Most people who want to work in publishing dream of being an editor (I was one of them, too). In the minds of most people, editorship is wrapped in an aura of prestige, sophistication, importance and exclusivity. Editors are tastemakers, gatekeepers, discoverers and improvers of great literature, confidantes of authors and sometimes courageous revelators of truths.
Some of this has echoes in my job as a commissioning editor, but real work is more mundane: mostly project management and email! I’ve written about a typical ‘day in the life’ here. But the ideal and its associated expectations persist, and can affect how the whole publishing company operates, if not challenged. In fact, I think the Cult of the Editor is at work in most companies.
