Three Jobs Publishing Houses Need to Fill in 2010

by Ami Greko

In this era of layoffs and pay freezes across the industry, it might seem silly to talk about new positions that publishing houses should be looking to fill. I can hear you all groaning from here: with what time, exactly, should we be interviewing these people, and which pile of doubloons should we cash in to make payroll? But instead of thinking of these roles as expenses now, they should be seen as investments from publishers in their digital future, ones that will pay off in dividends in the years to come.

  1. The Multimedia Editor: Book lovers been talking for years about The Future, where video and audio and more—maybe video games!—will mingle with words to create a sort of uber-book. Looking at the experiments of 2009, it seems like that day is creeping ever close. The thing is, we still haven’t really figured out how to insert these assets into the text without tapping the reader on the shoulder to let her know we’ve done it. “Look! We made a video! Isn’t that better than just turning a stupid page?” The ideal scenario would be a book that flows between text and multimedia for a seamless reading experience, not one that calls attention to its assets, pulling you completely out of the narrative. Every publishing house needs editors that are skilled not at the integration of words with each other, but with the multimedia elements into the text. Experience with designing webpages full of assets a must.
  2. The Community Development Manager: Advice to businesses about using Twitter always emphasizes the importance of monitoring the name of your brand. For imprints, that doesn’t mean monitoring just the imprint and parent company’s name, but also all of the authors and book titles released by the imprint. That’s a lot of keywords. And this applies not only to Twitter, but to all online monitoring and engagement. It’s too big of a job to add to your already busy publicist’s plates—you need someone online full time entering the conversation and encouraging your fans. Example: there’s a huge following for Nick Harkaway’s The Gone-Away World amongst bookish Twitter-ers (Stephanie Anderson is one of the ringleaders), all of whom would be thrilled to show up at an event, pre-order the next hardcover, or help promote any new writing. Does Knopf know about it?
  3. The Passionate Insider: Publishing houses need to begin evaluating for jobs based on the interest level of the applicants as well as experience. Chelsea Green is a great example of what can be accomplished with a team of folks who are all truly passionate about the books they’re putting out. In the words of their blogger, Makenna Goodman: “Ours is a mission-based business, whose employees respect the lives (and values) of the authors they’re promoting. We put out books on fermentation, and make pickles at home, in other words.” While it’s true that you don’t need to be a scientist to edit Ray Kurzweil or a yoga fan to promote Elizabeth Gilbert, let’s be honest: it’s easy to see the magic that happens when people work on books that resonate with their interests. What’s more people who are engaged with the subject matter of the books they work on can brand themselves as experts in social media space, where authenticity is essential. These people are worth their weight in gold (people like Ann Kingman at Random House, or Jen Hill at Tor), and should be paid as such.

Has your house already taken the plunge and hired for any of these positions? Are there any other positions houses should be hiring for that I’ve missed?