Scholarly editors connect the knowledge of their authors with the researchers that need it.

These editors work primarily as acquisition editors, taking chances publishing manuscripts with two sometimes opposing goals: 1. to deliver powerful new ideas to scholars, and 2. to garner revenue for the publishing press.

Because this kind of writing isn’t as marketable for a wide audience, each new manuscript acquisition can be seen as a gamble. Despite money being such a deciding factor, academic editors still only choose manuscripts that will contribute to their author’s respective field.

Academic presses are usually tied to universities, and are considered not-for-profit by the government. These factors culminate to allow these presses to publish unmarketable books and still remain financially stable.

Because these editors need to know what ideas will contribute to their field, they read articles in journals and other scholarly books. This gives them context of the academic conversation going on in their field and allows them to picture how a manuscript might fit into this conversation.

To find potential manuscripts, many editors have to go through unsolicited proposals of potential books, scanning for ideas that align with their field of expertise, as well as ideas they think will shape their field in some meaningful way.

According to Glassdoor, the general average salary for scholarly/academic acquisition editors is about $57,000.

If interested in this type of editing after college, a great class to learn about acquisition editing in general is “Writing and the Publishing Industry.” “Intermediate Writing” and any 300 level literature course is also useful, as they challenge students to write research-based papers.

Finally, consider majoring or minoring in something that pertains to the field you want to publish in, like the social sciences, the humanities, biology, etc.

Last update: 05/07/2019 KC