Publishing's hiring problem: the editor's view

The last few weeks have seen a lot of discussion around author welfare, industry stress and, most recently, publisher resourcing – topics that overlap considerably in my experience. On the latter, I’m not sure I would agree that publishers are less resourced now than they were previously. Haven’t we always been stretched?

Over a decade ago, when I first came into the commercial publishing industry, my fellow assistants and I were well versed in early starts and late finishes, and regularly worked weekends. However, what I have seen a marked leap of in recent years is what is expected of each editor, publicist and marketeer in terms of the volume of books – a growth that, in my experience, is often not supported by an increase in budget and resources. The inevitable result is a cutting of corners elsewhere, and it is author care, whether intentional or not, that is effectively deprioritised.

Marketing slip up

The reality is that, for lists where you have a single marketeer and publicist overseeing the authors of multiple editors (very common in commercial fiction publishing, in my experience), it is simply impossible for each book to have a comprehensive marketing and publicity plan or for each author to have direct contact (or indeed any interaction) with the wider publishing team. The worst setup I’ve experienced in my career saw one marketeer overseeing six editors’ lists, and each list was considerable (my own included 17 authors, most of whom were publishing two or even three books a year). The marketing teams are too stretched, so the editor, who is ultimately responsible for the author relationship (and has to be the bearer of bad news and the recipient of grievances), has to pick up the slack. I’ve worked for publishers where editors share most of the marketing plans. Worst still, I’ve worked for companies where editors write the marketing plans (suffice to say, these are the plans that rarely come with a budget).

I have seen a marked leap of in recent years is what is expected of each editor, publicist and marketeer in terms of the volume of books – a growth that, in my experience, is often not supported by an increase in budget and resources

These kinds of environments are tough and demoralising for staff, and I think they contribute to many publishers’ reputation for having a revolving door. This in turn creates a cycle of poor author care, as there are invariably gaps between people leaving and new faces joining to pick up the mantle. Recruitment has been one of the biggest pain points of the latter half of my career, and I know this is a feeling shared by many of my peers. Most employees are on contracts with three-plus month notice periods, but the mechanisms to recruit are often slow, especially at the bigger corporates, despite a wealth of brilliant candidates, so there is almost always a significant lag.

And in the interim, authors are left dangling, handled by overloaded assistants or shared between other editors who already have bulging lists. This wouldn’t necessarily be an issue except, so often now, the editor is the author’s only point of contact at their publisher. If an author doesn’t have an agent to touch base with, they really can be left out in the cold.

Hits-based business

One of my first bosses in the industry told me that publishing is a hits-based business. Publish enough books, the hits will buoy up the titles that don’t sell many copies. Now more than ever, it feels like there’s often a push from on high for more volume – throw more at the wall and more will stick – but often, it’s very much a case of more for less: more books without more marketing spend; more output but no more budget for quality editorial and design; more authors but no more resourcing to ensure good author management.

In a landscape where advances and the price of books are coming down, the idea – that so long as one book makes it big, it doesn’t matter if lots of other books don’t – starts to feel very problematic from an author perspective.

What I have found perhaps most frustrating is that I truly believe it doesn’t have to be this way, and that this model works in no one’s favour. Ensuring your staff and your authors are happy contributes to better rates of retention, saving money on recruitment, avoiding gaps and leading to longer-term author relationships that result in solid, profitable backlists.

There are publishers whose authors are very happy, and hugely and vocally positive, and it’s not necessarily because they publish fewer titles (on the contrary, in some cases) it is because they give each title the best possible chance and spread their marketing resourcing evenly and realistically across their catalogue.

I hope in the future more publishers will embrace the idea that staff and author care and retention is a business-wide responsibility, and that it has to be front and centre of strategy and process. Those publishers that do, whose authors feel appreciated, listened to and supported, are invariably the ones going from strength to strength. It doesn’t have to come at the cost of volume, but it can only work with a revision of priority.