A Day in the Life of an Assistant Editor in Book Publishing
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to work in book publishing? Just a few years ago I had pretty much no idea what anyone in the industry really did – despite having a keen interest in books and how they’re made. It all seemed so mysterious and elusive. What was the life of a book editor like? Would I even enjoy it? As it turns out, yes, I would, but at the time I had no idea!
So for all of you who are wondering just what an assistant editor gets up to day-to-day, I’ve put together a run through of a typical day for me in the office.
9:30 am: I sit down at my desk with a cup of tea and my breakfast, and go through my emails. Often I will have received a few emails overnight from authors or freelancers, so I spend some time replying to those first.
10am: With my emails out of the way, it’s time to get started on some admin. This can involve all sorts of things: updating information on our database, coding invoices, ordering books, sending out gratis copies and completing paperwork.
Today I need to write some copy for an upcoming catalogue, so I focus on that first. I’m also arranging the image licenses for an exciting family memoir that I’m working on, so I open up that spreadsheet too. This book is going to have lots of black and white images throughout the text, and negotiating the licenses involves a lot of back and forth with multiple companies, so I’m making slow but steady progress! I’m really looking forward to seeing the finished copies later in the year.
12pm: At midday I have my fortnightly meeting with one of my editorial colleagues, our production controller, and the cover designer. We spend the meeting going through all of the projects that we’re currently working on in chronological order - lots of them don’t actually publish until next year, but creating a book is a long process and we have to get started early. This is one of the most useful meetings that I have as it allows us to check that everything’s on track, and we can discuss any issues that have come up since we last met. Plus, my colleagues are all lovely and it’s always great to catch up!
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
12:30pm: Our meeting’s over so I have a bit of time to squeeze in some more admin before I go for lunch.
1pm: Lunchtime!
2pm: Time to get started on some editorial tasks. As an assistant editor I work very closely with the books on our list, helping to knock a text into shape before it goes to press. I also manage lots of our freelancers, which include proofreaders, copyeditors, indexers and designers. So the next few hours are spent organising the text corrections for one of our books. It’s just been proofread by the author and one of our brilliant freelancers, and I have to check through the corrections and compile them ready for the typesetter.
3 pm: It’s time for my second cup of tea to get me through the afternoon!
4pm: I’ve had a few emails come in while I was working on the proofs, so I need to respond to those. I often end up with queries from all over the company, including production, marketing, publicity, sales, editorial and design.
5pm: It’s nearly the end of the day, but I still have a few urgent tasks to do. One of our books needs to go out for a copyedit, so I send out an email to one of our regular freelancers asking if they’re free.
Finally, I make sure to finish off any jobs that I started earlier on in the day, or didn’t get around to doing (usually admin, there’s always more admin to do!).
6pm: Home time!
One of the great things about working in publishing is that every day is different. An editor’s job is very varied, and we spend our time working on different books, with different authors, tackling all sorts of different challenges. It’s a great industry filled with lovely people who really care about what they do, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
Further reading
Here are a few more great pieces about working in the book industry:
A Year in the Life of a Digital Marketing Manager
A Day in the Life of an Editor