Toxic Culture and Long Hours Drive Employees Away - Editorial Sourcebooks Employee Review

1.0
Sep 24, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I can't say enough about my former co-workers. They were a motivated and collaborative team.

Cons

The company culture is toxic, and upper management is haughty and indifferent to the well-being of their employees. I was constantly rushed to meet tight publication deadlines. I worked long hours on a regular basis, and I often had to bring work home with me. This caused me a lot of stress and anxiety, and it affected the quality of my work. I tried to raise my concerns to upper management, but they were dismissive. They told me that everyone was stressed and that I just needed to learn to manage my time better. I also saw many other talented employees leave the company becuase they couldn't handle the pressure and stress. The turnover rate was very high, and morale was low.

Explore other reviews about Sourcebooks

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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