A new survey of the Canadian book publishing industry suggests that salaries have risen across the board in the last six years.

The ACP 2024 Canadian Book Publishing Industry Salary Survey, released today by the Association of Canadian Publishers, found that the average annual compensation in the Canadian book biz is $64,580 – up from $50,246 in 2018, the most recent year a salary survey was conducted. The survey also found that women in the publishing industry now earn slightly more than their male counterparts ($64,738 vs. $63,868) – a change from 2018, when women had an average lower salary than their male counterparts (45,100 vs. $60,600).

The ACP report found a gap in wages between white respondents and BIPOC respondents, with average salaries of $66,045 and $61,650, respectively.

In the job category publisher/vp publishing, the highest salaries on average were found in scholarly publishing, followed by children’s publishing, and then adult trade and professional publishing. In the categories of marketing manager and sales manager, children’s publishing outperformed adult trade at both the high end and bottom end of the wage scale.

The ACP launched its salary survey last year, in partnership with arts nonprofit Work in Culture. The online survey was available from Sept. 9 to Nov. 25, 2024, and was open to staff (full-time, part-time, contract, freelance, and intern) at book publishing firms of all sizes. The results are based on the responses of 779 publishing professionals, though only 591 respondents answered the questions about compensation.

The most recent previous salary survey was conducted by Q&Q in 2018. The downloadable results of that salary survey were based on the responses of 345 publishing professionals.

Although worded cautiously, as the questions and results of the 2018 and 2024 surveys do not fully overlap, the report concludes that Canadian book publishing “is a better-paid industry, with fewer low-pay jobs, especially post-pandemic” and that “the profile of the Canadian book publishing industry has changed over the last six or so years, but not significantly, and some of the changes may be because of greater granularity in the questions asked.”

The participation rate significantly increased with this survey, but there is still greater need for participation as the estimated number of full-time-equivalent workers in Canadian book publishing has been estimated at 8,760.

It is also noted that respondents who identified as employed by multinationals are underrepresented in the survey results and some reporting was not possible because of the dearth of responses in particular categories.

Salary averages in the ACP report are presented by position title, type of publisher (Canadian-owned vs. multinational), and grouped according to role type.

In addition to the discrepancies between average salaries based on demographic information and job title, the report also found that the industry’s workforce is relatively stable but potentially stagnant, with significant growth since 2018 in the percentage of workers with a decade or more of experience and fewer early-career entrants.

The full report is available online.

BookNet Canada is hosting a tech forum webinar this week to share results from the survey.