As a freelance writer of college textbook supplements and ancillaries, you’ll frequently be dealing with editors working for the textbook publishers. I focus on how to find editors and get assignments from them again and again in Writing College Textbook Supplements: The Definitive Guide to Winning High-Paying Assignments in the College Textbook Publishing Market, and over time I’ll share much of what I know with you on this blog.
For now, let’s examine the different types of editorial positions. Here’s a general hierarchy within the college higher education publishing world, from the most powerful to the least powerful:
Executive Editor
Senior Editor
Development Editor/Project Manager
Associate Editor
Assistant Editor
Editorial Assistant
Depending on which project you are involved with, you could come into contact with any of the bottom five. However, the people most likely to hire you and work with you are assistant editors and associate editors, and occasionally development editors. Editorial assistants help higher-level editors with a variety of tasks, so you will also deal with them. This has been my overall experience with the two college higher education publishers I’ve created the most supplements for: Prentice Hall/Pearson Education and Cengage Learning/Wadsworth Publishing.
(This post is based on an excerpt from Chapter 2, “Students, Instructors, Editors, Publishers,” from John Soares’ e-book Writing College Textbook Supplements: The Definitive Guide to Winning High-Paying Assignments in the College Textbook Publishing Market. You can download the Detailed Table of Contents and first two chapters for free.)
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