Survey Results: The Last Non-Work-Related Book You Read

What are publishing people reading outside of work?* A sampling:

LITERARY-LEANING BESTSELLERS

• Lots of you just finished or are reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which is Oprah's most recent Book Club pick (as predicted by GalleyCat readers!) and #2 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction bestseller list.
  
• David Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames was also a popular choice, as was
  
• The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, newly released in paperback.

AWFUL BESTSELLERS

• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

? BESTSELLERS

• That Potato Peel book
• Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler. (Also referred to as "Is That You, Vodka?")

POLITICAL FOODY BOOKS

• The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
• The United States of Arugula by David Kamp
  
• The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee

*"All books are work related."--Editor at a large house

Our New E-Reader Survey

Do you work at a publishing house that supplies e-readers to some or all of its employees? We'd love it if you'd take our new survey, here:

Publishing Trends E-Reader Survey

Thanks!

Survey Results: Non-Work-Related Reading

As we noted in our original article, a lot of publishing people don't have as much time as they'd like to read for fun because they're too busy reading for work. "The work day never ends--'so much to read' is a blessing and a curse," wrote one agent, while an editor described her heavy reading load as "too much of a good thing."

Still, 34.3% of respondents find the time to read one or two non-work-related books a month. Here's the rest of the breakdown:
0-1 non-work-related books: 17.4%
2-3: 22.4%
3-4: 13.1%
4-5: 3.2%
5+: 9.6%

Who are these champs who read at least 4 non-work-related books a month? Perhaps not surprisingly, 34.1% are agents and 25% are editors. They'd surely win a library summer-reading contest, if there were such a thing for adults.

Survey Results: When Is Happy Hour?

It's Friday, and it's been a hard week. If you're going to happy hour with a publishing crowd after work today, expect lots of people to order red wine--the drink of choice for 35.8% of respondents. 16.7% prefer white. One respondent just loves "good delicious wine." 5.3% go for vodka tonics, and 3.5% like Bud Light.

But many more do NOT like Bud Light. We're sorry we didn't give beer lovers more choices, and they called us out on it:

• "Beer that isn't Bud Light. Yeesh."
• "Any beer but Bud Light"
• "Come on folks, a publishing survey without craft beers? We're not all girls."

Sorry. We'll add microbrews to the list next year.

For now, what's your favorite happy hour spot? Let us know in the comments.

Survey Results: Salary

How much money do you make? It's a personal question, but we asked it, and most respondents answered. Here's the salary breakdown:

• 3.2% of respondents make less than $30,000.
• 24.8% make $30,000-$50,000.
• 13.9% make $50,000-$60,000.
• 7.7% make $60,000-$70,000.
• 8.3% make $70,000-$80,000.
• 11.8% make $80,000-$100,000.
• 14.7% make $100,000-$150,000.
• 8.3% make $150,000-$200,000.
• 7.4% make more than $250,000.

Publishers Weekly conducts its own salary survey every year; here are their 2008 results. hey found that the average man working in publishing made $103,822 in 2007, while the average woman made $64,742. PW notes that the highest jobs are in management, where more men work.

However, in our survey, 35.9% of the people making over $100,000 a year work in editorial.

When we asked the over $100,000 group what they should be making, 25% thought that their salary was about right. "Money is always tight, but my compensation seems fair," wrote one respondent who makes $150,000-$200,000. "It's a loaded question, but I'm well compensated by publishing standards," wrote another respondent. And an editor making between $150,000 and $200,000 thought an "aggravation bonus" was in order.

At sites like Glassdoor.com, employees can anonymously report their salaries, as well as review their companies. Here are the results for Random House, McGraw-Hill, Scholastic, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Rodale, HarperCollins, and Wiley. The site is free, but to see the reviews or numbers, you have to (anonymously) post.

Give Me More

I've posted an expanded version of Rich Kelley's article from the October issue, "Battling the Online Tyranny of 'More,'" on our Web site. Check it out here:
http://www.publishingtrends.com/copy/08/0810/0810tyranny.html

Survey Results: How Did You Get Your Job?

Want to get into publishing? A lot of people say it's all about who you know--and the results of our survey support that belief. 35.5% of respondents heard about their current job via word of mouth. 9.6% found their position on the job board of a Web site like Publishers Marketplace, and 6% were recruited.

How did respondents hear about their first publishing job? Again, the main way is word of mouth, for 33.4%. But 18.1% of respondents got their first job through a newspaper listing. (When was the last time you saw a publishing job listed in the New York Times?)

"I sent out many letters, and a few publishers responded," an editor at a large house told us. "This was 30+ years ago!"

Several respondents also told us that they got their first publishing positions through employment agencies, like the Lynne Palmer Agency and "Career Blazers Agency." We know that the Lynne Palmer Agency still exists and are curious about whether it still works with those seeking entry-level jobs. Publishing newbies out there, did you consider a career agency when you were looking for your job And publishing vets, do you work with any career agencies or have you ever used one? Let us know in the comments.

Publishing Trends Announces Results of Second Annual Industry Survey

Wondering how much your publishing coworkers make, or how they take their coffee? We got tons of interesting answers in our second annual publishing industry survey, and couldn't fit them all into our feature article in the October issue of Publishing Trends. So we'll be posting additional results throughout this month. Stay tuned!