A nice thought, but unbearable - Anonymous employee Sourcebooks Employee Review

2.0
Jul 26, 2011
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Exciting industry, a copy of every book published, great authors, great co-workers. Nice suburban office, opportunity to travel to BEA (Book Expo America) if you work in the right departments.

Cons

Unbalanced emotions running wild in that office--pounding the drum for good news one second and yelling the next. "Lifers" are too wrapped in the tense culture to be good leaders and motivate employees appropriately. Some managers will sell out a direct report in order to appear more competent themselves. This is a fine place to get into publishing and leave. Other publishers know the culture you came from and are proud to bring you into their world. Thick skin required to work here.

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5.0
Jun 20, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Incredible managers, great team, genuine openness to growth and learning, meaningful work

Cons

None to speak of at this moment

1.0
Apr 20, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

In hindsight, I'm not sure if there were any apart from some friendly coworkers.

Cons

I infuriatingly see promotions handed out left and right via LinkedIn, but just know that actually being someone to get to that level means literally grovelling and being lucky enough to be in the good graces of the egotistical CEO. Upper management brown-noses her as their main job, and they will prevent you from any upward mobility if you're not one of her favorites (which seems to be picked based on how much you kiss up to her, and if you keep your own opinions to yourself, and other factors entirely unrelated to your actual performance). Absolutely criminally high monthly healthcare premiums, paired with insanely high deductibles, bare-minimum PTO, and mat leave. HR is a joke and not one HR employee seems to last very long. Salaries are abysmal, even by publishing standards. Most books acquired are bottom-of-the-barrel since they don't pay most of their authors much, and they have to be edited within an inch of their lives to be readable and marketable. I left the industry after this company and have never been happier.

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