It all began with four editor resignations publicly announced on Twitter, which you can read a thread about here. March 2022 marked the beginning of one of the largest exoduses from the publishing industry. With the demand for content and books on the rise thanks to social media, the publishing industry has been marked with the hefty task of keeping up with these expectations. It would make sense that they would hire more editors, publishers, marketers, and literary agents, right? Or at least raise the pay of the already existing employees, so that they can live a comfortable life in their respective homes? Right…?
The publishing industry is one big spinning wheel with different parts that help produce the books and magazines we enjoy in our day-to-day lives. If one part were missing or was somehow lacking in quality, the whole wheel would fall off and we wouldn’t have all the great written content we consume daily. All of this to say, employees of big publishing houses are overworked and underpaid for the amount of work that they do. These jobs require numerous people working multiple parts of production, usually in big cities like London, New York, San Francisco, and Boston. The under-investment of these employees diminishes the probability of seeing more diverse books hitting shelves and heavily restricts certain books from being pushed.
Erin Somers at Publishers Lunch chimed in saying “Former editor at Avon Books Elle Keck posted, ‘As one of the editors who left publishing this year, every editor you know, you’ve seen on Twitter, you’ve heard of: they are miserable and struggling. They’re tired of working all day, working at night, and feeling guilty if they take a weekend off.’ Julie Rosenberg, formerly of Razorbill, also noted the ‘crushing guilt and anxiety’ caused by
the workload.” Clearly, the conditions of working in the industry, where you have to work your way up from the bottom, become all-consuming when the end goal is met with an imbalance of work and pay.
Because most of these employees that are resigning en masse currently occupy entry-level positions, it may not seem like a big deal. However, it is estimated that between .5%-1% of publishing (in all departments) had left in one day.
At the forefront of the exodus, was ex-Tor editor Molly McGhee who wrote an entire letter explaining her departure from Tor:
Despite the success of her first acquired book, The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake, McGhee was denied a promotion, later causing the domino effect of her resignation and others.
Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time we have seen such an outrage, and chances are it won’t be the last time we will see this kind of thing. Though the industry has had 2 years of remote workー a period that also provided a significant opportunity for diversifying its workforce ー the industry has a way to go as white and cis-gendered women predominantly dominate it. In addition to the refusal to pay their employees fair wages, the industry remains centered around NYC, one of the most expensive cities in the world. Trust me, this isn’t the last of the Great Resignation.