Mark Gottlieb, a literary agent and executive vice president of Trident Media Group, has observed that a labor reckoning has arrived in publishing, and this time the conversation is reaching far beyond office policy. Editorial assistants, marketers, publicists, and production teams across the industry are questioning an economic structure that, for decades, has relied on devotion to literature as compensation for instability and stagnant wages.
Amid that prevailing burnout culture, Mark Gottlieb sees the current wave of unionization as a larger referendum on the future of creative industries. He points to recent ongoing efforts across major trade publishers and literary institutions, noting how the moves being made are causing a paradigm shift within the business of books.
