Editorial assistant

An editorial assistant is the person who keeps a list of books or articles moving while the editors decide what to publish. That means logging submissions, chasing people who owe you a file, writing the short copy nobody else has time for, and knowing where every version of every document is. It is an entry level job with an unusual amount of responsibility hiding inside it, because a date you fail to chase is a printer slot somebody loses.

What the job actually involves

• Log incoming submissions, track where each one has got to and send the replies the editor has decided on.
• Chase authors, agents and freelancers for manuscripts, contracts and corrections that are late.
• Write blurbs, catalogue entries and cover copy to an exact word count.
• Book and brief freelance copy editors, proofreaders and indexers, then keep them to the schedule.
• Clear permission to reuse quoted poems, lyrics, photographs and long extracts.
• Check that the file going to production is the version everyone has actually agreed on.
• Take notes in acquisitions and schedule meetings, and turn them into actions people can follow.
• Keep the record straight: title, subtitle, price, publication date, format and category.

On a normal day

• An author emails at nine to say the manuscript needs another three weeks, and the printer slot is already booked.
• You write forty words of cover copy and the editor cuts it to twenty five better ones.
• You spend an hour working out who now owns a photograph taken in 1978.
• You send a rejection whose two polite sentences took you ten minutes to phrase.
• A retailer flags that the paperback price on their feed looks wrong, and you find out that it is.

Pay and hours

Starting

£24,000 a year

Typical

£27,000 a year

Experienced

£30,000 a year

Source: National Careers Service, which publishes a starter and an experienced figure and no median, so the median shown here is the midpoint of that band, checked 2026-07-29.

Usually 37 to 39 hours a week, regular pattern.

Skills that matter

• Holding a schedule other people keep breaking. Everything in publishing is booked months ahead, so one late file moves printing, shipping and the date shops have already advertised.
• Writing short. Cover copy, catalogue entries and email subject lines all have hard limits, and the discipline of cutting is most of the craft.
• Reading as a stranger would. You have to judge whether copy makes sense to somebody who has never heard of the book, not to the four people who made it.
• Permissions and rights basics. Reusing four lines of a song without clearance can cost more than the book earns, and the assistant is usually the one who spots it.
• Declining without burning the bridge. Most submissions are turned down, and the writer you reject this year may be represented by an agent you need next year.
• Accuracy in dull detail. A wrong publication date or a mistyped ISBN travels straight into every retailer's system and is slow and public to unpick.
• Handling somebody else's work carefully. Every file on your desk took a person years, and how you talk about it in an email is remembered long after the decision is.

How people get in

• University (Degree). English, history, journalism or media are common, though the subject matters less than evidence you can write to length and hit a deadline. Usually 3 years.
• Apprenticeship (Level 4). The publishing professional apprenticeship puts you inside a publisher on a wage and is the strongest route in that skips a degree. Usually About 2 years.
• Postgraduate course (Level 7). A publishing masters covers editorial, production, rights and sales, and usually includes a placement, which is the part that gets you hired. Usually 1 year.
• Direct application (No formal qualification). Some publishers hire assistants on a written test and a work sample, then train in house, particularly outside trade fiction. Usually Varies.

Experience that helps

Show you have handled words and deadlines rather than that you love reading, because everyone applying loves reading. Bookshop or library work, a student magazine, running a reviews account with a real audience, reading submissions for a small press, a newsletter you send every week: any of these give you something to talk about. Two weeks of work experience inside a publisher is worth chasing, and small independent presses answer emails that big ones do not.

Who employs editorial assistants

• Trade book publishers
• Academic and educational publishers
• Magazine and trade title publishers
• Professional, legal and medical publishers
• Small independent presses
• Museums, charities and learned societies with a publishing arm

Where the work happens

Mostly desk work in a hybrid pattern, with a lot of email and a shared schedule you live inside. Publishing is concentrated in a handful of cities, London above all, though remote roles have grown. Teams are small, so an assistant sits close enough to the decisions to learn fast. Starting pay is low for the qualifications people arrive with, and that is the honest complaint the industry keeps hearing.

Where it leads

• Assistant editor and then editor, taking on your own list of titles.
• Commissioning, where you decide what gets bought rather than what gets processed.
• Rights and permissions, selling translation, audio and serial rights abroad.
• Production or project editing, owning schedules, printers and budgets.
• A sideways move into publicity, marketing or freelance copy editing.

Common questions

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