Totally disagree re: your point about freelancers. I am one, and I spent the better part of 30 years in-house. A lot of peers around my age (50s) also struck out on their own recently because guess what? Ageism is alive & well in book publishing. So you have a wealth of freelance talent in editorial, marketing, and publicity. You also have chronically understaffed & overworked people in-house at publishing houses, which presents its own problems. I don’t think it’s an issue at all to lean on freelancers.
Because when you have that much experience, you don’t come cheap. They don’t want to pay the salary for someone with decades of experience. Your age & experience is an asset when you freelance. In this case, it will be an asset because they’ll want freelancers with existing relationships with agents, people who know the business well, and they don’t have to use the same person for every project. So little is being done for authors at traditional publishers that I don’t see a problem with this model.
Totally disagree re: your point about freelancers. I am one, and I spent the better part of 30 years in-house. A lot of peers around my age (50s) also struck out on their own recently because guess what? Ageism is alive & well in book publishing. So you have a wealth of freelance talent in editorial, marketing, and publicity. You also have chronically understaffed & overworked people in-house at publishing houses, which presents its own problems. I don’t think it’s an issue at all to lean on freelancers.
Fair enough. Does the ageism go away do you think for a publisher like this? Why might freelancers be immune to ageism where full-timers are not?
Because when you have that much experience, you don’t come cheap. They don’t want to pay the salary for someone with decades of experience. Your age & experience is an asset when you freelance. In this case, it will be an asset because they’ll want freelancers with existing relationships with agents, people who know the business well, and they don’t have to use the same person for every project. So little is being done for authors at traditional publishers that I don’t see a problem with this model.