“Is the publishing industry broken?”

The daily grind of life in the book publishing industry has come under close inspection this week in a much-discussed Publishers Weekly feature.

The daily grind of life in the book publishing industry has come under close inspection this week in a much-discussed Publishers Weekly feature.

Rachel Deahl reports on how junior staff are managing with low pay, long hours, and an increasingly corporate culture – and just how senior staff consider the situation.

“People will read the article and think that the agitation among the younger ranks in publishing is generational and cultural – that Gen Z and millennials are bringing a new perspective to age-old publishing practices,” says Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer.

“The story also prompts previous generations of publishing workers, including me, to compare our lot in the past to that of today,” Albanese tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.

“I’m here to say, after trying, that, well, you simply can’t,” he says.

“At this post-COVID moment, when people are starting to return to offices, we should not want to return to the same world we shuttered two years ago,” he adds. “We can do better, and it’s time to think about how, and to invest in that.”

Every Friday, CCC’s “Velocity of Content” speaks with the editors and reporters of “Publishers Weekly” for an early look at the news that publishers, editors, authors, agents and librarians will be talking about when they return to work on Monday.