Being an editor in New York

Allen & Unwin’s Susannah Chambers spent three months in New York as part of her Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship. In this extract from her report she examines the ‘notable differences’ between editors in New York and Australia.

What is it really like to be an editor in New York? On the one hand, I found the professional lives of the editors I met to look fairly familiar. The type of people drawn to the job seem to be similar the world over: overwhelmingly women, with a love of words and story, an interest in people, and varying degrees of analytical/pedantic brains… But there were a few notable differences about life as an editor in NYC:

The level of respect and understanding of the job
At home in Australia, whenever I’m asked what I do, the answer ‘I’m an editor’ seems to elicit one of two responses. Either some variation on ‘Would you take a look at my manuscript’ or, even more commonly, a sort of incomprehension and a totally lack of interest. ‘Does that mean you correct the grammar and spelling?’

In New York, the city of Gordon Lish and Maxwell Perkins, editing still seems to have some degree of cachet. People are actually impressed when you tell them what you do. I wondered if this was because I was moving in particularly literary circles, but several editors I talked to confirmed that there is still a general level of respect that goes along with working in publishing in New York City.

It’s probably partly because of the deep literary history of the city. Even though high rents are driving independent bookstores out of Manhattan, and the West Coast is developing a lively publishing culture of its own, New York is still the heart of publishing in the US, with only London, perhaps, to rival it anywhere in the world. Many of the world’s best, and largest, publishing houses are head‐quartered in New York. And many of the most admired and beloved books in the world were edited by people inside those very buildings in Manhattan.

It might also be in part because of my next observation:

‘Editor’ means ‘commissioning’
In Australia, for the most part, the broad job description of ‘editor’ does not involve acquiring books, until you are quite senior and tack ‘commissioning’ on to the front of your title. In most Australian houses, ‘publishers’ are responsible for building and shaping lists, and ‘editors’ work closely with them— and, depending on the house—do varying amounts of the structural editing, line editing, copyediting, author care and project management. Although the path to publishing often leads through being an editor, there are different skill sets and interests involved, and for many editors there is not a direct career path to publisher.

In New York, ‘editor’ is assumed to mean ‘commissioning editor’. Editors acquire books right from the start of their careers. In fact, editorial assistants—very junior staff who may be in their first job in publishing—are often encouraged to start acquiring books, even if it’s just one or two a year. Several people told me that two years into your first editorial job was about the standard time to acquire your first book.

I wondered about the pressures and expectations that this puts on junior and inexperienced staff. But for the most part, at least in the houses I visited, it seemed a safe, supportive environment to test your wings. At least a couple of senior staff I talked to were horrified when I asked if there was any formal (or even informal) profit expectations or title quotas placed on the acquisitions of junior staff. It seems to be seen more as a chance to start defining your own editorial taste, to firm up your judgement skills, and to start making the all-important connections with agents and authors.

In Australia, publishers often drift away from the craft of editing as they become more senior and move into the publishing role. If you are responsible for the acquisition of a large list, it’s impossible to personally edit each book. But in New York, very senior editors still do the actual craft of editing. In many cases, structural and line edits are still done by the person who gives their name to the imprint. This means that the actual nuts and bolts of editing, the structural reports, the line edits, are still held in esteem.

I also found it interesting to note that US houses also have a very strict definition of copyediting, and it is not something done by ‘editors’ but strictly by ‘copyeditors’—who are completely separate from the other stages of book production, and who are highly skilled in that one area. My experience in Australia suggests that we are less rigid in the definitions of the stages of editing, and the roles of the editor. In some cases, I think what we might call a ‘copyedit’ is much closer to what they call a ‘line edit’ and what they call a ‘copyedit’ we might think of as closer to a proofread and preparing the book for the typesetter.

Editing is a less collaborative exercise than I am used to
I know that the experience of Australian editors differ in this, but I am used to working in an environment where ideas are shared, where projects are discussed early and frankly, and where the editor and publisher work closely together during the editorial process.

In NYC, the fact that everyone is acquiring books means that there is a level of competition between editors, even within the same house, that I hadn’t encountered before. Some houses even allow their editors to bid against each other at auctions. And I heard of one instance where a coin was tossed to decide which editor got to bid on a book.

Even when working for the biggest publishing houses on the planet, many editors I met seemed to work very autonomously. Once you pass the assistant stage, you work almost exclusively on your own books—and, until you are quite senior, you probably don’t have an assistant of your own. So as an editor you are essentially alone with your authors and the words.

Pay and workloads
Sadly, I didn’t find that editors in New York are paid any better than editors back home. In fact, given the high cost of living in that city, the pay scales are possibly even worse. Young (mostly) women with partners employed in better‐paying industries are still the norm. This doesn’t encourage much diversity within publishing houses—and by extension diversity in the literature acquired. A problem we have in Australia too. But publishing in New York seems actively aware of its diversity problems, with industry committees set up to try to help address these issues.

Because editors at all levels of their careers are actively scouting for books to publish, the level of extra‐curricular work—reading, schmoozing, industry-committee joining—done across the board seems mind-boggling. I definitely got the sense that most of the background work that goes into acquisitions, and, in fact, a lot of the actual editing was done outside of hours.

The stereotype of brash and direct New Yorkers could not have been less true in many of the work interactions that I witnessed
I sat in on several editorial and acquisitions meetings where editors were asked to pass judgement and give advice on other editors’ budding projects. Genuine praise was doled out liberally. ‘I love it!’ ‘You must publish it!’ ‘Sign it up immediately!’ But even mild criticisms or reservations were couched in very careful, sometimes obfuscatory language. I began to learn that any statement that began with a gentle ‘If it were me…’ or ‘Just speaking very personally…’ meant the speaker thought the project up for discussion was a total stinker. My questions about this were usually met with laughter and recognition. Everyone knows the game, but it’s bad form to be too forthright with negative opinions—even among trusted colleagues with excellent working relationships.

Obviously, all this varies immensely from house to house across a diverse industry, but these observations held true in many houses I visited.

What can Australia learn from the way NYC does things?
I think that there is a lot to be said for encouraging editors to acquire books at an earlier age or career stage. I think it enriches the editorial job and makes the career path smoother and with fewer seemingly impassable roadblocks. (‘Who has to die around here for me to become a commissioning editor?’) I also think publishing houses greatly benefit from having young people bring enthusiasm and a fresh world view to their publishing programs.

But it also means that young editors are exposed to high pressures and workloads very early on in their careers. The fact that this can be hard and lonely is, I think, highlighted by the existence of the very well-populated ‘Young to Publishing’ committee run by the AAP [Association of American Publishers]. Among its stated goals it ‘strives to give junior employees a chance to build a community outside of their own publishing houses and to educate themselves about the industry as a whole.’

This is an edited extract from Susannah Chambers’ Beatrice Davis Editorial Fellowship report. Read the full report here.

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Category: Features