A Book Biz Insider’s Letter to a (Future) Assistant

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From Publishers Weekly:

In every informational interview I’ve participated in, students and interns begin in the same way—what they most want me to know about them, even before the school they’re going to (or in one case, even their name): They love to read. When I hear this my heart sinks. I don’t want to put these applications in the “no” pile, but I know I have to. In declaring that they should be hired for a job in publishing because they love to read, they betray that they have no actual idea what an assistant job in publishing entails.

To be clear, I do not fault anyone for writing cover letters like this. I wrote some truly heinous cover letters that spent more time waxing poetic about learning to read the Berenstain Bears on the subway than they did actually clarifying any of my qualifications or skills. This oft-repeated mistake seems to be more a product of the shroud of elitism that publishing as an industry hides behind than it is of the people who most want to work within it. There is lots of speculation as to how to get your foot in the publishing door. In the course of four years applying and reapplying to assistant jobs, I’ve read lots of advice. Like anything else, some of it is good and some of it is, well, less good.

As an assistant for four years, my two cents are this: Do not focus, in your cover letter, on your love of reading, your passion for the power of storytelling, or your favorite books on an editor’s list. Instead, you should be focusing on the unsexy parts—your office skills, your ability to communicate, your willingness to learn, and your resourcefulness. Hiring managers or editors or head publicists are not necessarily looking for great literary minds; they are looking for someone who will competently check and respond to emails, write marketing copy, read slush, answer phones, mail books, wrangle contracts and forms from authors, negotiate text and image permissions, walk the director’s dog, or literally any other task the hirers don’t feel like doing. Optimistically, you will spend about 2% of your time reading things that are not emails, and those stolen hours will feel like a blessing.

Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly

If PG were to conduct an “informational interview” with someone who was considering entry into the world of traditional publishing, his advice would include the following (For the record, no one has asked him for an informational interview about publishing and he doesn’t expect anyone to do so):

That is a seriously dumb move. Don’t do it.

The traditional publishing industry is a dead man walking. Whatever glamour it may have possessed twenty years ago is gone, gone, gone. The business is not about art, it is about commerce, just as much as an investment bank is, although vastly less remunerative to its employees. If you want to hang around authors, find out which bars they patronize and go there or join a writers group.

Over time, the friends and acquaintances who you hope may be impressed by your underpaid job in publishing will come to regard it as a suicidal career choice. The transferrable skills you learn as a publishing assistant won’t be much different than the skills you would learn working as an assistant for a mid-level executive in a meat packing plant.

At an entry level, it’s mostly going to be drudge work and the atmosphere in a business organization that is circling the drain is seldom very healthy. You will almost certainly learn what it’s like when people you know are laid off. Plus, it will be of minimal assistance in paying off your student loans from Sarah Lawrence, even if you get promoted at some time in the future.