The Editor Edited My Work!

There's an interesting discussion going on over at the Chronicle of Higher Education (a good place to look for writing and editing jobs at colleges, BTW). A professor writes to the forum for a little sympathy on having had an article edited beyond recognition. The range of responses (from "thank her!" to something akin to "my editor sucked!") is fun to see.

This is an age-old problem. Most people don't like to be edited, especially if they feel the edits have changed their meaning or made them look bad. Their writing is supposed to speak for them; if it misrepresents them, it's a huge emotional issue. Even I have felt myself wincing when I've reviewed someone's edits to my writing (but I generally keep my mouth shut because I know all too well how it feels to have an author argue with me over edits).

On the other hand, I have encountered plenty of authors who are grateful for their editors. The good ones will thank you for making them look good.

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.

"Deadliest Catch" Captain Promotes Book in Indiana

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I saw was crab-boat captain Andy Hillstrand on local TV news, promoting his book based on his and his brother's lives working on a fishing boat in the Bering Sea. Everybody seems to know all about these guys because they are featured on the Discovery Channel show Deadliest Catch.

As it turns out, Andy lives just a few miles up the road from my parents in Chandler, Indiana--when he's not out risking his life on the crab boat. Mom said they were promoting the book, Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs, at the Evansville Barnes & Noble just a few weeks ago. Yesterday he was here for the Brickyard 400 race, so he decided to squeeze some PR out of his visit.

I used to think that constantly watching "the crab show" was my household's own secret shame. But everywhere I turn, I find someone else who admits to watching it all the time. I mean, really--what's the appeal of this crazy show and why can't we ever turn it off? Here's my best guess:

• Like all good reality shows, it gets you interested in the lives and stories of the characters.
• There seems to be a lot of manufactured drama in addition to the real drama, so you have to keep watching to see what happens next.
• People get a gambler's rush when they pull up those pots and they're just teaming with crab. Sometimes there's nothing there but a trash bag and an old shoe, so the uncertainty keeps us investing more of our time in hopes of the big payoff.
• It's an interesting look into a lifestyle that's so different from ours. I like to sink back in the leather couch, stare at the 40-inch plasma, dig into my bowl of ice cream, and think, "Man, I'm glad I'm not on that boat!"

Editor's Note: Vacay Day Today

We're heading out for my brother-in-law's wedding now, so no time for a significant post today. (For the record, that's my last vacation day until December.) Have a great weekend and enjoy what's left of summer!

How Long Does It Take to Find a Job?

One mistake that people seem to make repeatedly is to grossly underestimate the time it takes to find a new job. The majority of people take the attitude of "Hey, I'm going to enjoy my severance for a while and then later I'll think about getting a new job." Time flies when you're not working, and before you know it, time (and money) is up.

Here's a sobering rule of thumb: Career coach and author Katy Piotrowski says that it takes, in general, a month for every $10,000 you want to make. So if you're looking for a $50,000 job, you can plan on it taking five months--way longer than most severance packages.

Katy does have some good news in her forthcoming book, The Career Coward's Guide to Job Searching (which went to the printer yesterday): If you spend more than an hour a day working on your job search, you can shorten the time it takes to find a job. She recommends devoting six hours a day to your search (obviously, you can't do this when you've still got a job). In this way, you can shave months off your search time.

Meanwhile, in this tough economy, I think all bets are off. So, as they said in the Little House books, make hay while the sun shines.

The World's Biggest Publishers from Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly's Jim Milliot reports this week on "Publishing's Top Guns." Here's his list:

1. Thomson (Canada): $7.2 billion
2. Pearson (UK): $7 billion
3. Bertelsmann (Germany): $6.4 billion
4. Reed Elsevier (UK/Netherlands): $6.1 billion
5. Wolters Kluwer (Netherlands): $4.9 billion
6. Hachette Livre (France): $3.1 billion
7. McGraw-Hill Education (U.S.): $2.7 billion
8. Reader's Digest (U.S.): $2.6 billion
9. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (U.S./Cayman Islands): $2.5 billion
10. De Agostini Editore (Italy): revenues not available

Again, Americans might be surprised to see how far down the list you have to go before you hit a U.S. company. But most of the world's top companies own high-profile divisions and imprints in America.

And speaking of America, here's how our top publishers stack up:

1. McGraw-Hill: $2.7 billion
2. Reader's Digest: $2.7 billion
3. Scholastic: $2.1 billion
4. HarperCollins: $1.3 billion
5. John Wiley: $1.2 billion
6. Simon & Schuster: $886 million
7. Marvel: $398 million

Even the smallest of these is mind-bogglingly huge compared to where I work!

FEEDJIT: Coolest Blog Widget Ever!

On Friday while the layoffs were happening, I stumbled upon a blog that had an awesome widget that I wanted to try. FEEDJIT shows a little map of where your blog traffic is coming from. Being kind of global-minded, I think it's neater than beans.

Some of my assumptions about this blog's readership have been validated. I assumed the majority of visitors would be from North America, and probably most from Indiana. But I am wowed at the readership on the east coast. I hope that even though I'm not all that plugged into the New York scene, I'm still giving you valuable career information.

Also a shocker: Lots of hits coming from India. I'm not surprised that some people from Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand have dropped by (message to the Kiwis: Neil Finn rules!). But Croatia, Spain, Malaysia, and Puerto Rico? I'm speechless.

I'm going to use this intelligence to better deliver relevant information based on where people are. Please don't hesitate to drop me a comment if you have an idea for a geographic-area-specific post.