PR pans publishing in job ad

A top Knopf Doubleday publishing exec has penned a pained job ad for a publicist that eviscerates the book industry.

Paul Bogaards, the director of p.r. for the storied house, posted an official ad for a publicist that tamely lists duties like “animating authors . . . in the marketplace.” But he turned to his blog to post an “actual job description” that details the grim reality of the work: “providing counseling for authors ( a lot of counseling) . . . Working with dying legacy media professionals . . . and other halfcrazed publishing desperados.” He continues, “The ideal candidate will have had previous experience working as a magician . . . You will be given books to work on that have no possibility whatso- ever of becoming bestsellers, and yet, the operating expectation is that all of them will list.” But the publicist could survive, he writes, “provided they do their job without committing actionable offenses on social media . . . or threatening to kill someone because they wrote a bad review.”

Referring to himself in the third person as the piece’s tragic hero “the director,” Bogaards bemoans, “The job is a grind . . . The executive director has been doing it for thirty plus years. He has become a hollow shell of the man he once was.”

The p.r. guru for Knopf — which publishes heavyweights including John Grisham, Margaret Atwood and Colson Whitehead — warns, “As a publicist, you will live a life of sadness and defeat. And you will learn to cry. The director is looking for someone to step into his role because he is tired of weeping.” He adds, “This is what will actually happen: You will be staring at your mobile in a crosswalk, answering a complaint from an author about their seat assignment on a United flight, and then be hit by an Uber. That is the most succinct description of book publishing in the 21st century that the director can think of.”

He scathes the Times and the New Yorker, but praises The Post’s Keith Kelly. Bogaards “will always answer the phone when Keith Kelly calls, because he is the embodiment of OLD F - - KING

SCHOOL.” Asked for comment. Bogaards succinctly added, “Post = effective recruitment tool.”