Pay assistants what they’re worth.

A new job post was just made yesterday announcing a literary agency is looking to hire an assistant. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime for lots of people, trust me, I’ve been there and I applied for so many assistant jobs before I landed my first. But it’s a bad job offer and that sucks.

What to know what sucks even more? Hundreds of people are going to apply to it. I’m drawing more attention to it just by talking about it, but I think this is something we NEED to talk about more in publishing: salaries and what people are worth.

The specific job post that I’m talking about here is an example — the post exists, you can go find it, but it’s endemic to publishing and media jobs in general. Just look at the New Yorker Union striking — and that’s Condé Nast, a corporation worth literal billions.

We’ve all seen publishers, especially the big five, increase their starting base salaries. That’s truly fantastic — I don’t want to downplay it because it’s the start of meaningful change. We all deserve to be paid what we’re worth. That’s doubly true if you’re living and/or working in a major city like NYC or SF where the costs of living are just so ridiculously high. But look past the performance of it: the people at those base salaries are working 60 hour weeks, not getting paid overtime (for the most part), and being forced to have a day job (emails, coordinating in-house, talking with authors + agents), in addition to editing and y’know, reading.

One of the things we in publishing talk about infrequently is that we rarely can get reading done during the week because we have so many other demands during the normal 9–5. So that 120k word manuscript you sent me? I’m reading that on Saturday and Sunday to get you my notes on Monday. I didn’t read that on Thurs & Friday because my schedule was full of zoom meetings, phone calls, and catching up on emails I needed to respond to.

Getting back to that literary agency job post, it’s hiring an assistant to be an independent contractor. One of the only good things about being at the assistant level, in either agencies or publishing houses (I’ve been in both) is the small amount of benefits you might get. Maybe there’s a ray of light and you get most of your health insurance paid for, or the skies really open up and there’s a 401K program. But here, being an independent contractor means they don’t have to offer those benefits (or any benefits) to you in the first place.

I’m calling out this specific job posting because it’s the most recent one — and in some ways it encapsulates a lot of issues in publishing. This isn’t the worst offender, and who knows, maybe the job posting comes with a very high hourly wage or a health insurance stipend. But my gut reaction, is that what this literary agency is doing by saying this job is for an independent contractor is gross and just downright cruel. They represent successful books and authors — if they are going to hire an assistant then it is my belief that they should pay that assistant what they are worth — and they’re worth more than just an hourly wage and a pat on the head. The agency in this case is making a public proclamation that they do not believe an assistant working for them should be allowed to have benefits. That anyone who’s selected for that position should be grateful to be given the opportunity. Fuck that.

I don’t blame any of the people applying for that job; hell, I’ve been there. My first assistant job was as an independent contractor, my first agency job was for $32k/year in NYC. When you want to be a part of an industry, you make concessions.

My point here is that you shouldn’t have to. You, a hardworking individual who loves books and wants to apply yourself to working on them in any facet should not be forced to have three roommates in a two bedroom apartment or have to make hard choices about what you can afford for dinner because some corporation or agency, in this case, says “you are not worth more than this.”

I’m furious because this is bullshit at the highest level. This is a company directly taking advantage of the fact that there are lots of people who would love to work in publishing, especially at an agency. Want to know who this hurts the most? People who don’t come from generational wealth and can’t make the decision to work for peanuts. I’ll give you three guesses as to which communities that adversely affects more than others.

Maybe I’m off base here, and maybe the offer here is going to be large enough to cover healthcare costs and provide an actual living wage. I can’t say since I didn’t make the job post. What’s problematic is that it’s a perfect situation for the agency to be able to take advantage of people applying. I hope I’m wrong, but my first reaction is that this is potentially a very shady situation.

I don’t have the clout or station to be able to make change myself. I can’t wave a magic wand and make all of the assistants and young editors and agents automatically get higher salaries or hourly wages. All I can do is raise the point and try and continue the conversation that so many other more articulate people have had before me.

Let me try and sum this up another way: with the pandemic still raging onwards, we all know that you shouldn’t buy take out unless you can afford the 20–25% tip. So here it is for you plainly: you shouldn’t hire an assistant unless you can afford the costs to pay them what they are actually worth.