Why We All Want to Be in Publishing

Publishing Trends just came out with their first annual Industry Survey, and even if the findings aren’t mind-blowing, they’re certainly interesting.

Some of the highlights:

• In response to “What job do you aspire to?” 49.2% said “Just happy being me.” Which really emphasizes the ambition of publishing people . . . ;

• The worst aspect of the industry—39.2% said “compensation,” 38.4% said “instability of the market”;

• For buying books, 49.4% buy from independent bookstores, 48.9% from online retailers. I find this disconnect between where publishers sell books versus where they buy them really interesting;

• Almost 1/3 of respondents claim that they “never” want to leave publishing, although apparently one agent (of course) wasn’t quite so pleased with the industry and said, “every sale I make is like getting a root canal”;

• Biggest gripe? “73.6% of the youngest respondents aged 21 to 35 report knowing they make “less” or “much less” than peers outside publishing”;

• And the big secret—we’re all in this for the free books and trips to Frankfurt.