Editing and Publishing Through English

Some students see literary editing and publishing as the safe fallback job for writing books. Getting into this field is almost as hard as getting a book published in some ways. So, it is definitely not the easy fallback.

You’ll need to work hard during college and after college to break into the field, but if you love it you can do it-- here are some tips.

The official requirements for Publishing Track at Iowa include:

CNW 2991

CNW 2992

ENGL 2900/CNW 3632/ENGL 3145

ENGL 31** /4150 (publishing history through lit, see specific list of courses that count)

Experiential item: ENGL 2040, ENGL 4010 internship, etc.

But if you are serious about getting into editing or publishing I would suggest that you also do the following:

  1. Add an editing experience for at least 2-3 years. Choices may include writing/editing for The Daily Iowan, earthwords, Boundless, Fools or Little Village downtown. You could apply to be a Writing Fellow through the Writing Center.
  2. You could take some journalism classes if you want to do writing or want to edit for magazine or business. These courses would be: JMC 1100, 1200, 2200 or 2300, 1600 (1 s.h.) and then 2010 & 2020 at same time. Some of these count as gen eds. That is 5 additional courses
  3. Take 2 CNW writing courses, not just CW.
  4. Apply widely for editing internships on campus, in town, in nearby towns, in towns where you have relatives living, for online publications you can do from here. Ask on campus in alumni office or strategic communications office if they can use editing help (volunteer). Most of these will be unpaid but are still incredibly useful. Ideally you are going for these internships every summer you are in college. There are school year ones through University of Iowa Press and The Iowa Review that are highly competitive but also options. Look at Department of English Career page for more information on those.
  5. If you want to go into book publishing/editing, get around books. Volunteer or work at bookstore, go to readings by authors, go to the book festivals and meet publishers and authors, make contacts. Look at the websites of the publishers of the books you are reading and see if they offer internships. Write well-written and well-edited book reviews on your own blog. Show that you love to read and know the business.
  6. Consider an administrative job AT a publishing company rather than starting in editing. There are many university presses around the country and small publishing houses. You don’t have to start with the “biggies”.

Consider a post-graduation experience.

Two of them recommended by our graduates are:

Summer Publishing Institute (6 week program offered by New York University)

Denver Publishing Institute (4 week summer program offered by University of Denver)