Advice to a Young Editor

Five Myths of Being an Assistant in Publishing

An exciting piece of personal news was announced publicly two weeks ago. After seven years in publishing, I’ve been promoted from an associate editor (which really translates to something more like “senior assistant”) to a full-time editor. For me, this means something like doing the same job I’ve been doing, but without full-time assisting one or two other editor’s desks (happy independence day!). But before I ascend these lofty heights and forget about The Struggle, I wanted to reflect on my time as an assistant, and maybe offer some advice by ways of debunking some of the myths that publishing perpetuates to keep the level of editor as elusive and difficult to reach as possible. (Don’t worry, I’m not changing the name of the Editorial Assistant Book Club.)

The announcement in all of its glory. A whole lot of work for one sentence. Very fitting.

Myth #1: Titles Matter

Especially as you get older, holding the title of “assistant” can feel like an anchor. But having gone to Quaker school — not to be confused with the Amish, for anyone who grew up outside of Pennsylvania — I learned early on to at least question the value of titles. In addition to being some of the earliest abolitionists, Quakers were also the first to push back against formal titles in the American Revolution. Equality, they believed, is undermined by formally ranking people above each other with titles. That example has always stuck with me, and it relates to advice I would give any assistant in publishing: what matters is the work you do, not the title you hold.

Like the vast majority of businesses, publishing is an intensely hierarchical system. While it would be foolish to argue that your title doesn’t affect opportunities (or pay), it doesn’t have to affect approach. Editors at every level — from assistants editing books to executives editing books —  are doing the same core job no matter what title they hold. Yes, generally, the bigger the title someone has comes with more expectations and money (and maybe ego), but the job itself is equivalent to “we all put pants on one leg at a time.” If you edit books, you are an editor no matter what your title says. Other people may treat you differently based on your title, but a title doesn’t make you de facto good or bad at the work. Ignore the people who think of you or treat you as a lesser and focus on getting better at the work and the people who recognize a job well done. I am lucky and particularly grateful to have crossed paths with a great many writers who felt this way and where open to receiving edits from an assistant.

 Myth #2: Editors are Tastemakers

This is probably the most common misconception outside of publishing. It may have been true 100 years ago, but editors generally don’t have total freedom to choose what they work on. With very rare exception, each publisher has certain markets they cater to, which can mean genres, demographics, or levels of sophistication (i.e. blockbusters vs. Oscar films). While editors have been lauded as “tastemakers” or derided as “gatekeepers” the reality is that the vast majority of editors work on a dozen books a year and generally occupy a small sliver of the publishing landscape. Over a career you might be able to earn these labels (gatekeeper, tastemaker), but that takes decades. For anyone starting, out I’ll recycle a piece of advice from my boss: “You are not the books you publish.”

There’s often a fear early on that working on a book will define the rest of your career as an editor, but that’s almost never the case. The sad reality is that most books come and go, and even for editors who have been in the business for 20-30 years only a few titles— the very, very successful ones — tend to follow them by name. That doesn’t mean your reputation doesn’t matter on a more local level —  doing good work, being honest, choosing good projects adds up in different ways. Over time, agents and writers get to know generally if you’re a good editor or not, but the actual books don’t define editors as much as young editors often believe. Get experience anyway you can, try to maintain a high standard, but don’t turn down opportunity because you’re worried how it will make you look because by and large, no one cares.

Myth #3: Editors Read All Day

Anyone working in publishing is debased of this idea fairly quickly. As one of my colleagues memorably put it, our jobs are essentially “reading and sending 100-150 emails about books a day.” Book publishing may be associated with the glamour of being a creative industry but the majority of the work is an underpaid desk job. With the qualifications required to join publishing you can easily make more money doing less work in some other field. So most of the 9-5 day is spent not reading and fitting in the other creative parts of the job (copywriting, writing letters) into the deluge of admin.

The reading part of being in book publishing is more of a lifestyle, as my wife is fond of saying, than a job. Reading and editing happen early in the morning, on weekends and nights, and on the commute and even on the plane or the car on the way to vacation. Networking and book events also happen on your own time without pay.

I think of the oft repeated bromide about extroverts and introverts, but it’s true for these parts of the job: if you don’t “get energy” from doing the reading, editing, and networking then being an editor is definitely not worth it. “Getting energy” means getting lost in an edit for hours, reading a book for fun even after a long week of reading for work, and coming out of a work lunch excited not despondent.

Myth #4: Assistants Burn Out Because They Can’t Hack It

Publishing at its worst can operate a bit like a schoolyard, where the bullied grow and age up only to become the bullies of the younger kids. The same “I had to suffer this way so you do too” attitude pervades the book world. That means long hours of unpaid labor reading on nights and weekends, not great pay otherwise, and very opaque communication as to how and when one advances above the assistant level.

I’ve seen many young editors at various companies give up at the middle or late stage of being an assistant, and there’s no shame in that. While there is often no clear ladder or set goals provided to achieve the title of editor, there’s also a consistent drumbeat of “stick around long enough and it will work out” that gives young people hope and keeps them in the purgatory of administrative work. You also often face an attitude from those who have ascended to the plateau of editor that those who leave before making it just weren’t tough or smart enough to hack it.

But if the lifestyle part of the job doesn’t energize you (see Myth #3), then there’s no shame in packing it up earlier rather than later and going to do something more lucrative or with more normal hours or even more creative.

Myth #5: You Need a Track Record

The element that most works against young editors in reaching the next level is time. Unlike the Rolling Stones, time is not on your side in publishing and neither are the odds. Often, the metric to get promoted is “you need to buy, edit, and publish successful books”, even though that isn’t a strict part of your job description at any level of being an assistant, barring associate editor — the third “level” of being an assistant — where you’re granted “the privilege” of maybe buying and editing 1-3 books a year in addition to doing your full-time job.

As an assistant every odd is stacked against you to acquire and publish a successful book. By definition you’re usually working with fewer resources (to buy and to eventually market the book) than every other editor you’re competing with who outranks you. That’s after you convince literary agents to send you good projects, rather than more senior editors who can typically get projects green lit easier and pay more money for them. And you’re doing this all with less experience.

If you are able to acquire a book as an assistant, then you have to wait 1-2 years before it hits the market— for example I bought my first book in the 3^rd year of being an assistant but it didn’t publish until my 5^th year of being an assistant. You wait all that time, and then there’s also the fact once they publish, far more than 50% of books don’t make money. Let’s say everything goes right, and an assistant editor acquires their first book and it earns lots of money and gets great reviews. The powers that be might decide one successful book is a fluke or maybe that moderate success isn’t enough and ask that you repeat this success another 2-3 times, which takes another 1-2…you get the idea.

That’s why if you’re a young editor, you should take as many shots as you can. Whenever you believe in something that is very good you have to go after it with everything—convincing your publisher to take it on, editing it, and publishing it. The only advantage that young editors have over more senior editors is work ethic and attention. As Mark Twain is often attributed as saying “put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.” As a young editor you have one basket so give it all you have.

Is It Worth It?

I’ve seen many grizzled, veteran writers offer the same advice to young writers that I would offer to any young editors: “If you can do anything else, do it.” But if you have the bug for editing every time you face adversity in the profession, some mysterious force will pull you back in. For me, often it’s the writers who make it worthwhile, who alway surprise with something funny, intelligent, or unexpected that makes the job endlessly fascinating. Being an editor, you get to talk with all kinds of smart experts who have the rare ability to explain and get other people excited about their discipline. Although the system of publishing is far from perfect, many people — editors, marketers, publicists, agents, scouts, rights directors — who work within it are as equally as interesting. They are passionate about books, of course, but also this passion for books usually extends to a curiosity about the world that makes for good conversations. And then, there are the books. There is nothing like discovering a great new book and writer, which, no matter how hard the work becomes, resets it all and makes an editor’s eyes go big seeing all the possibilities of this wonderful and strange profession once again.