Editing role 'needs championing in-house', trade figures say

Key industry figures have revealed concerns about the undermining of the editor’s role within the industry, in the wake of criticisms by the Man Booker judges about the editing of some of this year’s prize submissions. Agents, editors and retailers have called for editors to be better supported, and their expertise properly championed, within their own publishing houses.

Kwame Anthony Appiah, chair of the judges of this year’s Man Booker Prize, was among those criticising the editing process at the shortlist press conference on 21st September, saying: "We occasionally felt that inside the book we read was a better one, sometimes a thinner one, wildly signalling to be let out." Fellow judge Val McDermid noted: "I think young editors coming through are not necessarily getting the kind of training and experience-building apprenticeship that happened when I was starting out."

However, literary agent Clare Alexander of Aitken Alexander Associates robustly defended editors. "There is still plenty of excellent editing, both in the UK and the US," she told The Bookseller. "And while I don’t like novels to feel bloated, I am all for big, immersive reads, and would any day rather books that are ambitious, if flawed, than an overworked, undernourished novel that has nothing urgent to say.

The judging panel of this year’s Man Booker Prize, chaired by Kwame Anthony Appiah (centre)

"But I also want to comment on judges’ vanity... The role of judges is to work out which are the very best books published that year, according to the rules of their respective prizes. In an effort, instead, to prove that they are smarter than publishers—or certainly than the major publishing houses or literary editors, whose day-to-day job is in discovering and nurturing talent—it has become all too frequent to overlook the obvious prize contenders and to make surprise selections."

Alexander believes "prize judges are currently all too ready to criticise rather than support our fragile literary culture, which is under plenty of external pressure already". Many industry figures stressed the ultimate control in book editing lies with the author. Bloomsbury editor-in-chief Alexandra Pringle said: "An editor can’t force an author to make changes. They can advise and suggest and become part of the creative process, but in the end it is the author’s book and that must be respected. As far as the length of the book is concerned, it depends entirely on the book... Each book is its own creature."

Pan Macmillan publisher Jeremy Trevathan agreed: "The editorial process at all of our publishing imprints is one of collaboration between author and editor, but at the end of the day the book is the author’s book. An editor suggests changes and cuts, but it is the author’s final decision as to what to accept and what to reject. This is the same whether you are a major brand name or a début author."

However Emma Corfield-Walter, of Bookish bookshop in Crickhowell, Powys, noted: "I often hear booksellers say, ‘Great book but it needed a good deal more editing.’ I do wonder if the stature of some authors means that some editors are too afraid to argue their professional point."

One respected literary journalist, who did not wish to be identified, said: "My feeling is, I read a lot of books where on the sentence level they could have had more attention, and the editors could have done more to get rid of howlers. What I do think is the case, however, is that good editors, where once they would have put all their time into the text, now have tons of other corporate and bureaucratic responsibilities, as well as pressure from higher up to deliver certain things."

Literary agent Lorella Belli made a similar point: "I think that possibly one of the main [recent] changes would have to be that editors have less time to edit. Their role has expanded in a way and they need to have a more in-depth knowledge of marketing, promotion, sales or contracts. A lot of the decision-making in the acquisition process has shifted and it relies heavily on other departments too, much more than before. What I’ve noticed, and what several editors have also mentioned to me, is how much time editors spend in meetings and doing all sorts of other aspects of the job, apart from the actual editing itself—certainly a lot less than, say, 10 years ago."

Beyond the call of duty?
Trevathan noted that "the advent of computerised management systems, new workflows and social media means that [editors] have, in recent generations, taken on many new tasks in the publishing process that go beyond what classic editorial work entailed". However he maintained: "There is plenty of training, both in-house and externally, for editors at Pan Macmillan and Picador, and at all the major publishing houses. The process of training is pretty well established, together with a mentoring process from more experienced editors to more junior editors. They start by learning copy-editing techniques, then line-editing, and moving up to structural editing."

Claire Hey, publishing director of Orion, said: "It is true that time feels short and the role of the editor feels much broader than ever before, so editors are pulled in more directions than they might have been previously. I think the best thing the industry can do as a whole is to make sure the space and time for editing is protected, and that younger editors are encouraged to shadow-edit and develop their skills alongside more experienced editors."

Nelle Andrew, an agent at PFD, said the agency had noticed a change in attitudes towards acquisitions: "My colleagues have told me they have seen a huge shift away from editorial. Perhaps you could have submitted a book that was unpolished but had potential. An editor would say, ‘I can do something with it and take it and shape it and do something amazing with it.’ As an agent, I have to do a huge amount of editorial work now. Those [acquisitions] meetings are not editorially led, they are more led by sales and publishing and publicity. I feel the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction, and now it is too risk-averse. The term ‘needs work’ is the death knell now, whereas 10 or 15 years ago it was seen as par for the course."

Some suggested that the value of editors has been undermined through senior roles being allocated to candidates with backgrounds in other areas of publishing. An editor, who wished to remain anonymous, said: "I would say that the role of the editor is not valued by many senior publishing people, as evidenced by how frequently key editorial roles have been handed to people from marketing, publicity and retail backgrounds. Often it seems that senior management— especially those from sales backgrounds, with no experience of working with authors directly—only value the acquisitions part of the editorial job and don’t appreciate the difference a dedicated editor can make to a book. [Editors] often see the potential in a book that others may miss, one which could be bought for far less money than splashy acquisitions that might make headlines but won’t necessarily deliver.

"As an editor who frequently does four or five drafts with my authors, I feel frustrated—and often angry—that the actual editing of a book is viewed as a minor part of the publishing process. Being a good publisher is not simply about lunches with agents and splashy acquisitions, it’s about working with an author to make a good book even better."

But Andrew said: "I think it’s really good to have a smorgasbord of opinions. People are allowed to move around [in the industry] and have experiences reflective of that. It’s really disappointing to say otherwise."