Department of Labor Data on the Publishing Industry

One good thing about working for a career publisher is the facility I have gained with government employment data. Scarily, I have the Department of Labor URLs memorized. I thought today you'd like to take a gander at their stats and projections regarding the publishing industry--what the jobs are, how many people have them, median earnings, and the outlook for future employment. You can see it all on the Publishing page of the Career Guide to Industries.

New Salary Survey from Publishers Weekly

It's that time of year again--time to see how the publishing industry is stacking up in terms of pay. Publishers Weekly released its annual salary survey results yesterday. To summarize the interesting points from the magazine's summary:

• Average raises in 2007 were 4.2%.
• Bonuses are lower--in some cases, managers got half of what they got in the preceding year.
• Sixteen percent of employees are "very unhappy" with their jobs. Reasons cited included low pay, lack of advancement opportunities, and company and industry instability.
• Speaking of instability, 18% of educational publishing professionals are "very worried" about keeping their jobs. With all the consolidation going on, I'm surprised that's not higher.
• Fewer than 80% of current publishing employees would recommend the career to a college graduate. This is a new low in the history of the survey.
• The gender gap in salaries is pronounced, where men earn an average of $103,822 and women average just $64,742. In the past this discrepancy has been blamed on the fact that women tend to be in editorial jobs and men are in management and sales. However, even within editorial the men are averaging $67,000, whereas women average just $48,000.

See the full article online for more details, and watch for the printed article, which will presumably contain more actual salary numbers by function.

Tons of Career Advice at Quintessential Careers

A virtual powerhouse of career information, advice, samples, articles, tools, links, and more, Quintessential Careers is a must-see Web resource. It was founded 12 years ago by authors Dr. Randall Hansen and Dr. Katharine Hansen and has everything you need to kick off your job search or career exploration.

Important features on Quintessential Careers include

• Career Toolkit for all aspects of your search
• Education advice
• An active and insightful blog
• Daily advice from The Career Doctor
• A job search portal and resume posting site

Quintessential Careers tops many lists as the best career site on the Web. It boasts 3,400 pages of information, so it's definitely worth a look.

P.S.: These authors don't write for JIST, so this is my totally unbiased opinion!

Publishing Jobs and Career Info on Vault.com

What on earth took me so long to explore this fabulous resource? Vault.com's publishing section on its website is just amazing--chock-full of articles and facts on publishing careers, such as salaries, day-in-the-life articles, company profiles, industry info, networking boards, a sample resume, job and internship listings, and much more. Some of the content is free, and some of it you have to have a subscription to view.

Vault does all this to promote its book on publishing careers, Vault Career Guide to Book Publishing. At $29.95 and only 128 pages, it's kind of steep. Plus, it's more than three years old at this point. When they come out with a new edition, I will be sure to review it here.

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.

Government Salary Data for Writers and Editors

Here's another point of reference on publishing salaries. The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles a massive tome on American jobs called the Occupational Outlook Handbook. At JIST, we took that data and came up with a user-friendly salary reference for the top 280 or so jobs in the U.S. economy. This reference is included in the forthcoming book, Next-Day Salary Negotiation (pick it up at www.jist.com).

The DOL groups all writing and editing jobs together in the handbook. Here are some interesting salary stats for this group:

• Average Earnings: $48,126
• Beginning Earnings: $27,890
• 25th Percentile: $36,158
• 75th Percentile: $65,250

Average Earnings in Major Metropolitan Areas
Metropolitan Area Average Annual Earnings
Atlanta, GA $52,890
Chicago, IL $45,704
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX $50,359
Denver, CO $52,617
Los Angeles, CA $54,223
Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN $48,287
New York, NY $59,081
Phoenix, AZ $39,561
San Francisco, CA $62,965
Seattle, WA $65,457

Average Earnings in Most Important Industries
Industry Average Annual Earnings

Professional, Scientific, $51,938
and Technical Services

Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, $48,750
Professional, and Similar Organizations

Publishing Industries (Except Internet) $45,045

Broadcasting (Except Internet) $43,436

Educational Services $43,399