How to Get a Job in Publishing; A Really Practical Guide to Careers in Books and Magazines
2008, Guardian Books / A&C Black

“Someone (a cricket lover presumably) once said that the Bible is the Wisden of religion. This is the Wisden of how to get into publishing.”
Richard Charkin, Bloomsbury Publishing

“I love the practical, myth-debunking style of this book. Read it.”
Linda Kelsey, former editor of She and Cosmopolitan

“There is a problem with the title. It’s much more than ‘how to get a job in publishing’. It should be called ‘Publishing: and how to get a job in it’. The first half of the book is a quite brilliant overview of this wonderful industry in all its multifarious parts and dimensions: how it’s structured, what all the different departments do, what all the jargon means, etc. I would highly recommend it for publishing courses of all types, and for new entrants to the business.”
Peter Donoughue, former MD of John Wiley Australia

So you’ve always dreamed of a career in publishing… but you didn’t know where to start, or how? Dream no more: now there’s a shortcut to your dream job. Packed with inside information, How to Get a Job in Publishing is for everyone who wants to work in publishing – in books and magazines, or online – and for everyone who’s already in it and wants to go even further.

We’ve included an extract way down at the bottom of the page.

Australian distributor Allen & Unwin (Australia) - now available

Between Two Worlds: Australian Publishing on the Horns of an Import Dilemma
Publishing Research Quarterly, SpringerLink 23 July 2008
This article looks at the consequences of the 1991 amendment to the Australian Copyright Act. The article discusses the background to that change, what has happened since and what arguments are marshalled by those in favour of the status quo (restrictions that must be qualified for), and those in favour of a completely open market.
The debate around whether booksellers should be free to import copies of a new book from any supplier willing to sell them boils down to four issues:
- the availability in Australia of books published overseas;
- the price of books in Australia;
- the preservation of Australian publishing;
- and the protection of the rights of copyright holders.
Those in favour of the open market believe that it would improve the first two without diminishing the latter two; those who support the status quo, that changing would bring no substantial benefits, and hurt both publishing and the rights of copyright holders.
Steve did his best for this article not to be as boring as it sounds, but there are limited options in an academic journal.

ABA Green Paper on Parallel Importing
2007, Australian Booksellers Association
The Australian Booksellers Association commissioned Bloom Partners to research and write a green paper setting out the issues around parallel importing, to allow ABA members to make an informed decision on this topic.
For a copy of the Green Paper, contact the ABA

The Future Report
2007, Private report
Bloom Partners created a major new research study, examining the future of textbooks and campus booksellers.
Beset on all sides by technological and commercial challenges, the traditional business model looks threatened as never before. A group of Australian and New Zealand campus booksellers have asked us to examine trends in the industry, talk to key players and come up with recommendations.

The Bloom Report 2006-2007; Business and Employment Trends in the Australian Publishing Industry
2007, Thorpe-Bowker
- How much should I pay my staff?
- What are the short, medium and long-term outlook/s for publishing?
- What can the government do for the publishing industry?
- What is industry best practice for HR?
Finally one report has all the answers to these and other strategic questions faced by the publishing industry. Published in association with Bookseller + Publisher and the University of Melbourne Publishing and Communications program, the report examines small, medium-sized, large, educational, scholarly and trade publishers.
To order contact Thorpe-Bowker

Extract from How to Get a Job in Publishing by Alison Baverstock, Susannah Bowen, Steve Carey (A & C Black, 2008).

Taking a postgraduate qualification is an increasingly popular route into publishing, and there are new courses springing up every year. What’s happened has been a form of educational inflation. Once upon a time the traditional, and maybe even the best, route into getting a job in publishing was to take a secretarial course, put up with being someone’s assistant for a year, and then you were on your way.
These days only the very senior staff have the luxury of their very own personal assistant, and you have to find some other way of differentiating your application from all the others. Hence the temptation to take a vocational Masters degree as a way of getting to the head of the pack.
And of course taking a postgraduate course gives you the chance to explore whether publishing is for you - and lots of useful skills to take elsewhere if you decide it is not. (In addition to publishing, graduates end up working in PR, internal communications, museums, arts marketing and many other jobs that need the same skill set.)
Even so, you should bear in mind that the sudden availability of dozens of Publishing MA courses is market rather than industry driven. Taking one doesn’t guarantee you a job in the business, and neither does the availability of all these courses imply that there are enough jobs for all the students taking them. What drives the courses is not the need for students with those degrees: on the contrary, it’s the desire for students to have those degrees.
You should also consider how up to date the course you’re considering really is. The media are evolving at a very fast rate, and although some traditional skills will always be needed (editing, writing, production), the ways in which those skills are used tomorrow will certainly be very different from the way they’re being taught today. Be wary of courses, lecturers or universities that strike you as not having woken up to this fact.
Here are half-a-dozen tough, smart questions to ask when you’re being sold hard by a university. Ask them of every institution you’re considering, and record the answers. Give each a score.

1. Are your lecturers full-time or part-timer?
The ideal is lecturers who are also doers, and who are thus continually refreshing their knowledge; thus if the course is delivered by part-time staff who are active within the industry, it’s probably a good sign. What you want are lecturers who are active in the market they teach. This means they’ll be fully up to date with what is happening in publishing right now, rather than what went on in 1980.
2. Who arranges work placements?
Some universities boast about their work placement programme as a key part of the course … and then leave you to organise it.
3. What activities/facilities do you get access to?
Are there programmes of guest speakers to which students from across the faculty are invited? What about trips and opportunities to see relevant organisations?
4. What is the employment history of previous students?
How many had a placement? What percentage of these opportunities turned into full-time jobs?
5. Is there a buzz?
Do the staff you meet ask about you and your aspirations? Do they talk about the course and students with enthusiasm? Or do you, perhaps, get the distinct impression you’re helping them make up the quota of students they are required to recruit?
6. When was the course put together?
Long-established doesn’t necessarily mean well-organised. Newer courses must necessarily have been put together more recently; older institutions may be trading on their reputation rather than the good experience they offer. Ask questions, and switch on your antennae.

If you have your heart set on working for a particular employer or type of publisher, of course don’t assume that the best way in is to stay well away from them and spend years and years and piles of money studying. Some publishers, especially those in the magazine world, really don’t see the value in postgraduate degrees. Nose around the section of the industry that you’re keen on first, ask other employees how they got there, take the temperature of your (hopeful) employers to be. If the consensus is that an undergraduate degree and a bit of editing your student newspaper won’t do the trick, and you quite fancy finding out more about the different roles in the industry through some more study, then a postgraduate degree might well be a great option.
But if your favoured section of the industry universally sneers at postgraduate degrees, and you feel happy with your skills and experience base, consider saving yourself some time and money and jumping straight in.

Copyright Alison Baverstock, Susannah Bowen, and Steve Carey 2008.