OCTOBER 2005 :: CAREERS

Literary Figure

How I Got Here: Chad Post, Book Publishing Executive

BY ADELLE WALDMAN
CareerJournal.com

It's a good thing that Chad Post is an optimist. When he was a freshman at Michigan State University, he studied accounting at his parents' urging. They thought it was practical. But Mr. Post, now 29, decided to follow his heart-which meant becoming an English major, with an English major's uncertain future.

In retrospect, Mr. Post made the right decision. These days, he is the associate director of Dalkey Archive Press, a publishing house in Normal, Ill. It's not just any publishing house, either, but Mr. Post's longtime favorite publisher-and the only press he ever applied to for a job.

And for a guy who has always loved to read and who spent four years after college working in retail-at independent bookstores-this job is, in Mr. Post's words, "a dream come true."

When Mr. Post was at Michigan State, he didn't worry too much about his career. In the summers, he was more interested in staying in town with his friends than in getting high-powered internships. He did, however, work at the school library for a year. It was at the library that he started reading Publisher's Weekly, considered the bible of the publishing industry, and began to learn more about the business of books.

The experience helped him to get his first significant job out of school, working behind the counter at Schuler Books & Music in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Relax, Mom and Dad

His parents worried about his future-after all, parents don't typically expect that four years of college will culminate in a retail job-but Mr. Post wasn't. "I knew I wanted to be involved in books, and I always thought I'd figure my career out," he says.

It was at Schuler that he discovered Dalkey. A co-worker recommended the press, which specializes in translations and avant-garde literature and aims to keep books in print long after commercial publishers would discontinue the titles. For example, Dalkey publishes the lesser-known works of "Brave New World" author Aldous Huxley. Mr. Post, who hadn't before paid much attention to who published the books he loved to read, began to pick up any book that Dalkey published and discovered many of his favorite authors that way. "I was reading Dalkey books all the time," he says. "I thought it was the pinion of literary culture."

Still, he hadn't yet settled on a career path, and two years after he started at Schuler, Mr. Post, who had just gotten married, moved to Durham, N.C., because he and his wife were both considering going to graduate school in that area. Meanwhile, Mr. Post got another job at Quail Ridge Books, an independent bookstore in Raleigh.

"At that point, I thought I wanted to manage or own a bookstore or go into publishing," he says. "But I started figuring out that publishing was the one I was most attracted to."

He learned that Dalkey, his favorite publisher, operated out of Illinois State University in Normal, Ill., and that the university offered a master's program in English where students interned for 20 hours a week at Dalkey. Mr. Post applied and was accepted.

But when he traveled from North Carolina to Illinois for an interview, the director of Dalkey asked if his real goal was to be in publishing. Without hesitating, Mr. Post said yes. The director then told him that the publisher also had a yearlong fellowship program, in which fellows work 40 hours a week rather than 20 and have more responsibility than interns. He offered Mr. Post the fellowship, and Mr. Post gladly accepted. After all, he had largely seen graduate school as a means to get to the publishing house, so he was fine with forgoing it.

He and his wife moved to Normal, and Mr. Post began his fellowship at Dalkey in 2000. Three months later, he was offered a full-time position as its director of marketing. He was thrilled.

Mr. Post says that he was lucky. He got in at a time when Dalkey, which then only had four full-time employees, was growing. But his intimate knowledge of the publisher-born of following it for years-also helped, as did the knowledge he'd accumulated in bookstores about the business side of the book industry.

As director of marketing, Mr. Post got a raise and new responsibilities. He was responsible for designing an annual marketing plan and working with independent and chain bookstores to make sure the press's books were prominently displayed. He was also responsible for targeted advertising and online promotions.

Later, he also took over publicity. At that point, his business card read "editor, director of marketing, sales and publicity," a title that is possible only at a small publishing house like Dalkey where one person could have a hand in all different aspects of the operation, he says.

That was perfect for him, since he is interested in everything from reading books to selling them and didn't want to be someone who "only knew how to do one thing, like design a catalog," he says.

'Secure Their Future Forever'

Last year, he was promoted again, this time to associate director of the publishing house, with someone under him to do support work in marketing. These days, Mr. Post spends much of his time trying to raise an endowment for Dalkey, something he is passionate about, because he believes in Dalkey's mission to publish books that aren't typically bestsellers. "We want to be able to keep our books in print forever," he says. "To help secure their future forever."

Salaries in publishing are notoriously low, but Mr. Post says that's easier to cope with in Normal than in an expensive city like New York. He and his wife, who directs a community-college program for English-language learners, just purchased a house with four bedrooms.

Mr. Post says that the key to his success was that he really focused on one publisher that he knew and loved, instead of wanting simply to be in publishing, which is, after all, a very glamorous and competitive industry. "If you are willing and able to do anything to be at a particular press, that will really impress people there," he says.

His knowledge of the business side of the industry was also crucial, he says. "People tend to think of the editorial side of publishing," he says. "If you know about the other aspects, like marketing and publicity, it really helps. It makes you much more valuable."