Transcript: Canadian book publishing: Insights from the latest salary survey - Tech Forum 2025
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May 07, 2025
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About This Presentation
Join us for a presentation in partnership with the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP) as they share results from the recently conducted Canadian Book Publishing Industry Salary Survey. This comprehensive survey provides key insights into average salaries across departments, roles, and demograp...
Slide Content
Stephanie Small: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's Tech Forum session.
My name is Stephanie Small, and I'm a product coordinator here at BookNet. Welcome to
Canadian Book Publishing: Insights From the Latest Salary Survey.
Before we get started, BookNet Canada acknowledges that its operations are remote and our
colleagues contribute their work from the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the
Credit, the Anishinaabe , the Haudenosaunee, the Wyandot, the Mi'kmaq, the Ojibwa of Fort
William First Nation, the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, which includes the
Ojibwa, the Odawa, and the Potawatomie, and the Métis, the original nations and peoples of
the lands we now call Beeton, Brampton, Guelph, Halifax, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vaughan,
and Windsor.
We encourage you to visit the native-land.ca website to learn more about the peoples whose
lands that you're joining from today. Moreover, BookNet endorses the Calls to Action from
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and supports an ongoing shift from
gatekeeping to spacemaking in the book industry. The book industry has long been an
industry of gatekeeping and anyone who works at any stage of the book supply chain carries
a responsibility to serve readers by publishing, promoting, and supplying works that
represent the wide extent of human experiences and identities in all that complicated
intersectionality. We at BookNet are committed to working with our partners in the industry
as we move towards a framework that supports space making, which ensures that So, ed
creators and professionals all have the opportunity to contribute, work, and lead.
For our webinar today, if you're having difficulties with Zoom or have any tech- related
questions, please put them in the chat or you can email [email protected]. We're
providing live ASL and closed captioning for this presentation. To see the captions, you can
find the Show Captions button in the Zoom menu at the bottom of your screen. If during the
presentation you have questions for us, please use the Q&A panel found in the bottom menu.
Lastly, we'd like to remind attendees of the Code of Conduct. Please be kind and respectful
and please do not record these sessions. We have a zero tolerance policy for violations of our
Code of Conduct, so please report any harassment to the Tech Forum team.
So, now let me introduce Don Gorman, our moderator for today's session. Don is the
publisher at Rocky Mountain Books as well as the National Sales Director at Heritage Group
Distribution. A 1992 graduate of the University of Victoria, he has spent over 30 years in the
book trade, 20 of them at Rocky Mountain Books, working as a bookseller, a publisher sales
representative and acquisitions editor. Along with his publishing and sales responsibilities,
he's regularly collaborating with other publishers and sales representatives on key industry
issues, including advocacy, distribution, marketing, metadata, project management and sales
strategies. He has served on the boards of the Association of Canadian Publishers, the Book
Publishers Association of Alberta and PubWest. Don is a member of the College of Fellows
of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and is currently the president of the Association
of Book Publishers of British Columbia. He lives and works in Victoria, B.C. So, I'm going
to leave it over to you, Don.
My name is Stephanie Small, and I'm a product coordinator here at BookNet. Welcome to
Canadian Book Publishing: Insights From the Latest Salary Survey.
Before we get started, BookNet Canada acknowledges that its operations are remote and our
colleagues contribute their work from the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the
Credit, the Anishinaabe , the Haudenosaunee, the Wyandot, the Mi'kmaq, the Ojibwa of Fort
William First Nation, the Three Fires Confederacy of First Nations, which includes the
Ojibwa, the Odawa, and the Potawatomie, and the Métis, the original nations and peoples of
the lands we now call Beeton, Brampton, Guelph, Halifax, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vaughan,
and Windsor.
We encourage you to visit the native-land.ca website to learn more about the peoples whose
lands that you're joining from today. Moreover, BookNet endorses the Calls to Action from
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and supports an ongoing shift from
gatekeeping to spacemaking in the book industry. The book industry has long been an
industry of gatekeeping and anyone who works at any stage of the book supply chain carries
a responsibility to serve readers by publishing, promoting, and supplying works that
represent the wide extent of human experiences and identities in all that complicated
intersectionality. We at BookNet are committed to working with our partners in the industry
as we move towards a framework that supports space making, which ensures that So, ed
creators and professionals all have the opportunity to contribute, work, and lead.
For our webinar today, if you're having difficulties with Zoom or have any tech- related
questions, please put them in the chat or you can email [email protected]. We're
providing live ASL and closed captioning for this presentation. To see the captions, you can
find the Show Captions button in the Zoom menu at the bottom of your screen. If during the
presentation you have questions for us, please use the Q&A panel found in the bottom menu.
Lastly, we'd like to remind attendees of the Code of Conduct. Please be kind and respectful
and please do not record these sessions. We have a zero tolerance policy for violations of our
Code of Conduct, so please report any harassment to the Tech Forum team.
So, now let me introduce Don Gorman, our moderator for today's session. Don is the
publisher at Rocky Mountain Books as well as the National Sales Director at Heritage Group
Distribution. A 1992 graduate of the University of Victoria, he has spent over 30 years in the
book trade, 20 of them at Rocky Mountain Books, working as a bookseller, a publisher sales
representative and acquisitions editor. Along with his publishing and sales responsibilities,
he's regularly collaborating with other publishers and sales representatives on key industry
issues, including advocacy, distribution, marketing, metadata, project management and sales
strategies. He has served on the boards of the Association of Canadian Publishers, the Book
Publishers Association of Alberta and PubWest. Don is a member of the College of Fellows
of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and is currently the president of the Association
of Book Publishers of British Columbia. He lives and works in Victoria, B.C. So, I'm going
to leave it over to you, Don.
Don Gorman: Thank you very much, Stephanie, and welcome, everybody. I really
appreciate seeing so many people taking part in today's session. I think we have 56 attendees
and 12 panelists, so well done. This is clearly a topic that people are very interested in. One
note as we get going, and a reminder, especially in terms of the interpreters, if you are
speaking, please speak as naturally as you possibly can, not too fast, not too slow. That will
help the interpreters actually assign the proper ASL to everything that's being spoken about.
And I thank them very much for taking part in today's session. And thank you to everybody
at the ACP, BookNet, and Tech Forum for setting this up.
As mentioned, I'm Don Gorman, and I'll be the moderator for today's session. It's a pleasure
to be here with you. I'm calling in from Victoria, B.C., on the traditional territories of the
Lkwungen, Esquimalt and Songhees, Malahat, Pacheedaht, Scia’ new, T’Sou-ke and
W̱SÁNEĆ peoples.
Here's what you can expect from today's event. First, Dani MacDonald, Research &
Communications Manager at the Association of Canadian Publishers, will share insights and
key takeaways from the results of the Canadian Book Publishing Industry Salary Survey.
Then Phuong Truong, Co- Publisher at Second Story Press, and Ruth Linka, Publisher at Orca
Book Publishers, will join us for a conversation where together we will discuss what the
survey findings mean in the context of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the industry.
Finally, we'll wrap up with a Q&A session. While audience questions will be addressed at
the end, you may submit them anytime using the Q&A box located on your Zoom screen.
And with that, Dani, the floor is yours.
Dani MacDonald: Great. Thanks so much, Don. And apologies in advance if my cat jumps
up on my desk. He's already tried twice. I think he's given up now, but we will see. Good
afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us here today. Like Don mentioned, my name is
Dani MacDonald. I'm the Research & Communications Manager at the Association of
Canadian Publishers. And I'm really happy to be here today to present the findings from our
2024 Canadian Book Publishing Industry Salary Survey, which was conducted by ACP in
partnership with Working Culture. And I'd like just to start by saying that I'm calling in from
Ottawa, which is located on the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabeg
Algonquin Nation, whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
So, we're here today to talk about money, and that can be sometimes an awkward or a little
bit of a sensitive topic, but I think it's an absolutely essential part of our working lives. And
in talking about money and average wages across the industry, we're also going to be talking
about equity, representation, sustainability, and also the future of our industry as a whole,
because I think understanding how compensation works and maybe how it doesn't work in
our field can ultimately help us build a stronger and more inclusive publishing sector in
Canada.
So, as mentioned, I'm going to spend about the next 20 minutes or so just running through
the results of the survey, and then we're going to move into more of a panel discussion on
what the results mean for our industry as a whole. And I will mention, I can't see the
participants, but I think maybe that Andrew Martin is in the crowd, and he was our
consultant who actually worked on drafting the report and analysing the data. So, if during
appreciate seeing so many people taking part in today's session. I think we have 56 attendees
and 12 panelists, so well done. This is clearly a topic that people are very interested in. One
note as we get going, and a reminder, especially in terms of the interpreters, if you are
speaking, please speak as naturally as you possibly can, not too fast, not too slow. That will
help the interpreters actually assign the proper ASL to everything that's being spoken about.
And I thank them very much for taking part in today's session. And thank you to everybody
at the ACP, BookNet, and Tech Forum for setting this up.
As mentioned, I'm Don Gorman, and I'll be the moderator for today's session. It's a pleasure
to be here with you. I'm calling in from Victoria, B.C., on the traditional territories of the
Lkwungen, Esquimalt and Songhees, Malahat, Pacheedaht, Scia’ new, T’Sou-ke and
W̱SÁNEĆ peoples.
Here's what you can expect from today's event. First, Dani MacDonald, Research &
Communications Manager at the Association of Canadian Publishers, will share insights and
key takeaways from the results of the Canadian Book Publishing Industry Salary Survey.
Then Phuong Truong, Co- Publisher at Second Story Press, and Ruth Linka, Publisher at Orca
Book Publishers, will join us for a conversation where together we will discuss what the
survey findings mean in the context of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the industry.
Finally, we'll wrap up with a Q&A session. While audience questions will be addressed at
the end, you may submit them anytime using the Q&A box located on your Zoom screen.
And with that, Dani, the floor is yours.
Dani MacDonald: Great. Thanks so much, Don. And apologies in advance if my cat jumps
up on my desk. He's already tried twice. I think he's given up now, but we will see. Good
afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us here today. Like Don mentioned, my name is
Dani MacDonald. I'm the Research & Communications Manager at the Association of
Canadian Publishers. And I'm really happy to be here today to present the findings from our
2024 Canadian Book Publishing Industry Salary Survey, which was conducted by ACP in
partnership with Working Culture. And I'd like just to start by saying that I'm calling in from
Ottawa, which is located on the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinaabeg
Algonquin Nation, whose presence here reaches back to time immemorial.
So, we're here today to talk about money, and that can be sometimes an awkward or a little
bit of a sensitive topic, but I think it's an absolutely essential part of our working lives. And
in talking about money and average wages across the industry, we're also going to be talking
about equity, representation, sustainability, and also the future of our industry as a whole,
because I think understanding how compensation works and maybe how it doesn't work in
our field can ultimately help us build a stronger and more inclusive publishing sector in
Canada.
So, as mentioned, I'm going to spend about the next 20 minutes or so just running through
the results of the survey, and then we're going to move into more of a panel discussion on
what the results mean for our industry as a whole. And I will mention, I can't see the
participants, but I think maybe that Andrew Martin is in the crowd, and he was our
consultant who actually worked on drafting the report and analysing the data. So, if during
the Q&A portion there's a bit more technical questions or specific to data analysis questions,
I may just turn the mic over to him for that.
And before we begin, I will mention that the link to the full salary survey report should be in
the chat or will be in the chat soon. And we're also going to be sharing a link to our
simplified one-pager that just includes salary data and demographic information. And I will
say as well that I won't be sharing any graphs on my slides just because I find they're often
hard to read on Zoom anyway. But you are free to follow along in the report where there's no
shortage of graphs, if you'd like that visual element as well.
Okay, so why this survey now? I'll give just a little bit of background on how the survey
came to be. So, the last comprehensive salary survey for our industry was done back in 2018
by Quill & Quire. And that was over six years ago now. So, before the pandemic, before the
big paradigm shift from working mostly in office to changes to working from home and
hybrid work models, and also of course before the very sharp rise in inflation in the past few
years that's really affected everyone and every industry in our country. So, when it became
clear that Quill & Quire probably wouldn't be conducting another survey, we had a lot of
requests from our membership to take on that project ourselves.
Particularly conducting a salary survey was really a priority for our Diversity & Inclusion
Committee, as we see wage transparency definitely as a distinct DEI issue. And we also
found that in our 2022 Diversity Baseline Survey, data pointed towards low salaries and a
lack of pay transparency as being major barriers to inclusion in publishing. In that survey, we
had about 20% of respondents specifically writing and saying that better salaries and more
transparency are key steps towards change.
And I will note as well that the 2022 Diversity Baseline Survey that I'm going to bring up a
few times in this presentation, it did ask some questions about compensation. So, you may
notice in the report itself, there are some charts that have comparisons to the 2022 data, as
well as the 2018 data from Quill & Quire. And the salary questions that were asked in the
2022 survey only really asked about ranges and they didn't ask for specific job titles, so it's
not as granular as either of the two salary surveys. So, the comparisons that we can make
between the 2024 and 2022 data are a bit limited, as you can see in the report.
And I will note as well that as a first step towards more salary transparency, last year ACP
made it a requirement that any job posting shared in our update newsletter included a salary
range. And that was a good first step, but we knew that in order to get a clear picture of
wages across the industry, we need to conduct this full survey as well. So, I think it's safe to
say that the 2024 survey comes at a really critical time for our industry. And I'm hopeful that
the data that I'm presenting today and that's available in the report will help us understand
where we've improved in some areas, maybe where we've stalled, and also what work just
still needs to be done.
Okay, so I'm going to just talk a moment about methodology. The survey was open from
September 9th to November 25th, 2024. It received 779 responses from people working in
publishing across Canada. And to give a little bit of context to that number, in 2023,
Nordicity did a study where they reported there were likely around 5,000 full-time equivalent
I may just turn the mic over to him for that.
And before we begin, I will mention that the link to the full salary survey report should be in
the chat or will be in the chat soon. And we're also going to be sharing a link to our
simplified one-pager that just includes salary data and demographic information. And I will
say as well that I won't be sharing any graphs on my slides just because I find they're often
hard to read on Zoom anyway. But you are free to follow along in the report where there's no
shortage of graphs, if you'd like that visual element as well.
Okay, so why this survey now? I'll give just a little bit of background on how the survey
came to be. So, the last comprehensive salary survey for our industry was done back in 2018
by Quill & Quire. And that was over six years ago now. So, before the pandemic, before the
big paradigm shift from working mostly in office to changes to working from home and
hybrid work models, and also of course before the very sharp rise in inflation in the past few
years that's really affected everyone and every industry in our country. So, when it became
clear that Quill & Quire probably wouldn't be conducting another survey, we had a lot of
requests from our membership to take on that project ourselves.
Particularly conducting a salary survey was really a priority for our Diversity & Inclusion
Committee, as we see wage transparency definitely as a distinct DEI issue. And we also
found that in our 2022 Diversity Baseline Survey, data pointed towards low salaries and a
lack of pay transparency as being major barriers to inclusion in publishing. In that survey, we
had about 20% of respondents specifically writing and saying that better salaries and more
transparency are key steps towards change.
And I will note as well that the 2022 Diversity Baseline Survey that I'm going to bring up a
few times in this presentation, it did ask some questions about compensation. So, you may
notice in the report itself, there are some charts that have comparisons to the 2022 data, as
well as the 2018 data from Quill & Quire. And the salary questions that were asked in the
2022 survey only really asked about ranges and they didn't ask for specific job titles, so it's
not as granular as either of the two salary surveys. So, the comparisons that we can make
between the 2024 and 2022 data are a bit limited, as you can see in the report.
And I will note as well that as a first step towards more salary transparency, last year ACP
made it a requirement that any job posting shared in our update newsletter included a salary
range. And that was a good first step, but we knew that in order to get a clear picture of
wages across the industry, we need to conduct this full survey as well. So, I think it's safe to
say that the 2024 survey comes at a really critical time for our industry. And I'm hopeful that
the data that I'm presenting today and that's available in the report will help us understand
where we've improved in some areas, maybe where we've stalled, and also what work just
still needs to be done.
Okay, so I'm going to just talk a moment about methodology. The survey was open from
September 9th to November 25th, 2024. It received 779 responses from people working in
publishing across Canada. And to give a little bit of context to that number, in 2023,
Nordicity did a study where they reported there were likely around 5,000 full-time equivalent
employees directly employed by publishers in Canada, with the industry as a whole
supporting the employment of around 80% and 100 full-time equivalents, which would be in
publishing and also related industries in the supply chain.
So, with that, we can say that the 779 people who filled out the survey probably reflect
somewhere between 9% and 16% of the industry, just depending on how you slice it. And of
those 779 people who filled out the survey, 591 provided salary data. So, some people had
incomplete surveys or only answered the demographic sections, but the 591 was still more
than double than the respondents to the 2018 salary survey who provided salary data. And
the survey, it was also anonymous, voluntary, self-reported. Participation was encouraged
across a wide range of roles from full-time, part- time, contract workers, freelancers, and
interns as well.
I will note that because of the way that the survey was set up and specifically looking to find
average annual salaries, it did make it a bit more difficult for freelancers and contract
workers to provide meaningful data. While we did offer a spot in the survey to import input
hourly wage information, many freelancers, they may work at multiple publishers. In the
case of more generalised roles, they may get some of their annual wages from industry
outside of publishing altogether. And because of this, it was a little bit difficult to translate
those hourly wages into annual salaries, which is how they were presented in the report.
But I think as the gig economy becomes a lot more entrenched and there are fewer and fewer
full-time permanent positions, we need to think about in the future how we can perhaps
change the survey and ask different questions so this data better reflects all of the different
people who work in publishing and make publishing a book in Canada possible.
So, the 2024 survey, it addresses two things, compensation and industry demographics. And
it does so in the context of those two previous surveys that I've mentioned. So, the 2018 Quill
& Quire survey and the 2022 Diversity Baseline Survey that ACP conducted. And bundling
the data from all these surveys is a bit challenging. The three surveys, they're not identical in
scope or the specific questions asked. They're spaced before, during and after the pandemic,
and the participation rates for all of them were different. Importantly, the 2024 survey, we
tried to capture more demographic information than the 2018 survey, asking questions about
things like gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, race, age and more. And this was
because we wanted to be able to cross -reference compensation with those pieces of identity
data because we saw it as really essential for analysing equity in the industry. However,
adding these additional questions and adding additional answer choices meant that one-to-
one comparisons couldn't always be made to the 2018 data, which you might notice in some
of the charts in the report.
Okay, so before diving into the salary numbers, I'm going to just give a little snapshot of who
makes up the publishing industry. So, for gender, we have 79% women, 15% men and 4%
identifying as non- binary or gender non-conforming. For race, we had 79% identifying as
white in 2024, which is a bit more diverse compared to the 87% that identified as white in
2018 but is actually down slightly from 75% white in 2022. For sexual orientation, only 61%
identified as heterosexual in the 2024 survey, which definitely shows a growing LGBTQ+
visibility in the workforce. In comparison, only 13% identified as LGBTQ+ in the 2018
supporting the employment of around 80% and 100 full-time equivalents, which would be in
publishing and also related industries in the supply chain.
So, with that, we can say that the 779 people who filled out the survey probably reflect
somewhere between 9% and 16% of the industry, just depending on how you slice it. And of
those 779 people who filled out the survey, 591 provided salary data. So, some people had
incomplete surveys or only answered the demographic sections, but the 591 was still more
than double than the respondents to the 2018 salary survey who provided salary data. And
the survey, it was also anonymous, voluntary, self-reported. Participation was encouraged
across a wide range of roles from full-time, part- time, contract workers, freelancers, and
interns as well.
I will note that because of the way that the survey was set up and specifically looking to find
average annual salaries, it did make it a bit more difficult for freelancers and contract
workers to provide meaningful data. While we did offer a spot in the survey to import input
hourly wage information, many freelancers, they may work at multiple publishers. In the
case of more generalised roles, they may get some of their annual wages from industry
outside of publishing altogether. And because of this, it was a little bit difficult to translate
those hourly wages into annual salaries, which is how they were presented in the report.
But I think as the gig economy becomes a lot more entrenched and there are fewer and fewer
full-time permanent positions, we need to think about in the future how we can perhaps
change the survey and ask different questions so this data better reflects all of the different
people who work in publishing and make publishing a book in Canada possible.
So, the 2024 survey, it addresses two things, compensation and industry demographics. And
it does so in the context of those two previous surveys that I've mentioned. So, the 2018 Quill
& Quire survey and the 2022 Diversity Baseline Survey that ACP conducted. And bundling
the data from all these surveys is a bit challenging. The three surveys, they're not identical in
scope or the specific questions asked. They're spaced before, during and after the pandemic,
and the participation rates for all of them were different. Importantly, the 2024 survey, we
tried to capture more demographic information than the 2018 survey, asking questions about
things like gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, race, age and more. And this was
because we wanted to be able to cross -reference compensation with those pieces of identity
data because we saw it as really essential for analysing equity in the industry. However,
adding these additional questions and adding additional answer choices meant that one-to-
one comparisons couldn't always be made to the 2018 data, which you might notice in some
of the charts in the report.
Okay, so before diving into the salary numbers, I'm going to just give a little snapshot of who
makes up the publishing industry. So, for gender, we have 79% women, 15% men and 4%
identifying as non- binary or gender non-conforming. For race, we had 79% identifying as
white in 2024, which is a bit more diverse compared to the 87% that identified as white in
2018 but is actually down slightly from 75% white in 2022. For sexual orientation, only 61%
identified as heterosexual in the 2024 survey, which definitely shows a growing LGBTQ+
visibility in the workforce. In comparison, only 13% identified as LGBTQ+ in the 2018
survey. For disability, we found that 19% of respondents reported having a disability, which
is up quite a bit from 3% in 2018 but actually down from 26% in 2022. And for age, in 2018,
we had 38 respondents who reported being under 30. And today that number is only 20%.
And we reported that nearly 23%, almost a quarter or over 50 in 2024. So, what these
numbers tell us is that Canadian publishing, it is becoming more diverse in some areas but
also a bit more entrenched and less accessible for newcomers in other areas. And we'll go
back to these demographic points as we dig deeper into the salary data as well.
So, the good news is that salaries are rising. Across the board, the average salary in
publishing in 2024 was around $64,580. And that's up from about $50,000 in 2018, which is
a 30% increase over six years. This is definitely a meaningful jump as inflation has only
increased...well, not only but has increased 23% since 2018. So, salaries have outpaced
inflation when looking at those numbers. And I just included a few examples of roles from
the survey. And if you'd like to look at a specific role, you can open up the full report. But
for now, I'll just share that publishers or VP publishing at Canadian owned firms saw an
average salary of around $88,000, which was up from around $60,000 in 2018. Acquisitions
editors saw an average salary of around $64,600, up from around $56,000 in 2018. And one
of the only positions to see a decrease was sales directors, which actually dropped from
$89,000 in 2018 to $77,000 in 2024. This discrepancy, it's most likely to do with kind of a
wider range of responses that we received and just a larger number of responses in 2024,
which likely means that more smaller presses were represented in the respondents who might
have lower salaries on a whole.
So, all in all, it is a better paid industry. It has fewer low paying jobs, especially post-
pandemic. In 2024, there were 25% earning under $50k, while in 2022, that number was
36%. And also just looking at the low range of averages, some significant gains have been
made as well. In the 2018 survey, the lowest average salary of any role was $30k, while the
lowest average salary of any role in 2024 was around $39k. So, while these increases may
just reflect higher participation by people in higher paid jobs, I think taken as a whole, the
data does suggest that salaries in book publishing are increasing. But gains are not consistent
across all roles or all demographics, as we'll see later. Furthermore, the average salary in
publishing is unsurprisingly lower than the average across other industries. According to
StatCan, the average annual salary in Canada across all industries in 2024 was $72,800,
compared to our average around $64,500. So, that's approximately 11% lower than the
national average.
So, one of the pieces of good news and one of the most striking changes in the 2024 survey
was the gender pay gap. So, in 2018, in the Quill & Quire survey, women in publishing
earned on average around $45k, while men earned around $60k, which is about a 25% gap,
so definitely significant. And now in 2024, women earned around close to $65k on average,
while men made slightly less around $64k. So, now, at least on an industry-wide level,
according to this data, it seems we have achieved gender pay parity, which is definitely good
news. But it's important to note that these are just averages and they don't specifically tell us
about pay gaps within specific roles or across different firms. And while there may have been
meaningful pay increases for women in the past six years, the higher participation rate,
especially around senior publishing and editorial positions, is probably a more likely
is up quite a bit from 3% in 2018 but actually down from 26% in 2022. And for age, in 2018,
we had 38 respondents who reported being under 30. And today that number is only 20%.
And we reported that nearly 23%, almost a quarter or over 50 in 2024. So, what these
numbers tell us is that Canadian publishing, it is becoming more diverse in some areas but
also a bit more entrenched and less accessible for newcomers in other areas. And we'll go
back to these demographic points as we dig deeper into the salary data as well.
So, the good news is that salaries are rising. Across the board, the average salary in
publishing in 2024 was around $64,580. And that's up from about $50,000 in 2018, which is
a 30% increase over six years. This is definitely a meaningful jump as inflation has only
increased...well, not only but has increased 23% since 2018. So, salaries have outpaced
inflation when looking at those numbers. And I just included a few examples of roles from
the survey. And if you'd like to look at a specific role, you can open up the full report. But
for now, I'll just share that publishers or VP publishing at Canadian owned firms saw an
average salary of around $88,000, which was up from around $60,000 in 2018. Acquisitions
editors saw an average salary of around $64,600, up from around $56,000 in 2018. And one
of the only positions to see a decrease was sales directors, which actually dropped from
$89,000 in 2018 to $77,000 in 2024. This discrepancy, it's most likely to do with kind of a
wider range of responses that we received and just a larger number of responses in 2024,
which likely means that more smaller presses were represented in the respondents who might
have lower salaries on a whole.
So, all in all, it is a better paid industry. It has fewer low paying jobs, especially post-
pandemic. In 2024, there were 25% earning under $50k, while in 2022, that number was
36%. And also just looking at the low range of averages, some significant gains have been
made as well. In the 2018 survey, the lowest average salary of any role was $30k, while the
lowest average salary of any role in 2024 was around $39k. So, while these increases may
just reflect higher participation by people in higher paid jobs, I think taken as a whole, the
data does suggest that salaries in book publishing are increasing. But gains are not consistent
across all roles or all demographics, as we'll see later. Furthermore, the average salary in
publishing is unsurprisingly lower than the average across other industries. According to
StatCan, the average annual salary in Canada across all industries in 2024 was $72,800,
compared to our average around $64,500. So, that's approximately 11% lower than the
national average.
So, one of the pieces of good news and one of the most striking changes in the 2024 survey
was the gender pay gap. So, in 2018, in the Quill & Quire survey, women in publishing
earned on average around $45k, while men earned around $60k, which is about a 25% gap,
so definitely significant. And now in 2024, women earned around close to $65k on average,
while men made slightly less around $64k. So, now, at least on an industry-wide level,
according to this data, it seems we have achieved gender pay parity, which is definitely good
news. But it's important to note that these are just averages and they don't specifically tell us
about pay gaps within specific roles or across different firms. And while there may have been
meaningful pay increases for women in the past six years, the higher participation rate,
especially around senior publishing and editorial positions, is probably a more likely
explanation for the jump. Mindful that the average increase between 2018 and 2024 was
approximately 30%, which is the same increase we saw specifically with women between
2018 and 2024. And I'll also note that we just didn't get enough data from non- binary or
other gender non- confirming respondents to analyse those averages meaningfully against the
salary data that we received.
So, unlike the 2018 survey, the 2024 version did include salary data disaggregated by race.
And while we did provide many response choices like gender, the data was just too granular
to place every racial identity against salary averages, especially since, as I previously
mentioned, 79% of respondents did identify as white. But what we were able to analyse is
that white respondents made on average around $66k while BIPOC respondents made an
average of $61,650. So, that is around a $4,400 gap or roughly a 7% difference. And because
BIPOC respondents made up only around 20% of total responses, the data may be slightly
skewed because of that smaller sample size. However, I think this gap likely points to some
deeper systemic issues in the industry, underrepresentation of BIPOC folk in senior roles,
having respondents come from smaller firms with tighter budgets who are perhaps unable to
hire new staff and other long-standing barriers to advancement for BIPOC people. So, it's not
a huge gap, but it's definitely significant. And I think it demands further attention from us at
ACP, from publishers, and also from funders and policy makers alike.
So, moving on to geography, unsurprisingly, again, the majority of publishing professionals
still live and work in Ontario, particularly in the GTA. So, we found that 61% of respondents
are Ontario-based with around 40% of respondents living in the GTA. And while previously
noted, average salaries have slightly outpaced inflation since 2018, rising on average around
30% compared to inflation's 23%. That definitely doesn't mean they have kept up with the
cost of living. So, according to a report by the Wesley Institute, in 2024, a single working
age adult in the GTA needed to make on average between $61k and $83k after taxes to live
comfortably. And with average salaries from our reports in publishing being around $64k
before taxes, a publishing salary, unfortunately, in most cases, is not enough to live off of a
loan. So, while our industry is certainly better paid than it was six years ago, it's safe to say
that most wouldn't consider it well- paid. And beyond the cost of living, I think the
geographic concentration of jobs in publishing definitely has other implications. It reflects
where our publishing jobs are, but it also reflects where they aren't. So, if we want regional
diversity in both our workforce and our stories, I think it's important that jobs become a bit
more evenly distributed across the country.
Okay, moving on to some employment trends and firm types. We found that most survey
respondents work at Canadian- owned firms, so about 82% of the total. However, it's really
important to note that that number definitely does not reflect the actual percentage of workers
across the industry. Unfortunately, participation by multinational firms was quite
disappointing for this survey. There seemed to be a bit of reluctance by a lot of these
companies to advance information that might either identify respondents or maybe give a
glimpse of a company's overall compensation levels. So, most of the companies that
employed survey respondents are small because most of them are Canadian-owned. So, we
found that 58% employed 25 or fewer people and nearly 40% reported annual revenues
under a million.
approximately 30%, which is the same increase we saw specifically with women between
2018 and 2024. And I'll also note that we just didn't get enough data from non- binary or
other gender non- confirming respondents to analyse those averages meaningfully against the
salary data that we received.
So, unlike the 2018 survey, the 2024 version did include salary data disaggregated by race.
And while we did provide many response choices like gender, the data was just too granular
to place every racial identity against salary averages, especially since, as I previously
mentioned, 79% of respondents did identify as white. But what we were able to analyse is
that white respondents made on average around $66k while BIPOC respondents made an
average of $61,650. So, that is around a $4,400 gap or roughly a 7% difference. And because
BIPOC respondents made up only around 20% of total responses, the data may be slightly
skewed because of that smaller sample size. However, I think this gap likely points to some
deeper systemic issues in the industry, underrepresentation of BIPOC folk in senior roles,
having respondents come from smaller firms with tighter budgets who are perhaps unable to
hire new staff and other long-standing barriers to advancement for BIPOC people. So, it's not
a huge gap, but it's definitely significant. And I think it demands further attention from us at
ACP, from publishers, and also from funders and policy makers alike.
So, moving on to geography, unsurprisingly, again, the majority of publishing professionals
still live and work in Ontario, particularly in the GTA. So, we found that 61% of respondents
are Ontario-based with around 40% of respondents living in the GTA. And while previously
noted, average salaries have slightly outpaced inflation since 2018, rising on average around
30% compared to inflation's 23%. That definitely doesn't mean they have kept up with the
cost of living. So, according to a report by the Wesley Institute, in 2024, a single working
age adult in the GTA needed to make on average between $61k and $83k after taxes to live
comfortably. And with average salaries from our reports in publishing being around $64k
before taxes, a publishing salary, unfortunately, in most cases, is not enough to live off of a
loan. So, while our industry is certainly better paid than it was six years ago, it's safe to say
that most wouldn't consider it well- paid. And beyond the cost of living, I think the
geographic concentration of jobs in publishing definitely has other implications. It reflects
where our publishing jobs are, but it also reflects where they aren't. So, if we want regional
diversity in both our workforce and our stories, I think it's important that jobs become a bit
more evenly distributed across the country.
Okay, moving on to some employment trends and firm types. We found that most survey
respondents work at Canadian- owned firms, so about 82% of the total. However, it's really
important to note that that number definitely does not reflect the actual percentage of workers
across the industry. Unfortunately, participation by multinational firms was quite
disappointing for this survey. There seemed to be a bit of reluctance by a lot of these
companies to advance information that might either identify respondents or maybe give a
glimpse of a company's overall compensation levels. So, most of the companies that
employed survey respondents are small because most of them are Canadian-owned. So, we
found that 58% employed 25 or fewer people and nearly 40% reported annual revenues
under a million.
So, to put things in perspective again, Nordicity reported in 2023 that 23% of full-time
equivalents working in Canada worked at publishing firms with over 100 employees, while
in our survey we only reported around 16% working at companies with over 100 employees.
So, there's definitely a lack of responses from the larger companies operating in Canada,
many of which would be multinational. Although definitely small presses are the backbone
of Canadian publishing, they publish so much great Canadian literature, the reality is that a
lot of them operate on very small margins and that can limit their ability to raise salaries, to
invest in training or to even just hire new full-time staff. So, while salaries are improving,
there's definitely some structural financial constraints that remain.
Another theme that emerged from the data is that the publishing workforce in Canada
definitely has stability or maybe stagnation depending on how you look at it. So, we found in
the 2024 survey that 51% of respondents had been in publishing for 10 years or more, only
20% are under 30 and many respondents have been at the same company for many years.
This was actually quite a difference from 2018 where 38% of respondents were under 30.
Furthermore, only 11% of respondents in 2018 said they were over 50 while nearly a quarter
did in the 2024 survey.
So, it could be that older people are just getting newly hired but what seems more likely is
that the book publishing industry is fairly stable and just ageing in place. And this has pros
and cons. On the one hand, it seems like there for the most part, there isn't high turnover at
respondent firms, meaning that institutional memory is remaining strong. On the other hand,
without fresh voices and diverse perspectives entering the industry, we do risk falling behind
in some areas. So, this piece of data definitely points towards things like succession
planning, mentorship and inclusive hiring practices being pretty crucial to increasing
diversity at firms.
So, let's put that all together for some key takeaways. So, firstly, salaries are increasing,
especially in senior roles, but average salaries are still struggling to reach cost of living
standards in the cities where most publishers are based. Gender parity has improved
significantly, which is likely due to more women in senior roles and also just more
respondents to the survey in general. Racial pay disparities still exist, which definitely
highlights the need for continued action to address inequities and compensation. The
workforce is older, a bit more entrenched, which does raise questions about entry points for
new professionals and also more existential questions about what the industry will look like
once these older professionals who make up such a large proportion of the workforce have
aged out of the workforce. And finally, Ontario remains the epicentre of Canadian
publishing, which does in some ways limit access to jobs elsewhere in the country.
So, I think this data gives us a good snapshot of where we are, but just looking at what comes
next and what next steps we can take. So, depending on funding, we will likely conduct
another salary survey probably in the next five years or so. And I think for that next survey,
our most important task is to really increase survey participation, especially in
underrepresented groups and also multinational firms, so we can have just a more accurate
picture of the industry. And I think in the meantime, we can use the data we've gathered to
help address these equity gaps. So, specifically through companies conducting pay audits to
see where their pay falls with the national averages and also just fostering more salary
equivalents working in Canada worked at publishing firms with over 100 employees, while
in our survey we only reported around 16% working at companies with over 100 employees.
So, there's definitely a lack of responses from the larger companies operating in Canada,
many of which would be multinational. Although definitely small presses are the backbone
of Canadian publishing, they publish so much great Canadian literature, the reality is that a
lot of them operate on very small margins and that can limit their ability to raise salaries, to
invest in training or to even just hire new full-time staff. So, while salaries are improving,
there's definitely some structural financial constraints that remain.
Another theme that emerged from the data is that the publishing workforce in Canada
definitely has stability or maybe stagnation depending on how you look at it. So, we found in
the 2024 survey that 51% of respondents had been in publishing for 10 years or more, only
20% are under 30 and many respondents have been at the same company for many years.
This was actually quite a difference from 2018 where 38% of respondents were under 30.
Furthermore, only 11% of respondents in 2018 said they were over 50 while nearly a quarter
did in the 2024 survey.
So, it could be that older people are just getting newly hired but what seems more likely is
that the book publishing industry is fairly stable and just ageing in place. And this has pros
and cons. On the one hand, it seems like there for the most part, there isn't high turnover at
respondent firms, meaning that institutional memory is remaining strong. On the other hand,
without fresh voices and diverse perspectives entering the industry, we do risk falling behind
in some areas. So, this piece of data definitely points towards things like succession
planning, mentorship and inclusive hiring practices being pretty crucial to increasing
diversity at firms.
So, let's put that all together for some key takeaways. So, firstly, salaries are increasing,
especially in senior roles, but average salaries are still struggling to reach cost of living
standards in the cities where most publishers are based. Gender parity has improved
significantly, which is likely due to more women in senior roles and also just more
respondents to the survey in general. Racial pay disparities still exist, which definitely
highlights the need for continued action to address inequities and compensation. The
workforce is older, a bit more entrenched, which does raise questions about entry points for
new professionals and also more existential questions about what the industry will look like
once these older professionals who make up such a large proportion of the workforce have
aged out of the workforce. And finally, Ontario remains the epicentre of Canadian
publishing, which does in some ways limit access to jobs elsewhere in the country.
So, I think this data gives us a good snapshot of where we are, but just looking at what comes
next and what next steps we can take. So, depending on funding, we will likely conduct
another salary survey probably in the next five years or so. And I think for that next survey,
our most important task is to really increase survey participation, especially in
underrepresented groups and also multinational firms, so we can have just a more accurate
picture of the industry. And I think in the meantime, we can use the data we've gathered to
help address these equity gaps. So, specifically through companies conducting pay audits to
see where their pay falls with the national averages and also just fostering more salary
transparency at work. I also think we can support early career professionals with fair pay,
with mentorships, and also perhaps offering training outside of major cities where the cost of
living is so high.
And of course, ACP encourages everyone to use this data for advocacy. So, whether that's
conversations that we're having or our board are having with funding bodies in the
government to increase funding for our industry, or just the conversations that employees
may be having with their bosses or their HR representatives about their pay. So, thank you
for listening. That's all I have for presenting the data. A special thank you to everyone in the
room who participated in the survey or helped share the survey. The data that you provided I
think is truly valuable to understanding the current state of Canadian publishing and also for
working to improve conditions not only for ourselves now but also for future generations of
publishing professionals. So, I hope this data and this presentation helps spark conversation.
And I'm looking forward to the conversation that follows and any questions from the
audience. So, I think now I'll turn it back to Don to moderate.
Don: Wonderful. Thank you very much, Dani. That is an incredible amount of information.
And I feel like we could probably go for another hour, two hours, parsing out some of that
stuff. It's phenomenal. So, thank you very much for your presentation. As a reminder to
everybody, the panelists today are Phuong Trong, Co- Publisher at Second Story Press, and
Ruth Linka, the Publisher at Orca Book Publishers.
We have some questions that we're going to run through here. And then as mentioned earlier,
we're going to stop the questions and move to a Q&A session with the audience. So, please
ensure that you are throwing your questions into the chat or the Q&A box, and we will do
everything we can to get to those leading up to the end of today's session.
So, I'm going to start with the first question here. And honestly, listening to Dani, there were
so many questions that were popping into my head that go beyond the scope and breadth of
what we've already got here. So, apologies to everybody if we don't cover everything. So, the
first question to the panel, how does your organisation currently prioritise justice, equity,
diversity, and inclusion? And what strategies have worked best? And if it's okay, I'd like to
start with Phuong.
Phuong Truong: Thanks, Don. Well, diversity is one of the cornerstones of our mandate.
So, it really does benefit us to have that diversity reflected in our staff. And to that end, when
we post for a job, we try to do it widely as possible what we post with the BIPOC of
publishing group. And then when we are assessing the resumes, we obviously choose the
most qualified candidates, but often there are ways to see sometimes if an applicant belongs
to one of these equity-seeking groups. And even if their resume does not look quite as good,
we will try to give them an interview as well, just to give them that extra opportunity and just
even a chance at an interview is often helpful. And then beyond that, all of our staff are
involved in the editorial process. So, we try to really hear what everyone has to say in
regards to what we're producing.
Don: Great. Thank you, Phuong. Ruth.
with mentorships, and also perhaps offering training outside of major cities where the cost of
living is so high.
And of course, ACP encourages everyone to use this data for advocacy. So, whether that's
conversations that we're having or our board are having with funding bodies in the
government to increase funding for our industry, or just the conversations that employees
may be having with their bosses or their HR representatives about their pay. So, thank you
for listening. That's all I have for presenting the data. A special thank you to everyone in the
room who participated in the survey or helped share the survey. The data that you provided I
think is truly valuable to understanding the current state of Canadian publishing and also for
working to improve conditions not only for ourselves now but also for future generations of
publishing professionals. So, I hope this data and this presentation helps spark conversation.
And I'm looking forward to the conversation that follows and any questions from the
audience. So, I think now I'll turn it back to Don to moderate.
Don: Wonderful. Thank you very much, Dani. That is an incredible amount of information.
And I feel like we could probably go for another hour, two hours, parsing out some of that
stuff. It's phenomenal. So, thank you very much for your presentation. As a reminder to
everybody, the panelists today are Phuong Trong, Co- Publisher at Second Story Press, and
Ruth Linka, the Publisher at Orca Book Publishers.
We have some questions that we're going to run through here. And then as mentioned earlier,
we're going to stop the questions and move to a Q&A session with the audience. So, please
ensure that you are throwing your questions into the chat or the Q&A box, and we will do
everything we can to get to those leading up to the end of today's session.
So, I'm going to start with the first question here. And honestly, listening to Dani, there were
so many questions that were popping into my head that go beyond the scope and breadth of
what we've already got here. So, apologies to everybody if we don't cover everything. So, the
first question to the panel, how does your organisation currently prioritise justice, equity,
diversity, and inclusion? And what strategies have worked best? And if it's okay, I'd like to
start with Phuong.
Phuong Truong: Thanks, Don. Well, diversity is one of the cornerstones of our mandate.
So, it really does benefit us to have that diversity reflected in our staff. And to that end, when
we post for a job, we try to do it widely as possible what we post with the BIPOC of
publishing group. And then when we are assessing the resumes, we obviously choose the
most qualified candidates, but often there are ways to see sometimes if an applicant belongs
to one of these equity-seeking groups. And even if their resume does not look quite as good,
we will try to give them an interview as well, just to give them that extra opportunity and just
even a chance at an interview is often helpful. And then beyond that, all of our staff are
involved in the editorial process. So, we try to really hear what everyone has to say in
regards to what we're producing.
Don: Great. Thank you, Phuong. Ruth.
Ruth Linka: Yeah, I would echo everything that Phuong has said. I don't know when exactly
it started, where it became clear that we could not produce certain books without having
people involved in the publishing process, sales, marketing, who had the right lens, who were
coming from a different perspective than what used to be...well, still is a primarily settler,
white industry. So, we started looking more purposefully for people, like I don't even know,
at least a decade ago, for people to hire.
It's been a challenge. And I think that some of the publishing programs and the educational
side of things, that's actually starting to help bring more diverse candidates into the pool of
people we can hire. I don't want to focus too much on hiring, but I'll just say one more thing,
which is the weirdly silver lining of COVID is that for a company so far out of the GTA, we
became more adept and more willing, I guess, to work with people remotely. It presents its
own set of challenges, but now more than half of our company doesn't work in our Victoria
office. So, that, in a sort of indirect way, has allowed us to hire from a broader group of
people and more diverse people, even if it's just geographically, but it has been in all sorts of
ways. So, that's been a sort of unexpected benefit of COVID changing the way our physical
office and not physical office has been expanding. So, that's really focusing on the hiring
stuff. Do you want us to also talk about day -to-day here in the office?
Don: Well, actually, you know what? I think the hiring component is actually quite
interesting, because the first thing that popped into my head, and we certainly don't want to
get bogged down in the hiring process, but I'm curious as to when you are putting out a call
to hire, are either of you seeing more applications coming in from a diverse representation of
candidates, or is it still a pretty white settler-dominated raft of applicants coming in from
across the country?
Ruth: For us, it's still predominantly... I mean, it's hard to know for sure, but for people who
self-identify, it is still predominantly white-presenting or physically able. I guess maybe...
And this is reflected in the survey. There has been an uptick in LGBTQ applicants over the
decade for sure or 15 years. But, yeah, it's still a struggle. And as Phuong said, we definitely
are trying to pull out any applicants who identify from an underrepresented category so that
they're in the mix of sort of the shortlist that we're considering. We recently hired a non-
fiction editor, and we had just over 200 applicants. And part of that was because we said it
didn't have to be here in Victoria, so we had applications from all over. So, that was a huge
job going through it, and even then, there weren't a lot of people from underrepresented
categories.
Don: Great. Thank you, Phuong. Are you seeing the same thing?
Phuong: I think it depends really on, for us, the type of job. If it's an entry-level position, we
tend to see a lot more diversity, because I think for the more senior roles, the people already
in the industry are, as we know, predominantly white. But for those entry-level positions,
there is a lot more diversity overall.
Don: Great, thank you. So, moving on, what have been the key drivers of change in the
pursuit of compensation equity at your firms? Can you share any examples of what's worked,
it started, where it became clear that we could not produce certain books without having
people involved in the publishing process, sales, marketing, who had the right lens, who were
coming from a different perspective than what used to be...well, still is a primarily settler,
white industry. So, we started looking more purposefully for people, like I don't even know,
at least a decade ago, for people to hire.
It's been a challenge. And I think that some of the publishing programs and the educational
side of things, that's actually starting to help bring more diverse candidates into the pool of
people we can hire. I don't want to focus too much on hiring, but I'll just say one more thing,
which is the weirdly silver lining of COVID is that for a company so far out of the GTA, we
became more adept and more willing, I guess, to work with people remotely. It presents its
own set of challenges, but now more than half of our company doesn't work in our Victoria
office. So, that, in a sort of indirect way, has allowed us to hire from a broader group of
people and more diverse people, even if it's just geographically, but it has been in all sorts of
ways. So, that's been a sort of unexpected benefit of COVID changing the way our physical
office and not physical office has been expanding. So, that's really focusing on the hiring
stuff. Do you want us to also talk about day -to-day here in the office?
Don: Well, actually, you know what? I think the hiring component is actually quite
interesting, because the first thing that popped into my head, and we certainly don't want to
get bogged down in the hiring process, but I'm curious as to when you are putting out a call
to hire, are either of you seeing more applications coming in from a diverse representation of
candidates, or is it still a pretty white settler-dominated raft of applicants coming in from
across the country?
Ruth: For us, it's still predominantly... I mean, it's hard to know for sure, but for people who
self-identify, it is still predominantly white-presenting or physically able. I guess maybe...
And this is reflected in the survey. There has been an uptick in LGBTQ applicants over the
decade for sure or 15 years. But, yeah, it's still a struggle. And as Phuong said, we definitely
are trying to pull out any applicants who identify from an underrepresented category so that
they're in the mix of sort of the shortlist that we're considering. We recently hired a non-
fiction editor, and we had just over 200 applicants. And part of that was because we said it
didn't have to be here in Victoria, so we had applications from all over. So, that was a huge
job going through it, and even then, there weren't a lot of people from underrepresented
categories.
Don: Great. Thank you, Phuong. Are you seeing the same thing?
Phuong: I think it depends really on, for us, the type of job. If it's an entry-level position, we
tend to see a lot more diversity, because I think for the more senior roles, the people already
in the industry are, as we know, predominantly white. But for those entry-level positions,
there is a lot more diversity overall.
Don: Great, thank you. So, moving on, what have been the key drivers of change in the
pursuit of compensation equity at your firms? Can you share any examples of what's worked,
or maybe more importantly, what hasn't worked? Phuong, would you like to continue?
Would that be okay?
Phuong: I think the most important thing for us is to have regular check- ins with our staff, so
that really gives them an opportunity to let us know if something's not right in terms of their
own job or just their overall compensation, how they're feeling. So, really it's just important
to keep, kind of, an open door policy and just make sure that people are feeling comfortable
enough to speak their mind.
Don: And Ruth?
Ruth: Yeah, I think an open and empathetic workplace is actually the first step to all good
things, including diversity. So, I would agree with Phuong on that. We have really strived to
have that in ours. In terms of actually having salaries go up, we've, well, maybe since
COVID, really made it a priority to bring people at the lower end up to the point where
directors and managers have not received increases or have received much smaller increases
so that we would focus our budget on bringing folks at the bottom up, trying to level things
out more. And from what I can tell, everyone, including directors, are happy with this
decision, and I think it has, you know, fed back into that feeling that we're a team and that we
have to care about our co-workers and just really understanding and emphasising the value of
each person in the company, regardless of what they do. And to me, that is foundational and
feeds into a lot of things in the company that help us run a better company and make better
books, frankly.
Don: Great, thank you. You both touched on the notion of empathy coming from ownership,
senior staff and management, in terms of being open and transparent in the conversations
with staff. I'm wondering, in terms of looking at the other side, so how might salary data
empower publishing professionals or those who want to get into publishing, especially those
from marginalised communities, how would the data allow them to advocate for themselves?
Because I think that that is a really important component in this conversation, because I don't
think we can rely on ownership, senior staff or management, to ensure that EDI is always
adhered to. So, the role of advocacy for individuals applying, do you think the salary data is
going to help empower people when they are applying for jobs and to speak up?
Ruth: I think yes. I mean, I think it's great to have this information widely available. I would
disagree with you. I like to believe my colleagues are all keen to make sure there is pay
equity in their companies. I don't know. Well, I hope that we're all striving to do better for
sure, that we've had people... You know, and listing the position with the pay range has been
a really great change. And it allows the conversation sort of to be upfront right away, rather
than this sort of secretive or whatever mysterious kind of part of the hiring process.
So, that transparency I think is super important. In fact, at one point, I think I wrote down on
a sticky for myself that transparency equals better treatment or equal treatment for all. And I
didn't even mean that in terms of salary. I meant it in terms of all sorts of things. But for sure,
starting the conversation out when you join a new company or are interviewing and having
that be upfront is, I think, really valuable. It also can provoke conversation about why certain
Would that be okay?
Phuong: I think the most important thing for us is to have regular check- ins with our staff, so
that really gives them an opportunity to let us know if something's not right in terms of their
own job or just their overall compensation, how they're feeling. So, really it's just important
to keep, kind of, an open door policy and just make sure that people are feeling comfortable
enough to speak their mind.
Don: And Ruth?
Ruth: Yeah, I think an open and empathetic workplace is actually the first step to all good
things, including diversity. So, I would agree with Phuong on that. We have really strived to
have that in ours. In terms of actually having salaries go up, we've, well, maybe since
COVID, really made it a priority to bring people at the lower end up to the point where
directors and managers have not received increases or have received much smaller increases
so that we would focus our budget on bringing folks at the bottom up, trying to level things
out more. And from what I can tell, everyone, including directors, are happy with this
decision, and I think it has, you know, fed back into that feeling that we're a team and that we
have to care about our co-workers and just really understanding and emphasising the value of
each person in the company, regardless of what they do. And to me, that is foundational and
feeds into a lot of things in the company that help us run a better company and make better
books, frankly.
Don: Great, thank you. You both touched on the notion of empathy coming from ownership,
senior staff and management, in terms of being open and transparent in the conversations
with staff. I'm wondering, in terms of looking at the other side, so how might salary data
empower publishing professionals or those who want to get into publishing, especially those
from marginalised communities, how would the data allow them to advocate for themselves?
Because I think that that is a really important component in this conversation, because I don't
think we can rely on ownership, senior staff or management, to ensure that EDI is always
adhered to. So, the role of advocacy for individuals applying, do you think the salary data is
going to help empower people when they are applying for jobs and to speak up?
Ruth: I think yes. I mean, I think it's great to have this information widely available. I would
disagree with you. I like to believe my colleagues are all keen to make sure there is pay
equity in their companies. I don't know. Well, I hope that we're all striving to do better for
sure, that we've had people... You know, and listing the position with the pay range has been
a really great change. And it allows the conversation sort of to be upfront right away, rather
than this sort of secretive or whatever mysterious kind of part of the hiring process.
So, that transparency I think is super important. In fact, at one point, I think I wrote down on
a sticky for myself that transparency equals better treatment or equal treatment for all. And I
didn't even mean that in terms of salary. I meant it in terms of all sorts of things. But for sure,
starting the conversation out when you join a new company or are interviewing and having
that be upfront is, I think, really valuable. It also can provoke conversation about why certain
positions are paid more than others, which forces management then to think about it or
justify it.
Don: Absolutely. Thank you. Phuong, any thoughts on that?
Phuong: I would agree with what Ruth said and add that I think that the addition of those
salary ranges in job postings was a tremendous step towards transparency. And it gives
current employees the opportunity to see what the going rate is sometimes for a role with all
of the duties listed out. And they can compare and say, "Well, I'm doing the same kind of
things, but I'm making X amount of money." So, it just gives everyone more information
moving forward.
Don: Absolutely. Thank you. I am conscious of the time here. We're at 11:47. I'd like to get
to the audience Q&A at 11:50. So, I just want to touch on one thing that actually wasn't in
the questions that we had previously supplied that came up in the survey was the notion of an
ageing workforce in publishing. And I think that is very obvious, given that a majority of the
people in positions of power, I think, were over 50 years old. And I'm wondering what either
of you think that actually means in terms of what's going on in Canadian publishing? Is that
because retirement is probably not an option or are people holding on to positions of
perceived power, simply because, A, it's a great job or they don't have a succession plan?
Ruth: I don't have stats to back this up. But from when I started in the industry, it felt like the
people...the owners and the most senior positions were held by people who were even older
than 50, like 60 and 70 years old. It feels like that's actually calmed down a bit now and is
spread sort of between 50 and up. So, I don't know if that's just a feeling I have, but what you
said, I think it's all of those things. I think people don't want to retire. I think people don't
know how to pass their companies along. I think succession is a whole separate topic we
could spend two hours on and how that's not working very well, Phuong, of course, being a
great example of how it is. But, you know, also, as someone in a senior role in my 50s, is
looking at the workforce and thinking, "Well, who are the people that want to move up? Who
are the people that are going to come?" They have not clearly identified themselves to me
yet. It's not a clear path yet for those of us who might want to retire in 10 or 15 years. There
is no clear way that that's going to sharpen, both in terms of the people but also in terms of
the finances. So, yeah, it's a problem.
Don: Great. Phuong, any thoughts?
Phuong: Yeah, definitely. All of the above, for sure. And I think that... Well, I hope that as
some of the older staff kind of decide to retire, that we'll see that pay gap between the BIPOC
employees and the non -BIPOC starts to close, because there's currently just not any room for
anyone to move up really.
Don: Yeah, I think you're right. As well as, I think the notion of 50 being part of this data set,
that actually needs to shift. That seems like a dated sort of number. I don't want to suggest
that 60 is the new 50 or vice versa, but I think 50 is pretty young to set a bar in terms of an
age gap. So, I would propose that maybe the future survey should look at 60 plus, which
means that when the next survey is done, I will be in the 60 plus category, which that's not
great. But anyway, thank you very much for going through these questions. I'd love to open it
justify it.
Don: Absolutely. Thank you. Phuong, any thoughts on that?
Phuong: I would agree with what Ruth said and add that I think that the addition of those
salary ranges in job postings was a tremendous step towards transparency. And it gives
current employees the opportunity to see what the going rate is sometimes for a role with all
of the duties listed out. And they can compare and say, "Well, I'm doing the same kind of
things, but I'm making X amount of money." So, it just gives everyone more information
moving forward.
Don: Absolutely. Thank you. I am conscious of the time here. We're at 11:47. I'd like to get
to the audience Q&A at 11:50. So, I just want to touch on one thing that actually wasn't in
the questions that we had previously supplied that came up in the survey was the notion of an
ageing workforce in publishing. And I think that is very obvious, given that a majority of the
people in positions of power, I think, were over 50 years old. And I'm wondering what either
of you think that actually means in terms of what's going on in Canadian publishing? Is that
because retirement is probably not an option or are people holding on to positions of
perceived power, simply because, A, it's a great job or they don't have a succession plan?
Ruth: I don't have stats to back this up. But from when I started in the industry, it felt like the
people...the owners and the most senior positions were held by people who were even older
than 50, like 60 and 70 years old. It feels like that's actually calmed down a bit now and is
spread sort of between 50 and up. So, I don't know if that's just a feeling I have, but what you
said, I think it's all of those things. I think people don't want to retire. I think people don't
know how to pass their companies along. I think succession is a whole separate topic we
could spend two hours on and how that's not working very well, Phuong, of course, being a
great example of how it is. But, you know, also, as someone in a senior role in my 50s, is
looking at the workforce and thinking, "Well, who are the people that want to move up? Who
are the people that are going to come?" They have not clearly identified themselves to me
yet. It's not a clear path yet for those of us who might want to retire in 10 or 15 years. There
is no clear way that that's going to sharpen, both in terms of the people but also in terms of
the finances. So, yeah, it's a problem.
Don: Great. Phuong, any thoughts?
Phuong: Yeah, definitely. All of the above, for sure. And I think that... Well, I hope that as
some of the older staff kind of decide to retire, that we'll see that pay gap between the BIPOC
employees and the non -BIPOC starts to close, because there's currently just not any room for
anyone to move up really.
Don: Yeah, I think you're right. As well as, I think the notion of 50 being part of this data set,
that actually needs to shift. That seems like a dated sort of number. I don't want to suggest
that 60 is the new 50 or vice versa, but I think 50 is pretty young to set a bar in terms of an
age gap. So, I would propose that maybe the future survey should look at 60 plus, which
means that when the next survey is done, I will be in the 60 plus category, which that's not
great. But anyway, thank you very much for going through these questions. I'd love to open it
up now to questions from the audience. So, the first question here is, why wait for
approximately five years for the next survey instead of doing this yearly?
Dani: I can answer that.
Don: Yeah, thank you, Dani. Sorry.
Dani: Mostly a money issue, ironically. We could do it potentially more often. I threw five
years out because that's usually when we do our diversity baseline survey, so I saw them kind
of going in tandem that way. But a lot of the grants that we're applying to do the research
only allow you to get one grant within a two or three year period. So, we would have to wait
for that unless we could find funding from somewhere else. But it's definitely something to
discuss. I don't think we'd be doing it yearly, but maybe three years would be a better gap if
we're looking to get that data more quickly.
Don: Great. Thank you. Another question in terms of the survey itself, do your findings only
apply to full-time workers or do you account for part-time or four-day-per-week workers and
remote versus in-office?
Dani: Yeah, so in terms of full-time versus part-time, we did within the questions have
people select whether they were full-time or part- time or contract. And if they were part-
time, we asked them to put their hours per week and the wage they got, whether it was hourly
or salaried. However, I will say that just in terms of numbers, it was 81% who answered the
survey were full-time employees. So, that was definitely accounted for most of the
respondents. And for those respondents who weren't full-time, we just calculated out on
average what their salary would be against full-time if they had worked full- time hours,
which isn't perfect just because especially with freelancers who made up a pretty small
percentage of survey respondents, their salaries might be or their wages might be a little bit
higher because they're not getting a stable work. But for the most part, these are for full-time
five days per week work. But that would be interesting... I see that Karen asked about remote
versus in- office. We didn't specifically ask questions about that, so we can't put those against
salary data. We did in our last diversity baseline survey ask about whether people were
hybrid, remote or fully in-office. So, there's some data just on the demographics there. But I
think that would be interesting. It would depend in terms of salary, I think, like someone
working remotely who perhaps maybe would have had to work in Toronto otherwise. But if
it's remote and you would have been working somewhere with a lower cost of living
anyways, I don't think it would make that much of a difference. But that would be interesting
for the next survey for sure.
Don: Great, thank you. And we do have a number of questions actually related to retirement
plans. So, the first one is for the next survey, can you also ask things like, do you plan to
retire in the next five years? And do you plan or hope to stay in the publishing industry long-
term? As well as, as the older workers retire, how can publishers encouraging young people
to stay or even enter the industry when the salaries are so far below the living wage? So, the
first question, can you include something like, do you plan to retire in the next five years?
Dani: We definitely can. I'm trying to remember, I think in the diversity baseline, we didn't
ask about retirement, but we did ask a question about, are you looking like...do you see
approximately five years for the next survey instead of doing this yearly?
Dani: I can answer that.
Don: Yeah, thank you, Dani. Sorry.
Dani: Mostly a money issue, ironically. We could do it potentially more often. I threw five
years out because that's usually when we do our diversity baseline survey, so I saw them kind
of going in tandem that way. But a lot of the grants that we're applying to do the research
only allow you to get one grant within a two or three year period. So, we would have to wait
for that unless we could find funding from somewhere else. But it's definitely something to
discuss. I don't think we'd be doing it yearly, but maybe three years would be a better gap if
we're looking to get that data more quickly.
Don: Great. Thank you. Another question in terms of the survey itself, do your findings only
apply to full-time workers or do you account for part-time or four-day-per-week workers and
remote versus in-office?
Dani: Yeah, so in terms of full-time versus part-time, we did within the questions have
people select whether they were full-time or part- time or contract. And if they were part-
time, we asked them to put their hours per week and the wage they got, whether it was hourly
or salaried. However, I will say that just in terms of numbers, it was 81% who answered the
survey were full-time employees. So, that was definitely accounted for most of the
respondents. And for those respondents who weren't full-time, we just calculated out on
average what their salary would be against full-time if they had worked full- time hours,
which isn't perfect just because especially with freelancers who made up a pretty small
percentage of survey respondents, their salaries might be or their wages might be a little bit
higher because they're not getting a stable work. But for the most part, these are for full-time
five days per week work. But that would be interesting... I see that Karen asked about remote
versus in- office. We didn't specifically ask questions about that, so we can't put those against
salary data. We did in our last diversity baseline survey ask about whether people were
hybrid, remote or fully in-office. So, there's some data just on the demographics there. But I
think that would be interesting. It would depend in terms of salary, I think, like someone
working remotely who perhaps maybe would have had to work in Toronto otherwise. But if
it's remote and you would have been working somewhere with a lower cost of living
anyways, I don't think it would make that much of a difference. But that would be interesting
for the next survey for sure.
Don: Great, thank you. And we do have a number of questions actually related to retirement
plans. So, the first one is for the next survey, can you also ask things like, do you plan to
retire in the next five years? And do you plan or hope to stay in the publishing industry long-
term? As well as, as the older workers retire, how can publishers encouraging young people
to stay or even enter the industry when the salaries are so far below the living wage? So, the
first question, can you include something like, do you plan to retire in the next five years?
Dani: We definitely can. I'm trying to remember, I think in the diversity baseline, we didn't
ask about retirement, but we did ask a question about, are you looking like...do you see
yourself in the next five years continuing in publishing? So, that was more like changing
industries and less about retirement. But we do have some stats on that from the last survey.
But that's definitely something to add. Something I will say we struggled with this survey is
that the longer you make a survey, the less people you're going to have filling it out. And we
really did want all this demographic information to disaggregate it against the salary data
because I think it's important to look at those equity benchmarks. But the more we put in, the
more survey fatigue. And people are always filling out so many surveys as it is. So, it is a
little bit of a game of figuring out what the most important benchmarks are and making a
survey that's accessible to everyone and not, kind of, overwhelming in that sense. But I do
appreciate any feedback on the survey design. I'll definitely write it down. And when we do
the next survey, I'll have all those points ready.
Don: That's great. Thank you very much. This'll probably the last question here, and I'm
going to throw this out to the panelists. How can early career workers be given opportunities
to gain relevant experience to move laterally in other publishing departments? Phuong, since
you're the first one on my screen, would you mind?
Phuong: That's a hard one. I think companies are constrained by their size. So, I don't know
that, in our case, there would be a ton of room for an actual lateral move. But we do, like I
said, have everyone participate in all parts of the process of producing the book. So, in that
sense, they are gaining experience. Whether or not we can accommodate a new role for them
ourselves is hard to say.
Don: Yeah. Thank you. Ruth, any thoughts on lateral moves?
Ruth: Yeah, we do a lot of that. We often hire and think about how that person might expand
as they get more training. And because we have a distribution and a customer service and a
marketing team, there's lots of sort of junior or entry-level roles. And we find that a lot of
people have moved up from whatever those junior roles are into other... And we like that
because we want to keep that memory with us. So, we're eager to move people around so
they have that job satisfaction and learning opportunity.
I just wanted to also just go back slightly, Don, to the other question about bringing new and
young people into the industry. And I just thought it'd be worth talking a little bit about the
non-money compensation parts of publishing, the benefits that some companies can offer.
We have an RSP program. You know, a big reason why people can't retire out is because
they don't have pensions. So, we're hoping to sort of mitigate that for the folks who are
starting out in publishing so that they're starting to build something now. But thinking about
the flexibility in the workplace and working remotely, those are all things that are hard to
quantify but I think are markers of our industry. And, of course, the great creative work. But
trying to find other ways to bring flexibility and satisfaction to the jobs, I think, is part of
what we need to be doing more of as well.
Don: Thank you. That's a really nice way to end this conversation on a positive note. So,
there are perks to being in publishing. It's a wonderful industry. I think a majority of us have
been in it for decades and plan to stay by choice for as long as we possibly can. So, thank
you very much, Ruth and Phuong, for taking part. And thank you, Dani, for all the
industries and less about retirement. But we do have some stats on that from the last survey.
But that's definitely something to add. Something I will say we struggled with this survey is
that the longer you make a survey, the less people you're going to have filling it out. And we
really did want all this demographic information to disaggregate it against the salary data
because I think it's important to look at those equity benchmarks. But the more we put in, the
more survey fatigue. And people are always filling out so many surveys as it is. So, it is a
little bit of a game of figuring out what the most important benchmarks are and making a
survey that's accessible to everyone and not, kind of, overwhelming in that sense. But I do
appreciate any feedback on the survey design. I'll definitely write it down. And when we do
the next survey, I'll have all those points ready.
Don: That's great. Thank you very much. This'll probably the last question here, and I'm
going to throw this out to the panelists. How can early career workers be given opportunities
to gain relevant experience to move laterally in other publishing departments? Phuong, since
you're the first one on my screen, would you mind?
Phuong: That's a hard one. I think companies are constrained by their size. So, I don't know
that, in our case, there would be a ton of room for an actual lateral move. But we do, like I
said, have everyone participate in all parts of the process of producing the book. So, in that
sense, they are gaining experience. Whether or not we can accommodate a new role for them
ourselves is hard to say.
Don: Yeah. Thank you. Ruth, any thoughts on lateral moves?
Ruth: Yeah, we do a lot of that. We often hire and think about how that person might expand
as they get more training. And because we have a distribution and a customer service and a
marketing team, there's lots of sort of junior or entry-level roles. And we find that a lot of
people have moved up from whatever those junior roles are into other... And we like that
because we want to keep that memory with us. So, we're eager to move people around so
they have that job satisfaction and learning opportunity.
I just wanted to also just go back slightly, Don, to the other question about bringing new and
young people into the industry. And I just thought it'd be worth talking a little bit about the
non-money compensation parts of publishing, the benefits that some companies can offer.
We have an RSP program. You know, a big reason why people can't retire out is because
they don't have pensions. So, we're hoping to sort of mitigate that for the folks who are
starting out in publishing so that they're starting to build something now. But thinking about
the flexibility in the workplace and working remotely, those are all things that are hard to
quantify but I think are markers of our industry. And, of course, the great creative work. But
trying to find other ways to bring flexibility and satisfaction to the jobs, I think, is part of
what we need to be doing more of as well.
Don: Thank you. That's a really nice way to end this conversation on a positive note. So,
there are perks to being in publishing. It's a wonderful industry. I think a majority of us have
been in it for decades and plan to stay by choice for as long as we possibly can. So, thank
you very much, Ruth and Phuong, for taking part. And thank you, Dani, for all the
information. We really appreciate it. And I'm going to pass it over to Stephanie for closing
remarks. Thank you, everybody, for attending.
Stephanie: All right. Thank you so much, everyone, Don, Dani, Phuong, Ruth, for joining us
today. Super insightful. Lots of great data to dive into. Before we let everyone go, we would
love it if you could provide feedback on the session. We'll drop a link to the survey in the
chat. So, if you could take a couple of minutes to fill that out, that would be wonderful. We
will also be emailing a link to the recording of this session as soon as it's available.
To all of our attendees, we do invite you to join our upcoming session, "Book Industry State
of the Nation 2025," which is scheduled for June 26. And lastly, we'd like to thank the
Department of Canadian Heritage for their support through the Canada Book Fund. And
again, thanks to you all for attending.
remarks. Thank you, everybody, for attending.
Stephanie: All right. Thank you so much, everyone, Don, Dani, Phuong, Ruth, for joining us
today. Super insightful. Lots of great data to dive into. Before we let everyone go, we would
love it if you could provide feedback on the session. We'll drop a link to the survey in the
chat. So, if you could take a couple of minutes to fill that out, that would be wonderful. We
will also be emailing a link to the recording of this session as soon as it's available.
To all of our attendees, we do invite you to join our upcoming session, "Book Industry State
of the Nation 2025," which is scheduled for June 26. And lastly, we'd like to thank the
Department of Canadian Heritage for their support through the Canada Book Fund. And
again, thanks to you all for attending.
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