It has been said that you must be short to be an agent. Not true. If you love books, have a comfortable shoulder on which writers can cry on, can generate ideas and see trends in what readers want to read and learn about, and if you like to be taken out to expensive luncheons paid for by editors, then you might want to think about being an agent. Again, you have to start at the bottom of the food chain as an assistant and do a lot of crappy jobs.

The typical tasks of an agent’s assistant is to read and evaluate manuscripts; submit manuscripts to publishers, handle contracts, checks, and royalty statements; write permission with pitch letters; and handle the boss’s schedule, phone, and expenses.

The way to get a job as an agent’s assistant is to move to New York City, read mediabistro.com and the half dozen other on-line websites that are focus on this world, and network. The best agents are those people who don’t want to write themselves but love to read. They are people who want to be their own boss, self-starters, and are really good on the phone. The best (and rich agents) are those that can spot a writer who may not be able to write, but has the ability to plot and write a narrative. Increasingly the agent has to know about e-rights and the new ways that ‘books’ are being produced and sold. The new wave in publishing are e-books and they will change print material forever.   

It also helps to be an agent if you are someone who likes to read contracts, especially the fine print of contract. When you are really successful you can just go to lunch at expensive restaurants and let your assistant worry about the details and answer your phone!

Magazine staffs are usually broken down into two divisions: editorial and advertising.

Editorial Assistant: Editorial staff are usually subdivided departmentally, depending on the focus and structure of the magazine. Again, the duties of the entry-level editorial assistant are largely administrative and/or clerical–but in addition to these, the assistant may also review manuscripts, give opinions on story proposals, line edit copy, generate story ideas, post items on the website, and even write for the magazine itself. Production cycles are much shorter in magazine publishing than they are in book publishing, since most magazines publish monthly or even weekly. Thus, the world of magazines can at times seem much more frenzied than the world of books, which moves at a slower and more deliberate pace.

Advertising Assistant: Advertising assistants at magazines  help their bosses sell advertising space–and have done that, work very hard to maintain good relationships with advertisers so they’ll continue to buy space. In addition to basic clerical duties, an assistant will work on presentations; write reports on circulation, demographic distributions, and reader purchasing patterns; coordinate promotional functions and activities (breakfasts, parties, etc); and perform a variety of other duties designed to woo buyers and to keep them happy once they’ve been wooed.

A production assistant will work with copy editors, typographers, binders, and designers to help with the actual construction of a book. As more and more publishers realize that an unusual design or arresting cover art cn help sell books, this area of publishing is getting more fun and inventive. Of course, good copy editors have always been and will always be essential to publishing of any sort.

A publicity assistant sends out galleys (early bound and typeset copies of a book) to select book reviewers at newspapers and magazines, maintains and updates lists of reviewers who should receive free copies of the published book one it’s out, works with his/her boss to arrange radio, print, and television interviews for authors, and may work to organize book release parties and signings at bookstores. Additionally, the assistant needs to know all the social media venues like Facebook and Twitter as this, too, is how books are promoted. Publicity assistants go on to become publicity directors–and because good publicity is so important to book sales, the best publicists sometimes move on to corporate marketing and executive publishing levels.

There are also two other ‘assistant’ roles, one in marketing where the department seeks to build ways of promoting the book on its own, via web campaigns and book events. There is a  role for an assistant in the Subsidiary Rigths Office, which means lots and lots of data entry, recording the details of the many, many deals that come through, and constantly communicationg with agents and other publishers.

The changing, consolidating nature of publishing staff today is that everyone, even assistants in various departments, are taking on more and more responsibility. In the past, where the job of ‘assistant’ use to mean mainly administrative tasks, today the position comes with more and more duties and responsibilities. That said, there are basically three entry level jobs in book publishing. The first one is:

Editorial Assistant

An editorial assistant, in addition to performing the universal assistant-duties mentioned above, might be called upon to review incoming manuscripts and provide reports to his/her boss; to go through the “slush” pile of unsolicited queries from hopeful authors, and bring anything worth a look to the editor’s attention’ and to work with agents and authors to ensure that contracts are handled and processed correctly. Today, many Editorial Assistants will have their own authors and projects, and participate in editorial meeting where books are presented by other editors seeking to buy them for the company. Editorial Assistants also make luncheon reservations for the editor and handle special request. For example, my wife’s first assistant in publishing, when she was a young editor, had the job of getting her a Coke every afternoon (to be fair, she also bought him one!).

Editorial assistants often go on to become assistant or associate editors, and then senior editors. Each position brings with it more direct responsibility for the overall concept behind, and presentation of, a new book. The pinnacle of any editor’s career is to have his or her own ‘imprint’ –a line of books to be determined completely by the editor’s own tastes.

Often, and I am seeing more and more of this lately, as the book industry is shrinking, editors are leaving (i.e., getting fired) book companies, they are  becoming literary agents and free- lance editors.

Remember that former editorial assistant for my wife who got her Cokes? Well, today he has his own imprint and is incredibility successful in book publishing. Now someone else is getting him his afternoon Cokes!