Bookish Jobs I Would Do For Free—Or Not

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. The meme was originally the brainchild of The Broke and the Bookish. This week’s topic is Bookish Jobs I Would Do For Free.

Bookish Jobs I Would Do For Free

As soon as I saw this week’s post, red flags went up in my head. Because many, many book-related jobs don’t pay very well to begin with. When we offer to do those jobs for free, even in jest, we’re devaluing the hard work that goes into those jobs—not to mention the skills and training! And when someone actually does one of those jobs for free, they make it harder for the professionals to get work, and to be paid fairly for their work. This is especially true for freelancers (of whom I am one.)

That said, there are three bookish “jobs” I do or have done for free: book blogger/reviewer, beta reader, and volunteer reader (in a school or library.) All three are widely understood to be unpaid jobs. And none of them should be confused with similar professional jobs that require specific skills.

Book blogger/reviewer: If you’re reading this, you’re probably a book blogger yourself, because honestly, I think most of my readers are. (And that’s fine; I love the blogging community!) Book bloggers, BookTubers, Bookstagrammers, BookTokers, and people who don’t technically blog but do write a lot of reviews on Goodreads or or StoryGraph… we’re all basically book fans. We read books because we love them, and we write (or vlog) reviews because we want other people to know why we love them, or why we didn’t love this particular book. I doubt any of us went into it for the (nonexistent) money, though there are a few bloggers or vloggers who manage to make at least a little money from advertising.*

Blogging isn’t totally without compensation, of course! I’m talking about all those lovely ARCs and e-ARCs. For a lot of us, that’s all the compensation we really need. (Though I admit it would be nice if my blog could at least cover some of its own costs.)

But there is a difference between those of us who do this for the love of it, and professional reviewers or literary critics who are paid by newspapers or periodicals to review books. For the pros, reviewing is their actual job, or one of them. They get paid for it because they are really skilled at writing good, thoughtful, perceptive reviews. (Sometimes authors are paid to write reviews, too. And sometimes professional reviewers also write books: literary critic Charles Finch writes a historical mystery series.)

Beta reader: These are people, usually friends or fans, who read a book in draft form and provide feedback to the author. The only compensation is the opportunity to read the draft, though some authors recognize their beta readers by name in the acknowledgements. Beta reading can be rewarding, especially if you are good at giving the author the kind of feedback they are looking for. But it’s not remunerative—and it’s not a substitute for professional editing. (Beta reading usually happens before an author submits a book to an agent or editor, because it gives the author a chance to change or fix issues the beta readers may have spotted.)

Volunteer reader: When my child was young, I volunteered to read books to their class in school throughout elementary school. I loved doing it, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. This is a great bookish “job” that anyone with decent read-aloud skills can do. I highly recommend it, if you’ve got the time during the school day. And if you don’t, you might be able to volunteer to read at a library in the evenings or on weekends.

There’s one other bookish job I would do for free: library volunteer. Libraries often rely on unpaid volunteers to shelve books, run the front desk/checkout, and perform other tasks under a (professional) librarian’s supervision. If you really want to do a bookish job for free, volunteer at your local public library! However, when funding gets tight, paid library staff are often cut and there’s even more reliance on volunteers, who aren’t trained to take on all the things the professional librarians do. So whether or not you volunteer, let your local politicians know that you support ample funding for your public and school libraries, so they can keep their professional librarians on their staff.

Other book-related jobs (that should be paid)

Pretty much every other book-related job should be paid for. As I pointed out above, if you do it for free, you may be taking a job away from someone else, often someone who put a lot of time, energy, and money into developing their skills. Some of the jobs I’m thinking of include:

• librarian
• bookseller or bookstore manager
• teacher or professor (of English, literature, writing, etc.)
• agent (for author)
• editor (content editing, structural editing, line editing, copyediting)
• proofreader
• typesetter
• indexer
• book designer (what the book looks like, inside and out, except the cover art)
• cover artist
• audiobook narrator
• digitization expert (converting the book to various ebook formats)
• marketing director/staff (as opposed to reviewing)
• author assistant (in-person or virtual)
• website designer (for author)
• wiki design/maintenance person (for author or series)
• series bible developer (for author)

Let me be clear, here: I’m not saying that book bloggers shouldn’t do these things. I know book bloggers who have gone into business as cover designers, blog tour coordinators, or virtual assistants for authors. I follow several librarians who blog about books. I am a professional indexer, and I have been a bookseller and bookstore manager. I’m sure there are other bloggers/reviewers who have day jobs or side gigs as editors, proofreaders, or some of the other positions I listed. That’s great! But they are all getting paid for doing those jobs—as they should be.

And look, I know that people do favors for their friends sometimes, and there’s nothing wrong with that. “Could you read my book and tell me what you think?” That’s basically beta-reading. If you happen to catch a few misspelled words or typos and mention them, or a sentence that seems to be missing a few words, no worries, you’re simply being helpful. (As long as that’s part of what your friend asked you to do.)

But beta-reading for a friend, or for an author you are a fan of, is not the same as offering a thorough, professional structural edit, copyedit, or proofreading. Traditionally-published authors get that through their publishing house. Authors who are self-publishing should be prepared to pay someone for skilled editing, proofreading, cover design, and so on, if they want their book to be the best it can be. (Trust me, everyone needs a proofreader, even the best authors. If you’ve read enough ARCs, you know what I mean.)

And the people who do these jobs professionally? They have skills and training and experience. Often, they put years (and a lot of money) into developing those skills. They deserve to be paid for their work. And they deserve to have their work valued fairly.

A final note on publishing interns. Basically, an internship is unpaid (or barely paid) work by college students or recent graduates hoping to move into the publishing field. Because the pay is low or nonexistent, and because the positions usually require living in New York or other expensive cities, graduates from poorer or disadvantaged backgrounds are locked out of internships because they can’t afford to take them. That has a disproportionate impact on people of color, which in turn negatively affects the diversity of workers in higher, paid positions. It’s a system I really wish the publishing companies would rethink. Plenty of other fields do just fine by hiring people right out of college instead of using interns.

So please, before you say, “Oh, I would totally do that job for free!” stop and think about the people who really do the job. And maybe say, “Oh, I would love a job like that!” instead.

*NOTE: There are a very few bloggers or vloggers who manage earn a living from book blogging/vlogging, but they generally do a lot more than just review books. I’m thinking here of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, which is much more than a review site; it’s a community, a podcast, a bookfinder, and more. You can probably come up with an example or two yourself. I just want to be clear that it’s really rare. Don’t go into book blogging thinking you’re going to make a ton of money. Even on BookTok, I think it’s rare for the book influencers to make very much.

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