If my sinuses are any indication, spring (and pollen) is in the air. That means college graduation is right around the corner. Another surefire indication that we’re approaching commencement is the number of students writing for help finding jobs. Since my field is publishing, I frequently find myself in the position of offering advice for students seeking a job in the industry, and I thought, for a change of pace from my usual skeptical inquiry, I’d codify some of that standard advice here for future students and members of the Georgia Writers community. Of course, advice of this kind should always come with a warning not to take it as gospel and to seek as much outside support and as many resources as you can, but here’s a few thoughts on finding a job in the publishing industry from one stuffy-nosed point of view.
1. Hone Your Materials
Resume advice is easy to come by online, so I’ll keep this section brief. But there’s a few adages that I think deserve constant repetition: keep it succinct, make it relevant, and know the employer. Always remember, there’s a computer, an HR person, and a potential employer at the other end of your application with more files to review than they have time to review them. The more directly you can make the case that you’re the perfect applicant for their specific position, the more likely your application is likely to garner a callback. Keeping it succinct, making it relevant, and knowing the employer is about respecting their time, demonstrating your skills, and showing that you understand what they do, what they need to do it successfully, and that you’ve got it. Here’s a few more details:
Keep It Succinct
The further along we get in our educational and career journeys, the more likely we are to produce overlong cover letters and resumes. The urge is strong to report every work experience, skill, and accomplishment, but no one wants to sift through a pile of forms and files to find out what they need to know about you as a potential candidate for their position. Always assume no one is reading beyond the first page of any application material. Even in academic job letters, I found the most success when I adhered to the adage that a cover letter shouldn’t exceed a single page and, if the resume or CV does have to stretch to two or three pages, all the relevant information should appear on the first page. The worst thing that can happen if you assume no one is reading beyond your first page is that you put everything your reader needs to know at the top of your application and save the padding to the end (where it can be safely skipped). And trust me, as someone who’s sat on more than a few hiring committees, anything that can be skipped (safely or not), will be skipped.
Make It Relevant
Look, there’s a good chance a machine will review your resume before a human being even gives it a glance. What does the machine look for? Familiar formats, keywords, and other data flagged as relevant by the employer. Of course, I’m not suggesting you use white type to hide relevant keywords in your documents, but the more accurately you can provide the information a computer might check for in your materials, the more likely you are to be answering the job ad in a way that appeals to employers. That means, include as many exact words and phrases as you can from the job ad in your materials and format your documents without any bells and whistles (automated formatting like bullet points, exotic fonts, etc.) that might confuse the machine.
But relevance also applies to your resume. Instead of detailing every job you’ve had, consider focusing on “relevant experience,” and subordinate other positions to lists or separate sections. Highlight only tasks or projects you completed that resonate with the specific ad and use your cover letter to explain how these projects and experiences qualify you for the job. The more relevant your materials, the more likely you’ll seem like a good fit. Even better if you can use these experiences to demonstrate you’ve already been doing, in some capacity, exactly the kind of work your future employer will expect.
Know the Employer
Especially in your cover letter, it’s essential that you communicate how much you already know and understand about the role you’re applying for, the hiring company, and the mission of the team and organization you’ll be joining. Address a real person, highlight something they’re doing your love, and enthuse over one of their recent accomplishments. This kind of tailoring takes time, but you also needn’t write a whole novel dedicated to your passion for the Government Publishing Office. Including a sentence or two reflecting the company’s about page and calling out language from the job ad will go a long way toward demonstrating that you know what you’re trying to get into and that you’re the right person for the job. Even beyond appealing to the employer, I think it’s important to really consider who you’re trying to work with. It can be tempting to blast out thousands of applications, but you’re wasting your time applying for jobs you wouldn’t really take. So, knowing what you’re really applying for and letting them know you’re genuinely interested is a service to yourself as much as an employer.
2. Think about Internships
It’s true, internships can be a mixed bag. Even worse, the publishing industry has a long and sordid history of exploiting un- and under-paid interns to do the worst, most tedious tasks. Further, it’s often impossible for folks to commit twenty or more hours a week to work of which the only reward might be experience, networking, and knowledge about the industry. All of which is to say, be careful and deliberate about internships.
That warning out of the way, internships can also be a fine way to learn about the industry you intend to enter, to make connections with folks, and to develop the kinds of skills and experience you’ll need to succeed in a career and, of course, they look pretty good on your resume. Another advantage to internships in the wake of COVID-19 is that many publishers threw open their internship programs to remote workers. So, you might be able garner some of the benefits of interning without having to make the move to NYC or another center of publishing like Minneapolis or Chicago.
Just like jobs in the industry, publishing internships vary. You might find yourself working in a specific department, such as marketing, publicity, or scouting, or with a publishing house, small press, or even a literary agency. So, before applying for an internship it’s important to consider whether you’ll really get the kind of experience you’re after in the sector of the industry that you’re most interested in—in addition to whether you’ll be compensated and if you can afford the time spent working for free.
3. Consider Publishing Work in Overlooked Sectors
Sometimes it seems that every English major’s backup plan is to move to New York, join one of the Big Five firms, and publish the next Toni Morrison, and that’s certainly one way into publishing. What many people don’t realize, however, is that even though the Big Five accounts for 40 percent of the trade book publishing in the United States, 60 percent of the sector is made up of a diverse variety of publishers working in other sectors. If your interest in publishing extends beyond the next bestseller, work in this area might be just what you’re looking for, and many of these publishers have the added advantage of being located somewhere outside of New York.
For example, about 25 percent of the US book market is made up of religious publishers, Christian and otherwise, such as Zondervan, Tyndale House, and B&G. These presses hire frequently, and the work is not at all dissimilar from traditional publishing. Some of these houses publish religious fiction, of course, but they also produce editions of religious text, worship and education materials, gifts, and a wide variety of other printed material that requires editors, typesetters, marketers, and any number of other publishing adjacent workers. If their mission aligns with your values, you might even find more opportunities in these fields than elsewhere.
Educational publishing accounts for another massive share of the market. Toni Morrison herself got her editorial start working for Random House’s textbook publishing arm. Today’s textbook publishers produce an enormous variety of web content, traditional books, apps, and other materials that require editors, publicists, sales reps, and other publishing adjacent employees. Here, your specialized education might come in handy, but you can also parlay your transferable skills in writing, editing, and project management into success in surprising fields like human resources, sales, or advertising. Like all textbook publishers, W. W. Norton, for example, employs a fleet of regional sales reps who liaise with universities and professors to get Norton books into classrooms, and companies like Cengage employ thousands of tech workers to produce and maintain their digital resources.
University Press publishing is another oft-overlooked sector of the publishing industry that can often be a smooth transition for the college graduate who wants to keep in touch with academics while plying the publishing trade. University presses publish academic and trade books for general and hyper-specialized audiences, and the best of them have a departmental structure similar to a trade publisher, with acquisitions, editorial, and marketing departments. One of the many advantages of working at a university press beyond staying in touch with the academy is due to the smaller staff sizes and regular turn over, it’s relatively common for folks to move around between departments, which means they get to see a lot of different angles of the industry as they hone their specialties and build their careers. Working at a university press can also be a great way to connect more deeply to particular communities and do meaningful work in specific regions. I’m showing my bias here, but if you’re looking for networking opportunities, university press folks are some of the kindest and most hospitable in the publishing industry, and many of them are willing to grant informational interviews and even, sometimes, design internship opportunities for college students to help them succeed.
4. Consider Publishing Work in Non-Publishing Industries
While there are plenty of backdoors into the publishing industry, there are also more than a few doors into publishing work in other industries not typically considered a part of the publishing sector. So, if moving to New York to climb one of the rickety ladders at the Big Five isn’t your thing, consider extending your search to include nonprofits, think tanks, advertising and government agencies, law offices, and media corporations, such as radio stations and television networks. For example, did you know the IRS employs a “Publishing Program Specialist?” In fact, many organizations from the art museum in your city to the local foodbank employ folks who do the work of articulating their missions in print and digital forms, proofreading those products, and distributing them to the wider world. The essential work they do might not be literary, but it’s certainly publishing, and jobseekers frequently overlook opportunities in this area. You might be surprised to discover the wide variety of opportunities when you broaden your search beyond indie presses and the Big Five.
5. Thinking about Freelancing?
A lot of folks break into the publishing industry by freelancing. I’ve minimal experience in this area, but here are a few thoughts. First, make sure you build a compelling online presence around which to conduct your business. A site that details your contact information, skills, rates, and examples of your work is a great way to communicate your professionalism and let potential clients get in touch. If you’re looking for freelance work online, Catherine Turner has curated an excellent list of databases offering freelance jobs.
Second, reach out to small or university presses for informational interviews and inquire about their freelance lists. Most of the time, freelancers are managed by a press’s Managing Editor. If you can make a connection and get in that person’s good graces by producing high-quality work within reliable timeframes, chances are you’ll find regular work coming your way. You can also try networking with your professors, professional and student organizations, and other groups engaged in regular writing and publishing to let them know you’re looking for projects.
Third, consider becoming a part of the Editorial Freelancers Association. A volunteer organization dedicated to supporting freelancers in the publishing sector, the EFA offers tons of resources, events, educational opportunities, job lists, and other support for freelancers. There, you can also find their super helpful chart of the median rates for editorial work, so you can gauge what your expertise is worth.
6. Check Out These Handy Job Lists
Here are a few places to start looking for publishing job posts:
AUP Jobs List: This list includes jobs and internships at university presses maintained by the Association of University presses.
AWP Job List: This list requires a membership for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, but it offers up-to-date jobs in a variety of publishing sectors.
Book Jobs: A compilation of job postings from over 300 publishing companies.
Poets & Writers: Jobs in education, publishing, the arts, and more.
The Publishers Lunch Job Board: Requires registration, but provides an index of jobs in the trade publishing industry.
Publishers Weekly: Thousands of posts for jobs and internships in publishing.
7. More Resources
And, finally, here are a few more excellent resources that might help you in your journey:
10 Tips for Finding a Job in Publishing
BookEnds Literary Agency YouTube Channel
Freelance Book Editor Alyssa Matesic’s Wonderful YouTube Channel
“How to Get a Job in Publishing”
“How to Get Hired in Book Publishing”
“How to Get Into the Publishing Industry from an Entry-Level Perspective”
Penguin Random House’s “How to Get Into Publishing” Guide
Publishing Job: Four Hard Truths
“Starting a Life in Publishing”
Working in Publishing: An Insiders Guide
I hope you’ve found something useful here, and I wish you the best of luck in your job search. Do you have any hand hints for job seekers in our community? I’d love to hear them in the comments. Tune in next month when I return to the subject of culture care with a look at some exemplary presses.