Mark Gottlieb, a literary agent and executive vice president of Trident Media Group, has observed that a labor reckoning has arrived in publishing, and this time the conversation is reaching far beyond office policy. Editorial assistants, marketers, publicists, and production teams across the industry are questioning an economic structure that, for decades, has relied on devotion to literature as compensation for instability and stagnant wages.
Amid that prevailing burnout culture, Mark Gottlieb sees the current wave of unionization as a larger referendum on the future of creative industries. He points to recent ongoing efforts across major trade publishers and literary institutions, noting how the moves being made are causing a paradigm shift within the business of books.
"Publishing has historically operated on what people now call the passion tax." Mark Gottlieb says. "People accepted lower salaries and difficult conditions because they loved books and wanted to participate in literary culture. Eventually, that arrangement stops feeling sustainable."
And that moment, he believes, is unravelling now.
In the span of a single month this spring, several major unionization drives ignited across the industry, including organizing efforts inside one of the Big Five houses. "This has been the largest unionization campaign in trade publishing history. Once something reaches that scale, it becomes impossible to dismiss as isolated frustration," he says.
According to him, this has been the result of employees citing rising living costs, unclear hybrid work policies, shrinking advancement opportunities, and anxiety surrounding AI. "The sheer pace of these developments explains why so many within the industry are paying closer attention than ever before," Mark Gottlieb adds.
In his view, economic pressure informs many of these conversations. Publishing, much like film, television, music, and journalism, has often depended on workers willing to sacrifice financial security for creative proximity. Mark Gottlieb argues that inflation and post-pandemic realities exposed how fragile that arrangement had become, particularly in cities like New York, where most major publishers remain concentrated.
"People's wages have largely stagnated while everything around them became significantly more expensive, and suddenly the economics of working in publishing become much harder to justify," he says.
Mark Gottlieb also points out that creative industries frequently struggle to retain socio-economic diversity. This structural issue, he notes, arises because lower-paying artistic careers remain inaccessible to many families navigating financial survival first. "If you come from a poor immigrant family and you're the first person to attend college, chances are you aren't encouraged to work in publishing. You pursue something that appears stable," he says. "Publishing has wrestled with that reality for a very long time."
In Mark Gottlieb's view, European governments have historically invested more heavily in supporting the arts and cultural institutions. American publishing, on the contrary, developed under different economic conditions, leaving many literary workers dependent on personal sacrifice in order to remain inside the industry.
He posits, "The gap between passion and livability, already wide, has grown wider."
With regard to unionization, Mark Gottlieb believes that much of the concern surrounding organized labor in publishing revolves around whether higher labor costs could eventually affect authors through smaller advances and slower acquisitions. He acknowledges those fears while maintaining that stronger working environments may ultimately strengthen the literary work itself. He says, "A healthier workforce in publishing directly benefits authors. People produce better work when they feel stable, respected, and able to build long-term careers."
Experiences across the industry have convinced him that constant turnover already harms writers in measurable ways. He has seen authors routinely lose editors mid-project, and publicists overseeing too many titles struggle to give books sustained attention. Marketing departments, too, lose experienced employees faster than publishers can replace them. Mark Gottlieb says. "Publishers have difficulty retaining institutional knowledge when salaries don't support long-term careers."
Artificial intelligence intensified those concerns. According to him, workers across publishing increasingly fear that AI may eventually replace portions of editorial or marketing labor. Mark Gottlieb believes many employees are not rejecting technology outright so much as demanding a voice in how it gets implemented. He says. "Workers want protections around how AI affects their jobs, but authors should also pay attention because editorial relationships matter enormously to books."
Inside companies like Trident Media Group, Mark Gottlieb highlights that there has not yet been significant operational disruption, though the broader trajectory remains difficult to ignore. He compares the current moment to earlier labor transformations inside Hollywood driven by SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild, where unionization eventually became foundational to stabilizing creative professions. He explains, "Film and television evolved that way because industries built around creative labor eventually confront the same fundamental questions about sustainability."
Geography may also become part of the equation as remote and hybrid work demonstrated that publishing employees no longer need to remain concentrated exclusively in Manhattan. Mark Gottlieb believes companies attempting to preserve existing cost structures may eventually relocate operations toward regions with lower living expenses and broader accessibility.
At its very core, Mark Gottlieb's mission at Trident Media Group has always been to get the best stories into the world. Still, he returns repeatedly to a broader philosophical question hovering above the debate: what kind of publishing ecosystem should exist moving forward?
"To me, publishing is interconnected," he says. "Authors, editors, agents, marketers, publicists, readers, everyone depends on everyone else. If people inside publishing can genuinely thrive instead of simply endure, I think the books themselves improve as a result."
