books displayed in the home or office have a representational value.
The power of the printed word to me is still glamorous and magical. You put a magazine together, and then a couple of weeks later you go into the local newsagent and there it is on the shelf wow! (STEVE) My father"s tatty collection of 1950s" Penguins and Pelicans were a statement of his interest in ideas and a rejection of the burgeoning consumerism around him; to him they represented a more idealistic world, and ambition. I can remember clearly how as a first-year university student I self-consciously lay about the house reading Erica Jong"s Fear of Flying during a claustrophobic family Christmas. (ALISON) 3. You get to partic.i.p.ate in your culture There is always more material seeking a publisher than there is s.p.a.ce to print or bookseller s.p.a.ce to stock it, so what finally does get published has made it through rounds and rounds of a.n.a.lysis and meetings. It follows that what appears tends to be the most interesting, most researched, most innovative, the most quoted, or the product of the hottest trends. This is fascinating. Publishers tend to know who are the movers and shakers in society, business, government, the charitable sector and the media; whose star is rising and whose is falling, and that is interesting information. Feeling "current" is a satisfying reason in itself for doing what you do.
4. You"re making something you"re proud of and can hold I feel lucky to still be working in publishing. I think it is a fast-moving industry, led by technology, full of very clever boffins and wacky eccentrics. Being able to adapt to the change is vital. As a female, you will be advised to marry a financier to keep the dosh coming in, and I didn"t. It"s a business where you probably won"t make millions, but the enjoyment factor is very high. I"ve met wonderful people in this business. It"s very important to stay in touch with change to stay on top of fickle consumer taste and buying patterns. I don"t ever wish I worked in mobile phones, banking, insurance or law. Film, maybe.
(LIZ SMALL, PUBLISHING SERVICES AND MARKETING, PUBLISHING SCOTLAND).
People love books and magazines the written word on paper. An increasing number of books are now available as e-downloads, and there are as many e-book readers out there as there are MP3 players, but people still buy books and magazines for reading in bed, in the bath, at the beach.
One of publishing"s parallel industries is music creativity harnessed and distributed on a ma.s.s scale. Music purchasing has completely changed in the last few years, from vinyl to CDs to downloads and iPods. But no-one yet has invented anything better than words on paper.
Michael Twyman, Professor of Typography and Graphic Communication at Reading University, came up with the concept of the "eternal format"; a product that achieves a basic shape which is then tweaked and experimented with, but essentially stays the same for ever. The sandwich, the flush lavatory and the Post-It are examples. The basic codex is another.
New publishing formats come and go all the time, but they all approximate to the look and feel of the basic codex, because that is what people understand how to use, and it hasn"t yet been bettered.
5. You get to meet amazing people Publishing offers endless opportunities to meet interesting people and this is not just confined to those working within the glitzy world of celebrity publishing but also people who are making a difference in the world, whatever they write about. Moreover, the general knowledge you pick up along the way tends to make you a real a.s.set on a quiz team!
One of Alison"s early jobs was with Macmillan"s medical, scientific and technical division. Here she came across a group of doctors whose hospital received the UK"s first AIDS patients, and hence were involved from the very start in firstly trying to identify, and later treat, the condition. Similarly she worked with researchers at the Royal Marsden Hospital who have since completed pioneering work in cancer treatment.
There is no other career where you can pick up a little knowledge on so many different things, and meet people from pop stars to politicians, from poets to princesses.
(MARTIN NEILD, MANAGING DIRECTOR, HODDER HEADLINE, UK).
6. You get to work with great people A frequent comment by those who leave the publishing industry is that they miss the people. A television producer Alison met recently, through involvement on a series about books, commented afterwards on how much nicer publishing people are than television people. As with any industry, ruthlessness, naked ambition and internal politics are in evidence, and there are inevitable fallings-in and -out, but in general publishers are cooperators; eager to do a good job and get the product out on time and on budget. It"s a congenial world to work in.
Although I no longer work full-time in publishing because I have family commitments and am also now developing a second career as a writer, I can honestly say that the ten years I spent in the industry as an employee were wonderful. The money isn"t fantastic, but for me editing particularly was an enormously enjoyable and satisfying job, and one which I still miss. The friends I made in that time have become friends for life. As long as you are realistic about your aims and prepared to work hard, it is a brilliant industry to be in. (JULIA MOFFATT, FREELANCE EDITOR AND WRITER) I"m still tooling around doing b.u.g.g.e.r all except writing for various people I"ve met in the industry over the years. It"s b.l.o.o.d.y great. (PETER SMITH) Susannah sometimes jokes that she entered publishing because she has a literature degree and didn"t want to be a teacher, so what other career options were there? Publishing is in fact full of people with literature and arts degrees, and who are interested in ideas and popular culture. We have all swapped recipes, gone on marches and had many long boozy lunches with publishing colleagues people we enjoy spending time with.
Some take this a stage further. There are many publishing romances and relationships. And management issues of how partners working for rival organisations share information at home have in general been handled in a civilised fashion, without as far as we are aware any high-profile legal cases.
Others form liaisons on a more temporary basis, and there is a famous joke about the Frankfurt Book Fair which confirms this. The Frankfurt exhibition site plays host throughout the year to a series of industries; so while books dominate in early October, the week before it may be electronics and the week after machine tools. The joke is that during Book Week however, all the local prost.i.tutes leave town because there is no need for their services as the publishers all sleep with each other.
There is a wider point here: you should be very careful what you say; relationships are widely spread, and sympathies endure long after they are over. People in the industry tend to job-hop within publishing, rather than industry-hop, and you never know whom you are talking to.
Two adages Susannah had instilled in her by early career mentors: "Don"t dip your pen in company ink" (by someone who had!); and "Never make an enemy in publishing".1 7. You get a flexible, long-term career Publishing makes a very good choice for those who want a flexible career, and perhaps not to be office-based all their lives. Publishing companies are often run on the basis of slight understaffing, and there is a tradition of relying on external services and opinions (cheaper than employing them in house, full-time). It follows that you can carry on feeling useful long after you left. There are various roles that combine well with having a family, or living an itinerant lifestyle, and the industry is not as obsessed with youth as others. There is a wide understanding that you get better at publishing as more happens to you as you have more empathy with a wider group of markets. Other industries tend to a.s.sume a much greater "cult of presentness", which means that if you are not there you can"t be part of it. It"s much harder to be a freelance merchant banker than it is to be a freelance publisher.
What is more, the skills and competencies you acquire during a career in publishing are useful in a wide variety of voluntary and paid employments such as writing and editing newsletters, publicity and public relations, and managing other sorts of publications. Your experience will also give you a less socially-acceptable legacy a lifelong obsession with detail; you will be unable to read a menu in a restaurant or a programme at an event without spotting typographical errors typos for short or examining the production standards.
8. People think what you do is glamorous and exciting Here"s an interesting party game. How do different professions get greeted when they say what they do on social occasions?
If you"re a dentist and mention that fact at a party, people tend to respond by telling you they don"t like dentists. Doctors get pestered by people who want an instant diagnosis for a pain in the knee that has been troubling them but which they are too idle to investigate by making an appointment with their own doctor. Teachers get told they have long holidays; ministers of religion that it must be good to only have to work one day of the week.
Tell someone at a party that you work in publishing, and they will not wait for you to explain that it"s selling high-priced monographs to academics in j.a.pan they immediately conjure up a mental image of you lunching with Salman Rushdie and scanning the morning post for potential bestsellers. "That must be fascinating, " is the inevitable first response. The only downside is that the listener then tends to tell you all about the book they have in them!
The second response is often "How did you get that job?" make sure you refer them to this book!
9. You don"t get looked down on as someone who"s in it just for the money Some wag once said, to make a small fortune in publishing, it"s best to start with a big fortune.
To stick it out in publishing you really need to love books. It"s not just about reading the books, either. You need to be able to appreciate the audience and the market into which the books will be sold, and understand how and why books are sold. If you don"t have a pa.s.sion for the book industry, then you will only become disenchanted with the low pay and hard work.
(RUTH JELLEY, COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER, SWINBURNE INTERNATIONAL).
Publishing has become vastly more professional in recent years, and salaries have risen in line with improved efficiency. Even so, it is still a very uncertain way to make your fortune. Profit margins are slim, and salaries in publishing tend to be lower than might be secured by your talents and inclinations in other professions. If you sincerely want to be rich, become a merchant banker or a lawyer. That said, most creative industries (journalism, arts marketing, working for a wine merchant) generally pay in the lower salary brackets. And many think the interesting work and congenial colleagues make up for it Bridget Jones"s Diary was set in a publishing house, not a pharmaceutical company.
10. You get your reading cheap In what other industry could you buy loads of magazines and claim it as research? Working within publishing, of whatever kind, offers you the chance to buy products from other publishers at trade discount (usually at least a third off), and reading the trade press each week gives you many more ideas of what to read than you may have had before. You will probably find yourself reading more.
This can have its downside. Family and friends are often quick to find out if you can get something off for them, too, and an awareness of your special buying status does tend to mean that any books you give as presents are a.s.sumed to be discounted items, even if as often happens to us you pay full price through bookshops because you"re not organised enough to get them ahead of time through the trade. (Susannah once swapped the latest "in" cookbook with a dentist friend for a filling.) What kind of person does best in publishing?
Later sections of this book talk about the particular mental and sometimes physical attributes you"ll need to succeed in specific parts of publishing. For now, let"s talk about two main, and connected, requirements: you need to be insatiably curious, and excited by new ideas. The first gives you the material to work with; the second gives you the pa.s.sion to do something with that material. Do you fit the bill?
Are you insatiably curious?
To succeed in publishing you need to be curious. Nosy might be a better word or, even better, the Australian term: you need to be a stickybeak. You are fascinated by new markets: how and why customers buy and use their product, and why those who don"t buy from them have not been tempted. You can spot trends and get excited by new marketing methods, production facilities, selling locations. You can imagine yourself subjecting your friends and family to a wide range of product ideas, and you can listen rather than just impose your own ideas or solutions.
In the magazine world, a good graphic designer is constantly absorbing trends and fashions, while a good journalist or editor is able to see a story where the rest of us see none. A new magazine idea can come from anywhere, and from anyone. All it takes is someone who is pa.s.sionate about something, and believes there are others who share that pa.s.sion.
Are you excited by the new?