Tl;dr: editor is ghosting me after offering for my book

So this year I finally got an agent after many years (I’ve been writing for smaller publishers who don’t require agents). Book went on sub in about February, we waited and waited, only one editor was interested. I met with her, and told my agent to go ahead with the offer. This was in July. Editor contacted agent a few times to pass on information about the sort of contract offered and asked about sales information for my previous books, etc.

This all happened over the summer, which can be slow in publishing. My agent and the editor were both away at various times, as was I, but when September rolled around and I’d still heard nothing, I started to politely harass my agent.

And she cannot get the editor to reply.

Now, as I said I’ve been an author for a long time (since the days of printing out manuscripts and paying for postage) and I know how slow publishing can be. (I once wrote a whole book before my then-editor replied to say she didn’t like the outline I’d sent her.) But currently, my agent cannot get any response out of this editor. The last contact we had from her was at the beginning of August. Agent has emailed and phoned but it goes to voicemail. I’ve even asked a friend at the same publisher to check the editor is still working there (she is) and isn’t sick or off work for any reason (she isn’t).

My agent, who has been in the business even longer than me (between us we’ve racked up about 50 years) is baffled. She’s never been ghosted like this by an editor who was very keen to buy the book. We both know they can be so slow to reply, or even fail to reply at all, to a submission, but this is way beyond the submission stage.

Agent has now called editor and said if you don’t want the book, just tell us. (I’ll probably end up self publishing and I hate self publishing.) Still nothing.

Is this a new thing editors are doing now? Has anyone else experienced this?

Hi guys! I graduated two years ago and have been looking for a job in publishing ever since. Nothing seems to be sticking. I’ve been getting interviews, but lately, even those emails have stopped coming. Rejection after rejection, that’s par for the course. For more context, I’ve had three publishing internships, am currently working freelance, and have two degrees in writing and publishing. I was wondering if anyone else is in a similar position or has been through this and decided to pivot away from publishing. I’ve applied to digital publishing and magazines, but a lot of those roles seem to prefer candidates with a journalism degree, which I don’t have. I’d really appreciate any advice on other fields that might align with my background and experience. I’m open to exploring new paths, but I’m not quite sure where to start.

Hey, I am a junior in college with one multimedia internship under my belt, and my dream is to work in publishing and eventually become an author. I applied for a penguin internship just because I figured I might as well, but I'm having trouble planning more realistic career paths. Is working in publishing realistic? If not, are there other jobs that would be more realistic for me as an English major? Would really appreciate advice from anyone with more experience as I don't know many people in this field.

I provided a sensitivity reading for a friend who is published by a major company in 2025 as a freelancer. We had a brief discussion of payment over email where they said they would send me a contract for payment (lots of waffling about not having enough in budget) but I never received this or any payment. Is it still worth pursuing or should I drop it?

I'm a recent college graduate applying for entry-level assistant positions (specifically editorial, but applying for anything). I have university editorial experience, a publishing internship, and general administrative work under my belt. My resume is currently one and one-third pages long, and I can get it down to one page if I remove my summary section.

When creating my resume in college, I was told that I needed a substantial summary at the top of my application. My summary is currently five sentences and functions as a laundry list of my positive attributes. I'm finding mixed results when researching online (some people saying not to include it if you have under three years of experience, others saying it's necessary especially if you have limited experience), so I figured I would ask people from my field.

For those who work/have worked in the publishing industry, do you have a summary in your resume? If I should keep mine, should I shorten/rework it? What structure should my summary follow?

Thanks!

Hi! You may remember me from this post from the start of this year or this one from a few months back!

At the time I wrote my last post, I was teetering on the edge of despair because despite the amount of work I was putting in, nothing was working out in terms of results. But I’m happy to say I pulled myself up the floor— and I’ve since landed my first editorial internship! It’s at a magazine based in NYC that has me work in-person for part of the week, has already been giving me so much long-hoped-for experienced, AND I can get paid!

Obviously this doesn’t mean my anxieties about employment are dead (even as I type this I’m worrying about internships for next semester/the summer after graduation), but I’m grateful that I finally got my foot in the door 😭✨

To any college students or recent grads still trying to land an internship in the industry, don’t give up! It’ll work out in the end :)

Hi, I recently graduated with a linguistics and cs degree and decided that editing might be a better fit for me than what I graduated into...

I'm wondering if anyone has any tips on what I can do to break into the publishing world? I applied to as many internships as I could for the spring, and I've been applying to whatever jobs pop up in publishing houses near me. I live in Boston, and I'm not interested in moving unless there's a sure thing (I can't afford nyc without a job!). I have previous experience in editing as a research assistant in college, experience and awards in translation, and a number of customer service jobs.

Things I've thought about so far are: doing a publishing/editing certificate/masters; getting a job at a local bookstore; and volunteering with a youth writing program (826 Boston). I've also thought about freelance editing, but I'm also not sure how to get started with that. I'm curious if there's anything else that I'm missing or should be doing to beef up my resume to at the very least get my foot in the door.

I know that it's a hyper competitive industry and that the pay is not great, but it's a risk I'm willing to at least try. Any advice is appreciated!

I’m an editor at a university-affiliated literary journal that publishes fiction, poetry, and CNF. We’ve been trying to broaden our submission demographics. We have a pretty diverse masthead as is, but for some reason our submitters seem to exclusively be white writers, which isn’t a problem per se, except we’re getting virtually no other demographics.

I feel like the journal is appealing to a wide audience, both of readers and potential authors, and I really want to have more diversity. The content also covers a wide variety topics and experiences.

Does anyone have strategies or experiences attracting more diverse voices?

Hi everyone!

I currently work in foreign rights and have been considering changing career paths. Honestly, I’m one of the few in publishing that feel like my salary is solid (and I consider myself lucky) but I have been feeling severely burnout (who isn’t?). But as I am getting older and my partner and I are wanting to start a family in the next few years, I want something where I’m not working nearly 70+ hours a week and feeling over saturated and overwhelmed.

I know I can’t tick off all the boxes (work that I care about, hybrid schedule, good pay, work/life balance) in any industry, but I’d love to hear from anyone that used to work in publishing (especially foreign rights) that has left and where did you go? How was the transition? Or even people that have considered leaving but didn’t - am I making a mistake by thinking of leaving?

Thanks in advance all x

Has anyone visited a self-publisher fair before? Here is one that took place in Chicago, IL in 2026. I hope that you can help to support these publishers.

idk, is anyone having issues with the sales and trend area on itunes connect, mines hasn’t updated in a week. is it just me ?? 🥹😥

I work as a junior editor at a publishing house in Europe, and soon I'll be attending my first international meeting with an American publisher who's visiting our office. We'll be discussing our imprints, recent acquisitions and upcoming titles.

English isn't my first language, and although I'd say my English is fine, I'm not completely confident when it comes to speaking.

I'm also still very new to the publishing industry, so I'm a little nervous about what to expect. My colleagues will be there too, which makes me even more self-conscious about my English. I'm worried I'll struggle to find the right words or end up rambling when it's my turn to speak.

For those of you who work in publishing or have attended similar international meetings, what are they usually like? How much are junior editors typically expected to contribute? Is there anything I can do to prepare myself beforehand?

Thanks in advance! <3

I am 19 years old and about to graduate college with a Bachelor's in criminal justice and a minor in political science. I originally intended on going to law school. Since I was in college for such a short time I didn't exactly get to figure myself out. So I am think about applying for grad school and looking into the NYU publishing program. As a person who graduated highschool with an associate plus my highschool diploma. Than went straight into university what are my chances of getting into a program like that with no prior experience in the industry. Also I would love to hear anyone thoughts or experiences on the industry.

Hey everyone! Just curious. I applied to 3 different positions to the same company (using SmartRecruiters portal). Two of them got "archived" with an automatic rejection email sent to me. However, the third one was archived with no rejection email. What could this mean, or am I looking too deep into it? For context, I had an internal referral for that last position that got archived with no rejection email. Could that referral have affected it? If anyone has any insight, I'd love to know!

Adam Szetela traces how American publishing went from a male-dominated trade to one where more than 70 percent of editors are women, mostly from elite universities, and argues this has narrowed what gets published. Its central claim is that young men don't hate reading, but the books on offer don't speak to them. For example, David Goggins's popular book Can't Hurt Me had to be self-published.

Is the "boys don't read" problem really a supply problem?

I stumbled upon this article about her and I am shooketh

“Catapult Books, the independent publisher founded in 2015 by Koch family scion Elizabeth Koch and Electric Literature cofounder Andy Hunter, is being sold and will end operations this month, according to members of its newly formed union.

In a statement, the Catapult Workers Collective said the company announced its planned sale while workers were voting on whether to unionize earlier this year.”

Awful to read. Solidarity to all the Catapult Workers.

Currently interviewing at this company and was wondering if anyone has heard anything about their hiring timelines? I'm hearing that they tend to ghost candidates and I'm wondering if I'm their next victim lol. Been waiting 3 weeks since my first interview to see if I'm moving on to the second. Recruiter said he'll have an update for me soon but it's been over a week since that update..

What do people use to track sales and costs (other than logging into e.g. KDP). Any software / website / app that you use that combines sales and ad spend?

New charter announced: https://societyofauthors.org/2026/10/14/creative-industries-launch-ethical-ai-charter/

CEO of SoA issues a statement: https://societyofauthors.org/2026/10/15/ceo-blog/

SoA withdraws from charter: https://societyofauthors.org/2026/10/21/update-charter-of-ethical-ai-use-in-the-creative-industries/

Never say that things don't move fast in publishing.

EDIT: A lot of ppl who don't work for publishers are answering with opinions on how accurate AI detectors are. Please remember my main question is for those who work for publishers!
-----

I know this has been discussed at length on various forums, but the landscape and companies' decisions change daily when it comes to AI, so I figured I would check in with those who work in the industry.

Last I heard, publishing houses were not using AI detectors when deciding whether or not to acquire new work (for those who are unaware, AI detectors continue to flag highly polished and stylized prose as AI-generated, even when it is not).

Is this still the truth?

Why I am asking: I am a fantasy writer. I was curious, so I ran my prose through Pangram (I know, I know, now they have my data, but tbh so does Google Docs and Word and god knows who else). It comes back as 70% AI. Obviously, I wrote it, not AI. It's hilarious -- the flagged "AI sections" are so scattered. It'll say the first sentence of a paragraph is human written, but the other two are not. Then the same thing for the next paragraph.

So you can see how I'm a bit worried about publishers using this to determine if they will acquire or not.

Make sure your reddit is anonymous if you're gonna share company practices, btw!

So I’ve hired an editor on Reedsy for a developmental edit and a copy edit for a 80000 word non fiction book. The price for the gig is 5000$.

I just got back the developmental edit part of it (not sure if I can even call it that) consisting of a 2.5 page letter with vague suggestions and a tracked word document with a quarter of the comments being grammar or citation suggestions.

When I signed for the gig, here is what the editor promised to deliver for the developmental editing part of the service :

*On my first pass I’ll concentrate on developmental and structural issues. Is there a good blend of anecdote and exposition? Does argumentation flow naturally? Are sources cited adequately? Would readers benefit if any material were reorganized? Does word choice support the tone you seek? My work product for this phase will be a letter to you with my queries and suggestions plus notes in the manuscript.*

I mean technically he *did* provide a letter and notes in the manuscript but it’s only vague sentences and nothing on structure, chapter by chapter analysis, thesis. There are virtually no suggestions on anything, only brief comments on where he doesn’t understand something, like a specific term. Nothing on transitions, book’s strengths and weaknesses, no actionable advice.

What should I do now? Try to see with him first? File a case with Reedsy? I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of money for nothing, but also blaming myself for not having inquired further into what the actual deliverables will be. That said, from all I’ve read, this does seem way too thin and does not correspond to industry standards for the price for this type of work. Feel very disappointed and lost.