The University of Sydney

MECO 6916: Editing and Manuscript Preparation

"Key figure" or "endangered species"?

The changing role of the editor in book publishing

from Beatrice Davis′s day through to 2008

During the last century, the publishing industry has experienced a fundamental change

in its business. Due to the technological revolution also the role of the editor in book

publishing has been affected by frequent innovations.

In this essay I am going to provide an overview of the changing role of the editor in

book publishing from Beatrice Davis′s day through to 2008, a phase marked by

incisive and far-reaching alterations. At first I will expose the role of the editor and his

challenges in the age of Beatrice Davis, who was a pioneer in her business as one of

the first literary editors in Australia. Then I will point out important changes, the

publishing industry went through, and in which amount these also had an impact on

the role of the editor. Not only market changes and commercial pressures, but first and

foremost the digital revolution plays a determining role in this development. Finally, I

will outline the role of the editor today and glance at the future prospects of the editing

business, according to Morrison (2005) who is concerned with the question: "Has

editing had its day?"

The role of the editor in general isn′t an easy one to describe or even understand: the

term `editor′ was established in the book industry (Mackenzie 2004:3) but you will

find editors in many other fields of work with various different responsibilities. Those

responsibilities are often much more than just proofreading and copyediting: the editor

might be the one who manages the project "book", which means commissioning a new

project, working with the author on first drafts, organizing the copyedit, design and

launch to get the book into the bookshops. According to Davies (1994:19) the editor

"takes the most proactive role in the genesis of the book". Authors, on the other hand,

don′t always have the best attitude towards their editors: the editor′s business was

referred to as "the butcher′s trade", "emasculation" or cutting your "own nose into

shape with scissors". (Morrison 2005) However, that′s not the general ­ and ideal -

relationship between an editor and his authors.

Although it should seem to be obvious today, the role of the editor in book publishing

wasn′t always a distinguished and recognised one. The Oxford English Dictionary

(1712) is the first to refer to the profession of the editor with the definition "one who

prepares the literary work of another," (Manguel 2000:131f); it took around 200 years

1

until the editing history can chronicle a more present-day definition1 as well as "a full-

fledged editor in the contemporary sense" (Manguel 2000:132), Maxwell Perkins.

Perkins (1884-1947) worked with literary figures like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Earnest

Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe and it is due to him that the profession of the editor

slowly started to become a more recognized and accredited one (Manguel 2000:132).

Consequently, over the next decades there were a few more editors, who should

become legends: in the Australian book publishing business Beatrice Davis (1902-

1992) was one of them. According to Mackenzie (2004:4) "book publishing is

women′s business"; Beatrice Davis is a prime example for that. Often considered a

pioneer (Mackenzie 2004:12) in professional literary publishing and working almost

forty years of her career as a general editor at Angus & Robertson, until 1973, she

contributed a lot to the development of editing as a profession over those fifty years in

the business. (Kent 2001) During this period she already experienced the early stages

of the change from a culture-determined business to a publishing industry with a

market-oriented focus. Davis acted against the inevitable change to a commercially

motivated business, though, and advocated culture-led publishing.

Beatrice Davis got to know the beginning of the change of tendency in publishing

business: market changes and commercial pressures were already noticeable, the

digital revolution yet to come. In Davis′s days writing was done by hand or typewriter,

on paper not digital; editing was done by pencil on paper, communication took place

on paper, via post. No personal computer, email, World Wide Web, no word

progressing programs or home printers - something that is hard to imagine these days.

In

The Editor′s Companion

Mackenzie (2004:12) describes vividly the editor′s tough

past, as she experienced the "transformation of the profession" herself: as editing

wasn′t at all a well-known and wide-spread profession in the 1960s, there was no

general pathway how to become an editor, "no training for editors, no pay scale, no

career structure, no security" (Mackenzie 2004:12). The working space of an editor

just forty years ago demonstrates best some of the crucial changes: instead of modern

technological innovations, like photocopier, laptop, Internet, fax and printer, there is

1 "One who works with the author in the fashioning of a work of fiction" (Manguel 2000:132)

2