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Month: October 2013

Rising to the challenge

Published 29 October 2013
By Florinm
By Florinm

 

A few recent developments in publishing have made me think that publishers are not very good at responding to competition, and additionally there seems to be an attitude of martyrdom whenever a perceived threat to their livelihood emerges on the scene. New technological developments, for example, nearly always get a cynical treatment in publishing news, even if they will make publishing easier or cheaper, or have advantages to the book-buyer. The status quo is not only sacred, but seen to be a kind of birthright.

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Business, Work & Careers

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How to get an editorial assistant to show your book to their boss

Published 20 October 2013
John C. H. Grabill [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
John C. H. Grabill [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This series of posts is intended for unagented authors who are thinking of submitting their book directly to a publisher, or have already done so with no success. I read submission emails and letters every day, and have noted down some common annoyances (and delights). They are based on my personal experience and may not apply to all situations, but I hope you’ll find it useful nevertheless.

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Business, Work & Careers

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Publishing is an employers’ market

Published 17 October 2013
(c) MSMcCarthy Photography
(c) MSMcCarthy Photography

The other night, my friend was telling me about a get-together for young IT professionals he went to. He met several interesting people with various orientations and specialties. Someone had a business idea about doing A, and another one was really good at B; a third was pitching his side project to venture capitalists.

I listened and compared this to how events for young publishing professionals sometimes turn out. There’s usually more women, for one thing, and they’re more light-hearted occasions somehow – you often end up part of a comradely chat with a group of people quite like you, talking about your quite uniform experiences of working as an assistant.

Would that be fair? Those evenings are fun and lots of names and numbers get exchanged, but they’re not usually very productive in terms of new partnerships or businesses getting the first spark.

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Business, Work & Careers

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Competitive recruitment starts with disclosing salaries

Published 7 October 2013

In August, job site Adzuna.co.uk published the results of their analysis of salaries on 500,000 job ads, and it turns out that only half of all employers disclose salaries on job adverts. The rest say things like ‘competitive’, ‘very attractive’, ‘dependent on experience’ or ‘available on application’ – alluring phrases which really just mean that there is a salary, but it’s a secret.

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Business, Work & Careers

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