Possibly intensifying Monday’s conversations at the Building Inclusivity in Publishing conference in London, a new survey by the Bookseller reports (paywall) 54 percent of women respondents and 34 percent of male respondents have experienced sexual harassment in the UK’s publishing workplaces—large and small publishing houses, bookstores, literary agencies, event venues, and social occasions related to work.
“Of the 51 percent of respondents who said they had experienced harassment, sexual assault, or predatory behavior,” writes Bookseller staff, “only 36.8 percent of men said they reported it, and just 29.9 percent of women.”
Rationales offered by respondents for not reporting harassment closely parallel those seen in other industries: “feelings of fear, shame, and embarrassment, as well as anxieties that claims would be dismissed or have an impact on the claimant’s prospects in the future.”
At the same time, the protocols for reporting incidents weren’t clear to some 66 percent of the respondents, and—apropos of the inclusivity conference this week—“more diversity in senior roles was a popular suggestion to combat harassment at work,” the Bookseller team reports. One respondent suggested that “more female senior managers [would] help set a culture of respect for all colleagues,” although a male respondent described “being ‘felt up’ in public by a senior woman in the industry.”
Authors, it seems, may be victims of harassment especially in publicity settings—tours, readings, other appearances. But publicists appear to be among the easiest targets when they’re in those settings alone with offending authors.
After the Bookseller published its survey results, Stephen Lotinga, the CEO of the UK’s Publishers Association, quickly issued a statement (paywall) condemning all sexual harassment in the workplace. Lotinga writes, “Any single example of harassment is completely unacceptable, and we have to work toward a professional environment where no person is made to feel uncomfortable in the workplace. Clearly this survey shows that there are issues for the industry to deal with.”
Bottom line: Many industries are being forced to take a belated look at shameful harassment. There’s no reason not to expect such offenses to occur in publishing settings, too; it’s helpful, if unpleasant, to get some sense of the scope of such problems from a survey like the Bookseller’s. We note that the writeup singles out, among other things, “the industry’s drinking culture” in the UK. More than half of respondents (59 percent) said that UK publishing’s many social events “put employees in particularly vulnerable situations.” One literary agent’s responses referred to “colleagues taking liberties on a dance floor, on a walk home, in a taxi.” The UK industry is far from alone in such issues, of course, and it would be good to see such a survey carried out in the US. This Publishers Weekly article provides some starting insights.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
