A Brief Conversation with Katy Hershberger from Publishers Marketplace

A few weeks ago, Katy Hershberger from Publishers Marketplace called me about a story she was considering for Publishers Lunch. She had a few questions for me in the wake of my first two Substack posts, and asked if I would be willing to answer them on the record. I said I would. She later wrote back and said the story was on hold. I asked her if I could publish our Q&A anyway and she said fine. So here it is.

1). As we know, many junior and mid-level staff have left recently, citing a combination of burnout, high workload, low pay compared to other industries, lack of growth opportunities, and lack of diversity in the industry. You were at a senior managerial level when you left – do those experiences ring true for you? How do the challenges of more senior roles compare with those at lower levels?

My observations from across the industry suggest that some employees are exhausted and stressed out and it doesn’t matter where they’re sitting on the company ladder. The primary drivers are workload, targets (for senior management), and living through a pandemic (everyone). People who enter the industry know about the pay in relation to other industries so I’m not convinced that’s why they leave. The decision to depart a company is complicated and personal and often not attributable to one thing but several things.

There are growth and embedded educational opportunities within every publishing house. But I think some employees struggle with being seen and become frustrated when that lack of visibility results in their not being considered for other roles and/or promotions. The stasis syndrome is real. The same goes with education: the struggle here is one of time and being able to take advantage of the opportunities available to them.

If you put everyone who works in trade publishing in a tent, people on the outside looking in would ask “What the fuck is going on in there?” So yeah, if you are a person of color working in books, you are largely without tribe. Most of us have no idea what that experience is like. Publishers, complicit in creating this complexion, are working to change it. But there is no quick fix on the horizon, and underrepresented communities may continue to opt out of book publishing for reasons they choose to articulate or not.

2). You mention in your newsletter that these issues were around before the pandemic. How have employment conditions changed (if they have) throughout your time in the industry? Do you think more people are leaving now, or are we just hearing more about it?

Volume was a thing before the pandemic. Merger-era lists are big (too big) and the question for staff becomes “How am I supposed to get all this work done?” The glib expectation historically has been to “give us your all” even if we’re not paying you a living wage because “this is art” and no one can put a price tag on that. The wage thing wasn’t an issue when the pipeline was Ivy-league recruits whose parents were subsidizing their rent but it is an issue now. The good news is that publishers have been raising entry-level pay for several years. The bad news is that even with those increases publishers continue to lose candidates to other industries. It’s expensive to live, people like to eat, and so they might choose Google over, say, one of the big five.

I think the stat lines on people leaving the industry have been pretty consistent through the years – there’s no mass exodus taking place here. What’s different today is people broadcast their departures on social media. Those departures are then, depending on the circumstances, picked up by the trades, and the visibility of those departures makes the migration out seem worse than it is.

3). Many publishing employees – current and departed – cite “passion,” the love of creating books, as their reason for working in the industry, despite its issues. But some think that love of the work can make people settle for lower pay or higher workload, similar to how companies erroneously tout themselves as a “family”. What do you think of that “passion” mindset?

A passion mindset is a great thing. It’s why I entered the business. It’s why I’m still in the business – and indeed, it’s why most people stay in the business for as long as they do. I can think of few industries with stronger passion tethers than trade publishing.

Passionate engagement with work only becomes a problem if it compromises your ability to earn a fair wage or find balance in your life. And for a long time, both employers and employees have been guilty of allowing wage inequities and work/life imbalances to exist unchecked and without recourse.

As a manager, long before COVID, I had a colleague ask to work remotely a few days a week. I was fine with it. She was one of the most productive employees in the company. I had to run it up the flagpole, and execs weren’t happy with it but ultimately said it was my decision. My sense is the more senior you are, the more latitude you are given. But this kind of equity has to exist for all employees or it doesn’t exist at all.

No one enters this business with the ambition of getting rich. You do it because of a passion mindset. I remember my first meeting with Markus. He asked me why I chose book publishing as a career. He had an easel pad in his office. I got up from my chair and drew a heart on it. Markus leapt up from his and drew an exclamation point next to it.

That love remains undimmed for me, and for a great many industry colleagues. What has changed are the circumstances of work and our relationship to it. It’s not the central pillar it once was. You can still love publishing and not want to spend every waking hour of your life thinking about it.

4). Now that you’re working for yourself, could you share how the workload or pay have changed versus working in-house?

Opening your own business is mostly wonderful and specifically terrifying, so I would say to others think long and hard before going down this road. When you’re part of a company, you’re able to share in the work. You have teams of people you can turn to. And in my professional experience, all of them were always eager to help. When you are the company, that’s not the case. There are no teams. The dog is not the best option when an IT crisis surfaces. It can be a little overwhelming but at the same time it’s incredibly rewarding because you love the clients you are working with and the projects you are working on and made the decision to be wed to them.

The beauty of our model is that it’s one of collaboration. And it’s been incredibly rewarding to be working with clients on projects and books that I’m excited about.

5). What do you see as the path forward for the industry? Do you think it’s realistic that publishers will improve compensation and increase staff, and stop “doing more with less”?

I have always been an optimist when it comes to publishing. Our business will continue to thrive as long as publishers are attentive to the voices that are being raised. The pandemic has given publishers a new way to run their business by making it even more employee-centric. My biggest fear is some execs will horse-collar things back to the way they were: “I want everyone back in the office, now. For work culture.” This is a decidedly C-suite view of the world. Employees want more balance in their lives and are more productive when you give it to them. So my rec here would be to put a cap on that “everyone back at their desks” talk and let employees decide where they want to work and when and how. Then give those who opt to work remotely the tools and benefits they need to do so. Remote work protocols allow publishers to recruit broadly. And when one of your stated goals is diversifying the workforce, broadening your geographic outreach helps.

I get the sense that someone in the industry is going to pilot a four-day workweek. And maybe that fifth day can be one of community service or continuing education or just, you know, thinking about life.

In terms of compensation, Publishers have improved it. Significantly. Perhaps what is needed is more visibility from them on that front. Transparency when it comes to pay bands so employees would have less doubt when it comes to pay equity. We’re not going to win all the recruiting battles but we might not lose some of our existing staff if they had a better understanding of the overall compensation landscape. In terms of doing more with less, publishers have demonstrated an ability to do more with less and publish well. So that’s not going to change. The hard part is doing more with nothing.