The Job That Doesn't Have A Title Yet......
There is a particular kind of silence that follows a day meant to give you clarity. I sat through HarperCollins’ Virtual Insight Days this year hoping to walk away finally knowing where I belonged in this industry. Instead, I walked away with almost nothing, except one sentence, dropped almost as an aside during the ecommerce session, that I haven’t stopped thinking about since: there’s a consumer insight team. Hold up. That role exists? I have been trying to answer a question for a long time that most people don’t think to ask, because most people assume publishing only has three shapes for someone who loves books: edit them, sell them, or shout about them. I wanted editorial once. I don’t anymore. And the longer I’ve sat with why, the clearer it’s become that I was never actually choosing between those three, I was rejecting the premise that those are the only three. Here is the premise I keep landing on instead. Marketing asks: how do we sell this? Publicity asks: how ...
