10. In-house designer on £34,500

a man speaks

Dear friends,

It’s a long one this week so here’s the TLDR:

In-house Designer
Ten years’ experience
£34,500 p.a.
Father who took parental leave
Leaving London because too £££

I first wrote this before the whole John Banville thing, which I don’t really have much interest in but it would be weird to not acknowledge it, given the fact that this is my first interview with a man. Men are rare in publishing (I once got scolded for saying that, even though I was not bemoaning this fact, simply alluding to it). Don’t feel too sad for them, they mostly run the damn thing, though I suspect that for the men who don’t get wildly over-promoted, it can be a difficult and maybe even a lonely business. Certainly, it has not been easy for this week’s interviewee, who took time off to look after his children. He is also the first person to supply a chart of his earnings, (so male!) and to acknowledge he is likely to be recognised (so not publishing!).

The other thing that’s interesting to me in this interview is what my interviewee describes as his “perverse loyalty” to his particular publishing division. A lot of people reading this might say – oh well, it’s his fault he’s not paid more, he should have followed the money into more commercial parts of the business. This is a valid point. But – and this is something I am still teasing out, especially since all of the messages I’ve had since my last piece on class in publishing – isn’t there a bit of a problem if people get pushed out of the more “literary” parts of the business because they can’t afford to stay in it? Again, one could argue that the price you pay to work with books you love is just that – a price paid every month in the lower-than-what-you-could-otherwise-make salary hitting your account.

But certain people can afford this price more easily than others. And if “literary” (whatever that means) publishing is where we experiment, take risks, find the new voices that are going to lead our industry, lead our culture – it’s a huge problem if the people whose jobs it is to shape that culture are those who can afford to pay this artistic dividend. And maybe it’s not too much of a stretch to relate this to the incredibly divided cultural times we live in.

Which brings me back to Banville and cancel culture and all that. One interesting thing about cancel culture (which I’ll deny exists because I’m scared of being cancelled if I don’t), but why is cancel culture (which, again, doesn’t exist, but just because something doesn’t exist doesn’t mean it’s not scary, just ask any lapsed Catholic), but why is it so often focussed on individuals who are, for the most part, like all humans, confused, vulnerable, scared and lacking in PR departments, instead of institutions who are, in the main, brave, solid, wealthy and replete in PR departments (as well as legal ones)? See my most recent tweets, I guess. I feel a bit sad today.

Interview

How long have you worked in publishing and how much do you get paid?

This is my tenth year in publishing. All ten years I have been with the same publisher – one of the ‘Big Five’. I started on about £22,000, and my salary is currently £34,500.

Tell us a bit about what your job entails.

I’m a designer. My job involves designing books – typically just the covers, and sometimes the interiors of complex illustrated books too. Occasionally I commission other designers, illustrators, photographers, etc.

I used to give the job my absolute all and I worked scandalous amounts of over-time. I do not do that anymore.

How do you feel about the amount of money you earn?

I feel very conflicted about my £34,500. On the one hand, this sounds like a lot of money. Surely that’s enough to live on, right? Surely that’s pretty fair for a “middleweight" in-house designer in the publishing industry. Right? I should be satisfied with my lot. On the other hand: no.

Living in London, our monthly outgoings exceeded our monthly incomings. This is a recipe for disaster.

I’m worried that I’ve probably alienated a few people with that graph. You spend how much on rent / mortgage? Live somewhere cheaper! You spend how much on childcare? Well you should have thought about that before you had children!

For the record, we lived in a two-bed shared ownership flat in London’s Zone 2. We owned 25% of the flat (paying a mortgage), and rented the other 75% (paying rent). We have two young children. Childcare is expensive. My partner is a teacher, and they earn a fraction more than I do. We both come from middle-class families with all the immense privilege that entails. We have £0 in savings, in fact the opposite: we have some debt. Between us we earn £71,000 per year. It seems absolutely fucking crazy to me that we earn that much money.

And even crazier is the fact that even with that much money coming in, by the time we’ve paid all our regular outgoings, we are down £522 every month. That’s before a single penny has been spent on day-to-day living costs: buying a sandwich at lunchtime, getting a haircut, buying a birthday present, repairing a broken washing machine, etc.

How is this tenable? The shortfall is made up for by freelance work. I can easily earn an extra £522 per month from freelance design jobs. Does it mess with my work/life balance? Yes, absolutely.

Okay, I’m worried that at this point that I sound like someone in a position of privilege pissing and moaning that it isn’t fair! I don’t get enough money to furnish my lavish lifestyle! I’m sure there’s some truth in this. We should just live somewhere cheaper. And we are, see below.

What irks me more than anything is the lack of career progress: I have not had a promotion since 2012. Eight years. My manager has acknowledged that I deserve a promotion, yet they will not promote me until one of our senior designers leaves. Meanwhile, I am expected to keep doing the same work as a senior designer, to the same standard, whilst receiving over £20,000 less per year. Our senior designers each earn more than £55,000, compared to my £34,500.

Maybe my work is NOT to the same standard as our senior designers? Maybe I’m deluding myself? At appraisals I have repeatedly asked what I can improve, and what I need to do to earn a promotion. The answer has been “nothing”. I have been told “You’re doing a fantastic job. There is nothing you could do better”. After pushing for more constructive feedback, I was told: “The only thing you could do better, is to do it [the job] without the resentment.” Stop complaining, basically. Stop feeling hard done by.

If I want a promotion in this company, I have to wait for someone above me to leave.

For comparison, in the twelve-month period prior to my last appraisal, there were twelve promotions for colleagues in other departments. (I was petty enough to count). How many of these twelve promotions were filling a role vacated by a senior colleague? Zero. Colleagues in other departments are promoted on merit, because they were doing an excellent job, not because somebody above them left a vacancy to fill.

When pushed for an explanation, my manager admitted that they “do not want a top-heavy team.” I am not the only one stuck in this awkward position of doing senior-level work on a mid-level salary. There are two other designers in our department who are in a similar situation, and if I were to receive a promotion, it would only be fair to promote the other two middle-weight designers as well. This would result in a team full of senior designers, which is a situation my manager does not want.

The only solution I can think of is to leave.

Do you own property?

We owned a 25% share of a shared ownership flat in London. The flat was not really big enough for our growing family, and as you can see from the chart above, we could not actually afford to keep living there. We moved out of London in August. I will miss it terribly. We are currently in limbo, living with parents / in-laws (another privilege, although decidedly challenging), and we are about to move into a four-bedroom house, with a garden, in Nottingham. We should get the keys next week, all being well.

I had expected that moving to Nottingham would put an end to me working in-house for a London publisher. I don’t fancy that commute. I was all prepared to hand in my resignation. In fact, I have had the letter written since March. I have been waiting to send it, but in order to buy a house we need a mortgage, and in order to satisfy a mortgage lender I need to demonstrate a steady income. The plan was to secure a mortgage first, and once we’ve moved house: goodbye Big Publisher. Now that Covid is upon us and everyone is working remotely, I am unsure what to do. Suddenly the job security, consistent monthly paycheck, sick pay and death-in-service benefit are all far more important than they were pre-pandemic. The commute is no longer an issue, at least until everyone is summoned back to the office post-Lockdown. For the time being, I may cling on, at least until we are settled in the new house and my partner has found a steady job teaching in Nottingham.

Do you have a pension?

Yes, although I have no idea how much it is worth. I pay something like 3% into my pension. I’m told it would be prudent to increase this.

Have you made financial sacrifices for working in books? Do you think it’s been worth it?

I think I could have made significantly more money if it were not for a kind of perverse loyalty to my particular publishing division. If I had played the game – chopped and changed employers a few times, “followed the money”, I could be further up the career ladder by now. I have witnessed friends and colleagues do it. There have been opportunities, and I have turned them down. Instead I have been patiently sticking with a publisher that I like, waiting for a promotion which may never come.

The crux of the problem is that I like our “list.” I very much like and admire the majority of books I get to design for. Working for another publisher would have meant working on a less prestigious list, and typically working on books that I am less interested in, and less proud to be associated with. I liked the fact that my division was not overtly “commercial” (what a loaded term that is!) and we publish books with integrity (of both the editorial and design variety).

At least, we used to. In recent years the qualities that I most admired in our list have been waning alarmingly fast. With hindsight, I wish I’d chopped and changed.

You have been an author – how much money did you make from publishing your own book?

Well, I was listed as an “author” in the contract (and they put my name on the book cover, which is nice), but really I was “just” providing the illustrations. I received the same advance / royalties as my co-author, who wrote the words. To date I have received £10,500. That’s a £9,000 advance, and I negotiated a £1,500 fee for designing the cover. The book published in September 2020, and I am yet to see any royalties.

You are a father who has taken time off to look after your children. How did this affect your career? Publishing presents itself as very parent-friendly, is this how you experience it?

I took seven months’ Shared Parental Leave when our first child was born, and I took 13 months off with the arrival of our second child. My partner went back to work almost immediately, which was the right setup for us.

Weirdly, we both felt the stigma of being “the Mum.” Obviously I was not “the Mum”, but I was fulfilling that role of being the primary carer. Although my partner took minimal time off and went straight back to work, people still treated her differently. We both stopped being invited to certain things – both socially and professionally – because “Oh, I assumed you wouldn’t be able to make it / wouldn’t want to / you’d be too busy looking after the baby.” We are both making a concerted effort to be great parents, whilst maintaining our own identities. We do not wish to be defined solely by our children. It seems our colleagues did not all get the memo, and some of the usual stereotypes are occasionally still foisted upon us.

When I told my employer I was taking a year’s Shared Parental Leave, it was suggested “maybe you could still come into the office one day a week.” I do not think they would have said this had I been the Mum (who is expected to take a big chunk of time off), rather than the Dad (who definitely isn’t).

I must however give credit to my company’s extremely generous parental leave policy, which allowed me to take such a long period of time off to be with my children. I was offered full pay for the first six months, and without that it would never have been possible. No complaints here.

What would you change about the industry, to make it fairer, if you had the power to do so?

For goodness’ sake, just make pay transparent. Talk to your colleagues about what you earn. Maybe they’ll feel comfortable talking about their salary too.

Do you think money is wisely spent and invested in the business?

Yes and no. But mostly no. I do not think this is exclusive to the publishing industry.

Any other comments?

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share these thoughts, and sorry for writing so many words!

Anybody who knows me / works with me will no doubt have deduced my identity by now. What a thrill to figure out the identity of the anonymous commenter! If you know me, please … talk to me about this newsletter. Share your thoughts. Am I being unreasonable? Do I come across like a bit of a dick? I worry that the answer might be “yes.” Let me know.

Thanks so much to our incredibly frank and detailed interviewee this week.

If you like In the Read and want to continue to nose around your colleagues’ pay slips, please support it here (because I don’t have a payslip).