Caroline Hogg has worked in publishing for almost ten years, at Little, Brown Book Group and more recently at Avon, HarperCollins. She's currently at Pan Macmillan as Senior Commissioning Editor for Commercial Women's Fiction. She knows her stuff!
Today's question comes from a Novelicious reader who asks:
How did you become an editor? What was your
first job in publishing?
Caroline says:
My first job in
publishing was as an editorial assistant at Little, Brown Book Group, on the
Abacus imprint. I can’t stress how lucky I was: only a few months out of
university, having never worked in an office before and admittedly rather
clueless about publishing! My first two bosses were incredibly lovely people
that took a chance on me and gave me an excellent grounding in the business. I
had already had several work experience placements (which I really recommend if
you want to get into publishing. You not only get a flavour of the work but you
get to meet people, and so hear about job openings) which was a good
introduction to the industry but only really skimmed the surface. There was so
much to learn and it all seemed so glam: launch parties (where I could be found
serving the wine and snaffling canapés when no one was looking), submissions to
read (though I mostly read from the slush pile to start with, which was
certainly interesting) and most exciting of all was meeting real
authors. It took me quite a while to stop becoming completely speechless in
front of them – I was a quivering wreck in front of Margaret Atwood, which
still makes me cringe to this day – and I had to pinch myself that it really
was my job. For an English Literature graduate, it was a dream come true.
After learning the
ropes and photocopying a lot of memos, I was promoted from editorial assistant
to assistant editor. I know it sounds like virtually the same thing but it was
a very important distinction for me at the time! I then became
a junior editor, a desk editor (where I did a lot of copyediting and preparing
books for publication), then a commissioning editor (where I could start to
look for my own authors to sign up for the list) over the course of about five
years. Publishing is an industry where you really can’t beat learning on the
job and I picked up so much from the incredibly talented bosses I’ve had along
the way.
One
of the most important lessons I learnt in my first job, which I have taken with
me through all my subsequent jobs, is that each and every author you meet has
put their heart and soul into their writing. No matter how many books they’ve
written or how calm they may seem on the surface, to create something from
nothing, to write a book and edit it and edit it and edit it until you’re
borderline certifiable, to then send your precious creative work out into the
world to be read and reviewed and commentated on, it all takes an amazing
amount of talent, dedication and guts. And an editor’s job is to make the
process as painless as possible for the author, because they are the heart of
what we do. We simply wouldn’t have a job without them.
Have a writing or publishing related question for Caroline? Just email a question to kirsty@writingtipsoasis.com, ask on our Facebook or Twitter or just leave a comment below!