The Bookseller.com

29th August 2008

SYP Insider

The Society of Young Publishers will be blogging each month to assist, inform and enthuse anyone trying to break into the publishing industry or progress within it.

Getting on

11.07.08

So what does it take to get ahead in the fabled world of a publishing editorial department? Well first off, you’ll be desperate to work in editorial and will think working with books is just right for you.

But there’s certainly no shortage of people who think the same, so "loving books" or "enjoying reading" will not make your CV stand out.

But what will? A good degree will help, work experience is a no-brainer and extensive market research is vital. But you must also ask yourself are you right for the role?

Editorial jobs, even assistant roles, involve dealing with a large, sometimes repetitive but often-disparate workload. To get in you need to possess certain characteristics. Prioritisation is key—can you handle having lots of things thrown at you and sort them out to avoid a bottleneck? Do you have the ability to negotiate and delegate? Could you spot the good parts of a proposal and consolidate disparate ideas into whole books?

Your next step should be to read magazines and websites about the trade and talk with careers advisers and people in the profession to find out if commissioning books is actually your style. If the answer is yes, then work on you CV and apply. And then apply again.

When you’ve jumped the first hurdle, what next? If you’re a few years into your editorial stint you’ll have noticed colleagues and friends stuck on the ‘assistant’ rung, or you may well be there yourself. There’s no set time-span to serve as assistant—I’ve seen editors ‘made’ in two to three years. I’ve seen assistants stay in that role for half a decade. Sometimes there’s an element of fortune. A fairly standard assistant might step into a vacated role, seemingly undeserving of it. Often though, your apprenticeship will be defined in length by your appetite and hunger for more work and more responsibility. Being inert and passive and not taking extra work when it is offered will keep you on the assistant rung. Whilst it is tough to do, it’s the set of crumbs from the table that let you get the experience you need to progress.

What puts most of us in the same career bracket is our need to address the persistent question at hand—what is more important for getting ahead: networking, talent or luck?

To start with the obvious, a talent for editorial is about publishing the right books, at the right time, on the right subjects, for the right people. As an editor, notions of your ‘talent’ can and often are shaped by the numbers game above all else. It can be disheartening, but a talented editor does have to bring the money in: it isn’t all about schmoozing authors with boozy lunches. An average week might have one lunch and one book launch, but eight hours of reading manuscripts and 16 hours of dealing with things asked of you by your colleagues. Developing the right balance between the so-called glamour and the demanding work at hand should be your personal goal.

Sometimes, the ‘right time/right place’ syndrome might promote poor performers unfairly to the upper echelons. And a bad editor’s characteristics—including awful people management skills, belligerent opinions, and a defensive response to criticism—will soon become a frequent ‘water cooler’ talking point. But don’t lose heart, the good people get ahead too—those that have the ability to relentlessly multi-task and be both retrospective and forward thinking at the same time. I’ve seen editors single-handedly push through seminal books and discipline-shifting journals without compromising on integrity.

Ultimately, what happens on the balance sheet defines you as much as what happens on the page, but so do the relationships you build along the way, and eventually, it is hoped, satisfaction will come from playing a real part in the success of a book, big numbers or otherwise.

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