Publishers Weekly Annual Salary Survey

It's that time of year again--the publishing industry's trade magazine, Publishers Weekly, has released the results of its annual salary survey. (If you're saying to yourself, "hey, didn't you just write about this in March?" the answer is yes. That was the 2006 survey, which took several months to circulate itself to me in the office's shared subscription.)

This time they got more specific with the salary numbers than they did last year, which is great. Average salaries for people with three years of experience or less, by department, were as follow:

• Editorial: $30,100
• Sales/Marketing: $$34,000
• Management: $62,500
• Operations: $40,350

To get a look at what the future holds for those who stay in publishing more than a decade, here are the average salaries:

• Editorial: $71,000
• Sales/Marketing: $93,125
• Management: $149,000
• Operations: $65,000

The usual caveat applies: Jobs in places with a higher cost of living tend to pay more. But not enough more. In New York there is so much competition for the jobs, they feel they don't have to pay fairly. As evidence, the median entry-level salary in editorial/sales/marketing in the Midwest is $44,750, whereas in the Mid-Atlantic (which includes NYC), it's only $51,000. That's a difference of just 12%. Meanwhile, the cost of living in NYC is 115% higher than it is in Indianapolis, according to BankRate.com's Cost of Living Comparison Calculator.

The survey includes a lot more data about gender, bonuses, and company size. And as always, there's a cherry on top: 82% of respondents said they would recommend a job in publishing to college graduates.