Is there a career path for an editor?

An author wrote and asked, “Is there some sort of career path to become an editor?”

Of course there is a career path for most editors. You normally start as an Editorial Assistant, spending one to three years learning the book process. Generally you work with an editor, sometimes more than one, and your job is to fill in the gaps. It’s one of those unglamorous jobs — filing, letters, P&L forms, reading crummy proposals, cleaning up messy issues, talking to authors on the phone, and doing your best to make the editor look good. Most of the editors you see these days began as Editorial Assistants. The focus of the job is “process” — that is, learn the process of how books are done.

The next step is to rise to the level of Assistant Editor. You’re still doing all the same crummy stuff as an EA, but you begin to focus on the word side — how do you edit a manuscript? That often means doing a shadow edit behind an editor. Many Assistant Editors are asked to work in one particular area — business books, or health books, or perhaps to help with one A-level author. The focus of the job is usually learning to edit words (unless you’re on the production side).

For many, the next step is that of Associate Editor, though at some houses this isn’t cut and dried. An Associate Editor generally has a specialty, and it is most often defined as “working with words in some way.” That is, they spend their day editing actual manuscripts. Maybe they do copy-editing, some developmental editing, they do some reading and reviewing. I had an Associate Editor at Time-Warner who ran our “copy” procedure. There were Associate Editors who tracked cover copy, catalog copy, front matter, etc. At most houses, an Associate Editor is somebody who just focuses on the word side and doesn’t acquire (though that’s not universally true). But there are specialty editors that are at this level — full-time copy editors, for example, or production editors who manage a manuscript once it has already been edited.

The next level would be that of Editor, which you’re probably familiar with. They basically have two jobs: to acquire and edit. Some houses have dedicated Acquisition Editors, who simply acquire but do not edit manuscripts. And occassionally you’ll find somebody rewarded with the title of Senior Editor, generally reserved for editors who have had some great market success.

There are also Managing Editors, Executive Editors, Grand Poo-Bah Editors, and Editors-for-Life. They drink a lot of coffee, attend meetings, and fly around to various cities, trying to look busy while worrying if Random House is going to buy their company.

Okay, so how does one break into this biz? Normally, it’s by applying for an Editorial Assistant job, starting at the bottom and moving up. A background in English helps. Many schools no longer teach grammar, so boning up on your basic English skills or your Latin can prove helpful. Any experience with copy editing is also a good thing, so consider getting a job at a newspaper or magazine to learn that skill — or even volunteer to do it. Experience creating marketing copy will also prove helpful. The toughest thing to learn is how to do an actual development edit, especially with a novel, so that is a highly recommended course of action. Take a class, join a group, study with someone, or do something to build your developmental editing skills. 

The process isn’t always this neat, of course. Sometimes an experienced sales person or marketing type will suddenly get switched over to the Editing Department. Sometimes an editor at one house becomes an associate editor somewhere else. Or a writer will be handed the job of Editor, and has to learn the house’s process on the fly. But that’s the basic track. 

Feel free to ask me any clarifying questions.