Reply #117: You have to CONTINUALLY publish to get ANY PhD job and remain in academia.

[Leopolds Ghost]

That includes Post-Docs who make $35,000 a year in 6-month stints.

You have to amass either Post-Docs or VERY good references/CV
(including numerous published articles while you were still
in grad school, i.e. you had to have been groomed by a prof
to get a by-line on the authorship) to get a professorship of
any sort at a good college. That includes lecturer. It is
almost impossible to break into unless you are VERY good or
settle for a low-paid job at a community college because you
love to teach. Even THEN you have to publish occasionally
and attend conferences simply to remain current in your field.

A lecturer is like a journeyman wireman in the electrician field.
It means you have been vetted. if you don't fuck up you could be
a tenured professor one day. In the meantime you are considered
an entry level (non-tenured) professor.

(the pool of tenured profs is growing ever smaller -- I think
there are only something like a hundred tenured research
scientists in NIH or your average prestigious university --
it is far easier to become a state legislator.)