A big report came out from The Business Insider on the 27 Jobs that are Most Damaging to your Health. I read the piece with interest, curious to see where being a Book Publicist was featured in this piece and to my chagrin, it wasn’t! Such an oversight.
I mean look, I get that this job can’t compete with someone facing streams of radiation each day or you know, the guy battling sharks on live TV but at the same time – I’d often prefer radiation AND sharks to my job.
Don’t get me wrong, 80% of the time I love my work, but it’s the 20% that turns a good, faithful book publicist into a rambling lunatic.
So, dear Business Insider, while I can somewhat forgive your oversight I feel I need to add my own addition to this list :
28) Book Publicist
Overall Unhealthiness Score: 55.0
What they do: help authors get publicity, sometimes they talk an author off a roof. Some publicists have been known to medicate their authors. Note: those who force-feed authors medication do not face the same health risks as publicists who let their authors run amuck. Or maybe “cage-free” or “free-range” is more PC…
Top Three Health Risks:
- Exposure to arrogance, cynicism, and other mentally taxing personality traits. 100
- Risk of complete loss of empathy. 96.5
- Risk of alcoholism or narcotic addiction. 90
Check out the original article to see how the figures above were determined!