So you want to work in publishing?
A conversation with Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing
Publishing might seem like a closed world, but behind every book lies a web of people, skills and ideas. Here, Salt’s co-founder Chris Hamilton-Emery talks about how he found his way into the trade, why it needs new voices, and what makes it one of the most rewarding industries to work in today.
Publishing can seem like an opaque or even elitist world – a closed shop for a lucky few with the right degree or the right connections. Yet the truth is much more interesting. Behind every book lies a web of people and skills: editors and designers, lawyers and accountants, sales teams, publicists and printers – all working to bring an author’s vision to life.
In this conversation, Salt co-founder Chris Hamilton-Emery talks candidly about how he stumbled into the industry, what publishing really involves, and why it remains one of the most creative and collaborative trades around. His message is simple: if you love books and you’re determined, there’s a place for you here.
Q. Chris, publishing often seems like a mysterious or closed world. How did you first get into it – and what drew you to stay?
A. I fell into publishing by accident. I was working at the British Council in a design department that provided corporate services but also had a small ELT publishing component. I ran a superb group of designers – my first managerial role – and although I’m not sure I was the best boss, I tried. The ELT element involved developing course books for the British Council’s English-language schools, and that gave me a taste for books.
When a vacancy appeared at Cambridge University Press, I decided to move from corporate identity and design management into publishing – and I never looked back.
However, publishing can seem tricky to enter, with class and geographic barriers (almost all corporate publishing is in London). You’re more likely to have studied publishing at university or to have come from a parallel industry such as PR or even gaming. But the thing to remember is that you can start your own publishing business for relatively little cost – it depends on whether you want to work inside a corporation or go it alone.
Publishing needs greater diversity, not only in terms of ethnicity and gender, but also socio-economic background and geography. We need people from the North, the East and the West, as well as those living in or around the capital. It’s an industry for everyone – but you have to be determined.
Q. For someone who’s never considered publishing as a career, how would you describe what it actually is – what kind of work happens inside a publishing house?
A. I think many people’s idea of publishing might involve public school, Oxford, and a family friend in some trade division of a London conglomerate – followed by an editorial job and clawing over proofs each weekend in your Surrey cottage.
However, publishing is far more than editorial. You might work in distribution – surely one of the hardest sectors – getting books from warehouse to warehouse, to bookshops and events (and back again). Or in international sales – travelling the globe, meeting booksellers in Egypt, South Africa, Russia and New Zealand. There’s legal – sorting contracts, exploring the implications of AI and copyright. Publicity – finding the ideas behind the books that capture the imagination of broadcasters, journalists, festivals and influencers. Or sound engineering, recording authors for audiobooks and podcasts. Or design and production, making the objects beautiful, desirable, sustainable and durable.
There are so many occupations within publishing – and of course, if you go it alone, you may need skills in all of these areas.
“Publishing is an industry for everyone – but you have to be determined.”
Q. What sort of skills or qualities do you think are valuable, especially for people starting out?
A. Adaptability, passion and resilience are all basic skills everyone needs in publishing – but the whole industry is a people business, and I’d put people skills very high on the list. As you may gather from my answer to your earlier question, you will be required to work with people from very different sectors, with quite distinctive skill sets, and publishing is an integrative activity, drawing these people together to produce this small artefact of words and pages that can be sold for the price of a coffee.
Whether you have good language skills, excellent design skills, exceptional taste, or are good at negotiating, everything ultimately comes down to selling to readers. I hope everyone gains some experience of doing this in person. Persuading a reader of the importance of a book and convincing them to buy it is a pretty core activity – everyone in the industry must lean into that eventuality: bookseller to reader.
Q. Do you think you need a specific degree or background – English, creative writing, that sort of thing – or are there other paths in?
A. While a degree is a solid marker of commitment and fastidiousness, it’s often just the start of the journey. You don’t necessarily need a degree, but it’s extremely common to find the highly educated in the sector. However, I’m not sure that this is the exclusive or even best route into the business.
Publishing is a trade, first and foremost – and if you love reading and books you can find a path into the industry. Still, it would be silly to think this is easy, and with the rise of publishing degrees, it’s certainly easier to find young graduates with considerable understanding of the matrix of skills and professions that inform and enable contemporary publishing.
I don’t think publishing is now the province of those with English degrees – it’s the more trade-focused training that matters. You’re not being employed as a critic or as an expert in Reader-Response theory or Adorno’s thoughts on the culture industry. We need people who can find texts that people desire at scale.
Q. What makes working in independent publishing different from working for one of the big conglomerates?
A. The main difference between working in independent publishing and a conglomerate is scale. As an indie, you are more intimately involved in every component of the myriad processes that go into creating and selling books. In a large corporate, you may have a relatively narrow range of experiences – highly focused within one department or imprint, with this huge machinery and financing happening out of view, someplace else.
I love to see how people migrate from one sector to another – and whether a successful executive from a larger player can make it as a sole trader with their own imprint. And of course, vice versa. There’s a big difference in terms of fragility too – while indies can build considerable cultural capital, they often don’t have the financial capabilities of conglomerates to chase success with cash. So there are distinct imbalances there.
But wherever you end up, the aims are the same – putting books you believe readers want to buy into a public commercial space. We live and die by those choices.
“Publishing is a trade, first and foremost – and if you love reading and books you can find a path into the industry.”
Q. Publishing has a reputation for being London-centric. Do you think that’s still true?
A. Yes, publishing is still dominated by London, and other industries that feed it and support it are based in the capital too – media and broadcasting, film and finance. It’s all there. So if you’re based in Middlesbrough and want to be in publishing you’ll need to make some hard choices. Do you follow the money to central London, or do you develop relationships and infrastructure around you in the provinces? That can be very tough.
Manchester is developing a considerable presence, though. The same issues are not true for academic publishing, which is much more decentralised – though attached to the major universities, of course.
Q. Finally, what would you say to someone who loves books but has never imagined they could work with them professionally?
A. I think it’s true to say anyone with a passion for books can find their way into the industry. There are many routes in, and you have to be focused on the variety of occupations that publishing relies on: typographers, designers, publicists, lawyers, accountants, sales representatives, booksellers, distributors, printers, packagers, haulage companies, film and television, administrators, and of course, editors.
A publishing degree can help navigate these various elements and allow people a significant overview of where they might fit. But remember, where you start in publishing is rarely where you will end up – it always involves reskilling and redeployment. It’s an industry always in flux, affected by changes in technology and taste, fashion and the economy. Above all else, you must be tenacious.
What next?
Publishing is a small world with a big heart – and despite its challenges, it continues to evolve and surprise. As Chris reminds us, it’s an industry made by people who believe that stories matter, that words can change lives, and that books remain among the most enduring forms of human connection. Whether you find your way in through design, marketing, editing or by starting your own press, there has never been a more exciting moment to join it.
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Chris Emery was born in Manchester in 1963. He has published four collections of poetry, a writer ’s guide, an anthology of art and poems, and edited selections of Emily Brontë, John Keats and Christina Rossetti. He works in publishing and lives in Cromer, North Norfolk. Wonder is his fifth collection of poetry.
