The custom publishing industry continues to flourish, with custom publications becoming more sophisticated - and, as a result, editorial and design pay scales and personnel increasing at companies and organizations that produce custom publications, according to new research.

Custom publishers have enjoyed their sixth consecutive year of substantial growth both in overall spending and individual areas, according to the “Staffing and Compensation: How Corporate America Staffs its Custom Publishing Endeavors” study from the Custom Publishing Council (CPC), in cooperation with Publications Management newsletter.

Some findings from the CPC study:

• Specialist roles are increasing: The use of individuals with editorial and design titles (rather than general “communication” titles) to produce custom publications has increased; they now constitute 47% and 32%, respectively, of publication staffing.
• Year-to-year compensation: Average compensation for all types of professionals who produce custom publications increased this year to $55,951, a 2.1% increase over last year.
• Publishing staffing levels continue to grow: An average of 3.23 professionals per company work on custom publications today - up 48.8% from an average of 2.17 professionals in 2000.
• Staff committing more hours to custom pubs: Compared with six years ago, the time that staff at companies are spending on custom publishing has increased 68.1%.
• Productivity increases: Productivity, as measured by the number of unique pages produced per full-time-equivalent employee, increased to 439 pages from 169 pages in 2001 - an increase of 159.8%.

“Custom publishing products have become glossy, high designed and compelling editorial products and as a result pay scales and overall resources are increasing at companies and organizations,” said Lori Rosen, executive director of CPC. “And, as our research has shown, editorial and design employees are their most prominent players and highly in demand.”

About the study: The research was conducted by Publications Management, a newsletter tracking the custom publishing industry. The research was conducted by mail targeting a random sample of companies across all industries, with 200 respondents.