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The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

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Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#31

Post by tptacek »

mold_aid wrote: post #29
tptacek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you be more specific? I don't know what you're referring to.

Almost certain OP is referring to the fact that nurses and teachers are not well-paid or respected in the US, which I'd like to note as well. Despite this, Public Health as a pseudo-STEM major nearly ranks with STEM fields in general for majors seen as "workplace-ready." Maybe there are too many English majors (I honestly think the supply of careers is too low). But I think the "supply is greater than the demand" is…

If the claim is "nurses and teachers are poorly paid in the US", that claim is broadly false. K-12 teachers in major metro areas in the US have surprisingly generous comp packages: well above area median take-home salary with predictable ladders, very good benefits, and defined-benefit pension plans.

There are school districts where teachers are poorly compensated, but they aren't the norm over the population as a whole. Teachers are generally well-compensated.

Nursing, I don't know where to start.

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#32

Post by chromacity »

dxdm wrote: post #17
tptacek wrote: post #15

Bertelsmann (the owner of Random House) is a for-profit corporation just like Palantir (a defense contractor), but the employees of Random House don’t need to be paid as much as the employees at Palantir, because Random House is perceived (by its employees) as fundamentally good No? The employees of Random House don't need to be paid as much because the supply of qualified candidates for those roles greatly exceeds t…

Where does the supply come from? You could still argue that people choose this as a career when they have the choice of better-paid ones, increasing the supply of people with the smarts and training needed by the publishers. I don't know if that's what's happening, but it might work towards TFA's point.

It probably has to do with the fact that we condition children and adolescents to consider white-collar jobs as more noble than blue-collar jobs, then we tell them that to get a good white-collar job, they need a degree... and then we make STEM degrees hard by subjecting students to more math than most people realistically need. So we have a lot of frontend developers who know calculus and an oversupply of people with humanities degrees.

With that degree, you're generally pushed toward jobs in journalism, publishing, graphic design, teaching, administrative functions, and so on. Most of these pay relatively little.

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#33

Post by tptacek »

chromacity wrote: post #32
dxdm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the supply come from? You could still argue that people choose this as a career when they have the choice of better-paid ones, increasing the supply of people with the smarts and training needed by the publishers. I don't know if that's what's happening, but it might work towards TFA's point.

It probably has to do with the fact that we condition children and adolescents to consider white-collar jobs as more noble than blue-collar jobs, then we tell them that to get a good white-collar job, they need a degree... and then we make STEM degrees hard by subjecting students to more math than most people realistically need. So we have a lot of frontend developers who know calculus and an oversupply of people wit…

Publishing : standard English major career track :: Gaming : standard CS major career track.

It's not much more complicated than that.

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#34

Post by djoldman »

tptacek wrote: post #31
mold_aid wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost certain OP is referring to the fact that nurses and teachers are not well-paid or respected in the US, which I'd like to note as well. Despite this, Public Health as a pseudo-STEM major nearly ranks with STEM fields in general for majors seen as "workplace-ready." Maybe there are too many English majors (I honestly think the supply of careers is too low). But I think the "supply is greater than the demand" is…

If the claim is "nurses and teachers are poorly paid in the US", that claim is broadly false. K-12 teachers in major metro areas in the US have surprisingly generous comp packages: well above area median take-home salary with predictable ladders, very good benefits, and defined-benefit pension plans . There are school districts where teachers are poorly compensated, but they aren't the norm over the population as a w…

Folks may talk past each other on this.

Some people may say that nurses and teachers ARE NOT well-paid because those workers deserve to be paid more than they are.

Some people may say that nurses and teachers ARE well-paid because they are generally paid more than median wage.

As for some dry facts, median wages:

  Registered Nurse $93,600

  Public School Teacher $64,000

  Private School Teacher $57,600

  All U.S. Occupations $49,500
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/occupation-finder.htm

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#35

Post by tptacek »

djoldman wrote: post #34
tptacek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the claim is "nurses and teachers are poorly paid in the US", that claim is broadly false. K-12 teachers in major metro areas in the US have surprisingly generous comp packages: well above area median take-home salary with predictable ladders, very good benefits, and defined-benefit pension plans . There are school districts where teachers are poorly compensated, but they aren't the norm over the population as a w…

Folks may talk past each other on this. Some people may say that nurses and teachers ARE NOT well-paid because those workers deserve to be paid more than they are. Some people may say that nurses and teachers ARE well-paid because they are generally paid more than median wage. As for some dry facts, median wages: Registered Nurse $93,600 Public School Teacher $64,000 Private School Teacher $57,600 All U.S. Occupation…

Complexifiers for teaching: K12 cash comp in major population centers (CPS, SFUSD, Philly, MSP, &c) is sharply higher than that median, and, more importantly, teachers get a huge amount of non-cash comp. Can't say enough how valuable a defined-benefit pension is. All-in comp for a lot of rank-and-file K12 teachers in major metros is competitive with software development (in those regions; obviously excluding SFUSD).

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#36

Post by dyauspitr »

delichon wrote: post #11

I hope The Martian becomes the template of a new publishing world. Andy Weir couldn't get any publisher's attention until he self published and achieved 35,000 sales in three months without their help. He succeeded by word of mouth and not publisher's marketing. Almost all of the fiction I read comes by personal recommendations. Including from social media like Hacker News. I haven't stood in a bookstore browsing she…

Completely disagree. That model means all you’re going to get are pop fiction and the five books trending that month. It leaves very little room for dense publications with more niche audiences.

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#37

Post by djoldman »

tptacek wrote: post #35
djoldman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Folks may talk past each other on this. Some people may say that nurses and teachers ARE NOT well-paid because those workers deserve to be paid more than they are. Some people may say that nurses and teachers ARE well-paid because they are generally paid more than median wage. As for some dry facts, median wages: Registered Nurse $93,600 Public School Teacher $64,000 Private School Teacher $57,600 All U.S. Occupation…

Complexifiers for teaching: K12 cash comp in major population centers (CPS, SFUSD, Philly, MSP, &c) is sharply higher than that median, and, more importantly, teachers get a huge amount of non-cash comp. Can't say enough how valuable a defined-benefit pension is. All-in comp for a lot of rank-and-file K12 teachers in major metros is competitive with software development (in those regions; obviously excluding SFUSD).

Oh for sure. Many people are surprised to learn how much more public teachers make than private teachers :)

A ton of details that medians aren't showing.

I was just mentioning why folks may be on different sides here. We should at least be talking about the same thing.

If it's a "they deserve" conversation, that's very different than others.

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#38

Post by tptacek »

djoldman wrote: post #37
tptacek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complexifiers for teaching: K12 cash comp in major population centers (CPS, SFUSD, Philly, MSP, &c) is sharply higher than that median, and, more importantly, teachers get a huge amount of non-cash comp. Can't say enough how valuable a defined-benefit pension is. All-in comp for a lot of rank-and-file K12 teachers in major metros is competitive with software development (in those regions; obviously excluding SFUSD).

Oh for sure. Many people are surprised to learn how much more public teachers make than private teachers :) A ton of details that medians aren't showing. I was just mentioning why folks may be on different sides here. We should at least be talking about the same thing. If it's a "they deserve" conversation, that's very different than others.

I think people can reasonably go back and forth about whether they should be more compensated, but I don't think there's a reasonable conversation to have about teaching not being a well-compensated career path. I know this surprises a lot of people.

(My mom is a retired CPS teacher.)

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#39

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

chromacity wrote: post #32
dxdm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where does the supply come from? You could still argue that people choose this as a career when they have the choice of better-paid ones, increasing the supply of people with the smarts and training needed by the publishers. I don't know if that's what's happening, but it might work towards TFA's point.

It probably has to do with the fact that we condition children and adolescents to consider white-collar jobs as more noble than blue-collar jobs, then we tell them that to get a good white-collar job, they need a degree... and then we make STEM degrees hard by subjecting students to more math than most people realistically need. So we have a lot of frontend developers who know calculus and an oversupply of people wit…

It's a shame that calculus isn't required by every college degree. Just because I'm not integrating functions during my normal work, doesn't mean I don't benefit from understanding the fundamental principles.

Re: The most-disliked people in the publishing industry

#40

Post by hoppyhoppy2 »

bombcar wrote: post #8
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they have to have a diverse catalog. They have to have a diverse catalog because they don't know in advance which books will be the big sellers.

Tolkien and Rowling probably combine to be the majority of British publishing revenues ...

That wouldn't be the case (if, in fact, it is true) if publishers hadn't cast their nets wide enough to include weird stories about hobbits and magic schools.
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