interview with a senior acquisitions editor.

Today, I interviewed the senior acquisitions editor for higher education. We walked through the breezy, gray San Francisco morning through an abandoned parking lot. At the end, the parking lot turns into a littered alleyway off of Fifth Street. At the end of the alleyway stands this chichi international-style cafe. Even though the outside was dirty, the inside was abuzz with professionals and hipsters and coffee enthusiasts, sharing a cappuccino-flavored morning over a free issue of the New York Times. I ordered the "New Orleans Style Iced Coffee," but it was a tough decision between that and the "Kyoto Style." The editor (who will be unnamed because I didn't ask for his permission to publish this) ordered a mini brioche that came wrapped in a post-consumer product coffee filter and a hot chocolate topped with whip cream floating in the shape of a flower. The place was the essence of San Francisco foodie culture, and the perfect place to get to know someone who embodied so much of that easy going, mellow, but slightly neurotic San Francisco charm.

I have typed up my thoughts after the interview for anyone interested. These are not direct quotations, but rather what I gathered during our hour-long conversation. I had the questions pre-written and then I filled them out from memory.

Here you go, for anyone lost on what area of publishing may suit them best.

Enjoy:

What is a typical work day like?

Frantic, busy, doing many different types of work

What do you spend most of your time doing?

He spends more time on business stuff than he thought he would – budgets and the like, but he also spends a lot of time on the phone with authors and delegating developmental tasks.

Why do you like your job? What is the best part of your job?

Chatting, being able to hear ideas from intelligent people and shaping those ideas. Seeing the big picture.

What are your yearly, weekly, monthly goals? What skills do you need to meet them?

He has business goals, but these are part of the smaller picture that he arrives at easily when he embraces the larger goal of publishing brilliant books.

What do you wish you could change about your job? What are your least favorite things you have to do?

Business stuff can be exhausting so you forget sometimes whether you’ve worked on anything developmental, which can be disappointing because you forget about your creativity and start to think of everything as items to be checked off your “to do” list. You usually have to delegate the more creative tasks when you are at the top of the ladder. One of the biggest disappoints he faces is when an intelligent, culture changing book that receives great reviews never sells, and then when a terrible book “sells like hotcakes” because it fills some kind of gap in the market. This can be frustrating.

Do you find your job stressful? Relaxing? Exciting? Fun? Why?

It can be all of the above. Publishing is “crazy making.” Sometimes the prospect of all of the work can be so overwhelming (where do you start!? – edit a 500-page manuscript, 10 calls to make…) and other times it can be so freeing and flexible because you can do so many different types of work at once, which is satisfying in its diversity.

What kind of education did you get? Is it beneficial to get an MA, MS in Publishing, PhD, MBA? What sort of courses would you recommend (which are desirable and which are necessary)?

He has taken the publishing course, but you should wait until your employer pays for it. It is mostly for the networking, if you want to break into publishing, or if you want to switch employers. It can be a great door-opener. Some of the classes are interesting and can give you a taste for all of the different kinds of publishing and jobs within publishing, which is useful. He doesn’t know how helpful the degree would be though, and advanced degrees are not necessary because you learn by doing in publishing.

Academic publishing

It has become much more of a business, more about the bottom line rather than publishing great ideas (though it is about that too). This is because budgets are being cut. These publishers used to be subsidized by the universities, but more and more they have to support themselves. Nonetheless, there is still some wonderful scholarship coming from academic presses. Like fiction, this type of publishing can involve a lot of “ego” from authors who may be hard to work with.

What was your previous work experience? Have you always been in publishing?

He has spent his entire publishing career at this one publishing house and loved it (“10 years that have felt like 15 though,” he says). He left publishing for a few years to work as an editor for a company and received a pay increase of 50%, but he says he missed publishing so much that he took a huge pay cut and came back to where he started with a higher position (associate editor). He needs that interaction between author and editor, that interchange of ideas. Otherwise, an editorial job can be stifling and lonely.

What are your long-range goals? Do you think you will always be here?

Yes. He has been here for 10 years, and it is the perfect job for him.

Are there any other types of book publishing you would be interested in shifting into?

No, he wouldn’t personally. But for me, academic presses and fiction publishers would be an interesting shift in careers. You can transfer between publishers once you become more well established. He suggested working for this house here and then transferring to the office outside of New York, and from there working my way up and shifting to an office in Manhattan and being able to support myself there.

Why are your skills well-suited for the type of editorial work you do? What sort of traits does a person need to be a good acquisitions editor?

As an acquisitions editor, he gets to chit chat all day long, which he loves to do. He has also been called a “cheerleader” and he says that being a good cheerleader is really what a good acquisitions editor needs to be. You need to be able to tell authors to “keep going!” “you’re doing great!” or “don’t do this so much.”

Do you feel that you are able to exercise your creativity in your job?

Not as much as you may think. Publishing (at least at a more academic-type press) is an ego-less profession. You may slave away at a manuscript developing it and never see royalties or even get recognition on the acknowledgements page. Only the publisher then would ever know that you developed the manuscript and made it what it was. But there is a flip side to this, the best editors (or at least the most famous) are those that have interjected their own theories, thoughts, and ideas into an author’s manuscript and given it the punch it needed. These editors often are recognized for their skill and precision (ie Clay Felker)

Are you optimistic about the future of publishing? About this company’s future?

This company will be safe from any changes in publishing because it supports academia, and academics are always looking for new information. Even if the form changes (ie digital books, e-books, Kindle-like hardware), the idea of the book will never be erased in this arena. The same is true of academic presses. However, he thinks that in academia, most customers (like him) prefer the paper format and they realize that there is a difference between something that goes up online and can be edited quickly and something that has been committed to paper. As for fiction, things are a little more up in the air, but even with reports of people no longer reading, this is simply not true. Many people continue to read and authors continue to sell books. These books may often be trash, but there is still hope. So the narrative is what is important, the format is a little more flexible, especially in fiction. Book publishing, at least, will not die anytime in the near future.

Do you think this is a flexible industry? Is it a good industry if you want to see a lot of the world?

Publishing is great because you can pretty much take any entry-level job and later train to be anything you want. For example, you can go into marketing or sales and still become a developmental editor. Or you can go from associate editor to acquisitions, though sales to acquisitions is usually more common. He does travel a lot for conferences, where he is able to interact with customers, authors, and fellow editors and publishing houses.

Is there any other area of publishing you are interested in? Who else would you suggest I talk to?

For me, developmental editing (esp. freelance) sounds like a good niche. Also, production. Probably not acquisitions because I can move back and forth from feeling super social to feeling like I want to be left alone. In general, though, this balance is hard to strike in publishing, and everyone has to find it for themselves. He often works from home, but he also often spends time in the office, trying to figure out in which environment he is most productive.

Is there anything you wish you had known when you were starting out that you found out on the job?

There can certainly be some frustrating times. You will work on a dozen manuscripts that you don’t care anything about, but you do it to get experience and to work up to the one manuscript that truly makes a difference. Stick with it and you will make it where you want to be.

Are finances an issue for entry-level jobs?

Yes, they certainly can be. Publishing is able to pay so little because publishers know that this is what English majors want to do, and they will do it for nothing if they are just given the opportunity [as a side note, I really think there should be an editorial union that demands higher wages for entry-level workers. You can’t live in New York on a $27K/year salary unless you live in Brooklyn and are willing to take your life into your own hands and risk being mugged every night that you go home—this is especially frightening because many editorial assistants are women]. Many editorial assistants live with 4 or more roommates and struggle with finances, but eventually they work themselves up to better wages. If you were to stay in San Francisco, it may be easier to afford living, but New York is where everything is. It is a conundrum and explains why many entry-level publishing people are still supported by their parents. Really, only the most notorious editors ever make a lot of money, but it is not impossible to make a lot, just an incredible challenge.

And I like challenges. :)