"The job was a volume business: chasing down tenured professors to turn their dissertations into monographs, packaging up research that maybe fifty other people in the world would ever read. At first, I loved it. There was a thrill in convincing a scholar to sign with me, in helping ideas make their way into print. But over time, the shine wore off. I was doing the same work on repeat with almost no increase in pay."
"But over time, the shine wore off. The projects that actually excited me-the kind of books that felt alive and urgent-I was told I could work on them, but only in addition to my regular output. That kind of hustle didn't come with more money, and at the rate they were paying, I couldn't even afford to live a reasonable distance from my office."
I felt stuck in my career in my mid-twenties after five years in academic book publishing. The role prioritized volume: converting dissertations into monographs and packaging niche research that few people would read. Initial excitement from signing scholars and bringing ideas to print faded as the work became repetitive with little pay growth. Opportunities to work on more urgent projects required unpaid extra effort, and compensation did not cover reasonable living costs near the office. Concurrently, I pursued a shift into food writing through networking, conferences, cold emails, and late-night recipe testing despite limited responses.
Read at Substack
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