Bloomsbury, the publisher of Harry Potter in the UK, has announced it’s hiring 100 new employees across the company to help with workload and work-life balance. That’s nearly a 14 percent increase in staff. A spokesperson told The Bookseller (subscription required), “These positions are targeted where our business is growing, where we want to increase support for our authors and grow the global presence of our most important brands, and where we know there are pinch points for our staff.” The announcement follows a UK publishing survey showing that 69 percent of staffers have reported burnout.
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.
