I’ve always enjoyed books, as I’m sure all of those who are part of the bookish community have, too. The touch and feel of a book, the art, the story — these are aspects of reading that are cherished by so many. What we’re not always aware of is the amount of hands that work on the pages we flip through.
The reality is that books are more than authors. Many departments are required to bring a manuscript to bookshelves. These individuals work from the editorial department to marketing to design. Their work is often overlooked and underappreciated, but their efforts bring forth stories we fall in love with. These people deserve recognition, and the best way to appreciate their work is to understand what they do.
Editorial Department
Editorial Assistant
An editorial assistant helps in managing the materials and schedules needed for the editorial department. These individuals prep materials for different departments, organize rights material, and manage internal as well as external communications. Their biggest role is to assist the editors with the materials needed for publication.
Commissioning Editor
Commissioning editors work with a specific list of writers in addition to sourcing new voices. Their work can vary from reading submissions to following publication, and it often requires them to be involved with a story through every part of the production process. Overall, however, their work revolves around typical editing duties, like editing manuscripts, but also involves negotiating deals and briefing artists.
Editorial Coordinator
An editorial coordinator works closely with the editing materials. This means that they work with the product from the physical qualities — book sleeves, art, etc. — to manuscript edits and formatting. Editorial coordinators manage the scheduled timeline of a story’s production, ensuring that the work on every step of the way is completed on time.
Publisher
While we may be familiar with publishers like Penguin Random House or Scholastic, individuals who work as publishers work within these companies. They are responsible for acquiring new books, writing feedback, and arguing a manuscript’s viability for a company. Publishers work with a variety of departments to push a project forward. The difference between an editor and a publisher is best explained by a publisher themself, “an editor will be more focused on project-managing a book through the editorial process, while a publisher focuses more on strategic planning of authors’ careers and managing the development and growth of the list of books they’re responsible for.”
Design Department
Design Assistant
The duties of a design assistant can range from performing administrative assistance to creating mock-up designs for projects. Unlike editorial assistants, design assistants operate in the art section of the book publication process. Their backgrounds are typically more design based, and they often work closely with designers to make corrections or maintain a schedule.
Art Director
The art director manages a team of designers as well as maintaining the design branding for the company. Their work usually revolves around sourcing freelancers, managing communications both internally and externally, and ensuring that the work of the designers is completed in both the name of the project and the company.
Designer
We know designers as those who design the cover art for books. These individuals also work with typography as well as typesetting. Typesetting is the work of formatting and setting a type for a manuscript for publishing and printing. A designer’s work in this aspect is often a forgotten one, however, their work is often what makes us pick up a book in the first place.
Marketing Department
Marketing and Publicity Manager
The marketing and publicity manager handles both the marketing and publicity team. They also manage the communication between these two departments, the public, consumers, and sales associates. They ensure that the work and efforts of the marketing and publicity departments are completed on time and with alignment to the company image.
Publicist
Once a manuscript has reached the final stages of production, a publicist’s work starts. A publicist is charged with running a campaign to generate excitement and interest in a new book. They not only design these campaigns, conduct research in target audiences, but they also speak with news outlets to ensure coverage and publicity on the project.
Marketing Executive
Like a publicist, a marketing executive also creates a campaign to generate interest in a project. The difference between these two roles is closely related to a marketing executive’s work with the design department. Marketing executives work with the design department to make marketing materials for the project, while the executives themselves handle budgets, schedules, and research for the project and its marketing campaign.
Legal Department
Rights Manager
Rights managers handle the rights for a project. In any production of any story, the rights are essential to protecting the story, protecting the writer, and protecting the company. They manage the rights on a purchasing level and an individual level. In this way, the rights manager ensures that the property of the publishing house and writer are not taken or violated.
Publishing Lawyer
Working within the legal department, the publishing lawyer works with procuring rights, legal documents surrounding the publication of a story, and providing legal care to the publishing house. These lawyers specialize in materials related to acquisition, selling, and business. Their work is largely lost to the other titles within the roof of a publishing house, but it’s incredibly necessary to production.
These individuals craft a book from manuscript to shelf. Their unrecognized work is what brings so many fantastic stories to our bookstores and our minds. With this transparency of their work, be sure to appreciate the many minds that worked to bring the stories we so love and adore.
Want to appreciate the work of these individuals further? Read Bookstr’s article on the most beautiful book art from 2024.
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