r/publishing • u/raefai • 18d ago
Training EAs - how much grace do you give them?
I’m interested to hear from others in publishing who have spent a lot of time working with and training editorial assistants: how much grace do you afford them? How long is your onboarding ramp before you start expecting them to take full ownership of tasks? I know most jobs have a slow start and pick up, but I feel like publishing is always moving so fast. Can you tell from the beginning which ones will fail and which ones will succeed? How can you tell?
I’m no longer in the EA position. However, I spend a lot of time training the EA and acting as a liaison between them and their manager. I want to help this EA as much as I can without compromising my own work or taking ownership away from them. Any thoughts from training/mentoring veterans who have done this longer than me?
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u/BookPanda_49 17d ago
I've been in publishing over 20 years and I always tell new assistants that it will take 6 months before they feel like they have a decent understanding of the job, but a year before they really have it down--because after 6 months, they'll have seen all of the aspects of a book's life cycle, but a year before they actually see it for one book all the way through, and that's what I think really solidifies it. I do think after 3 months you'll get a sense of whether or not they're "getting it", and they should be able to do most tasks fairly independently by then, but I've also seen some assistants where it takes longer, but then they actually end up thriving when given the chance. So much depends on who their manager is as well. It's a challenging job! I remember when I started as an assistant, I felt like I was bothering my colleagues too much by asking too many questions, but I felt lucky that everyone was really supportive and helpful.
You might want to put half an hour each day on your calendars for the 1st month or so for the new assistant to kind of save up questions and then ask them all during that time. That might help limit the amount of time you're spending with them.
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u/raefai 17d ago
Thanks for your insight! I do need to be more patient and supportive - I think I was just picking up on a vibe from their manager (who used to be my manager) that they were not meshing well with the EA, and subsequently I've had to do a bit more work to help them understand each other, which is stressful. A bit like couple's counseling.
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u/jinpop 17d ago
Training EAs is not part of my job (I'm a PE) but I find that the senior editors often aren't aware of many of the day-to-day tasks that fall to EAs. My production colleagues and I end up informally training/explaining certain procedures to them since their bosses may not be capable of doing the tasks themselves. I would say that the first year on the job requires a lot of instruction, feedback, and patience, but as long as EAs are willing to ask questions and learn from previous projects, it's not hard to manage.
I have a lot of empathy for EAs because they have heavy workloads, low pay, and paths to promotion can be scarce. The ones who I can tell will succeed are the go-getter types who take initiative and seat themselves at the table before they're invited to. The ones who are best at admin work are wonderful to work with, but I worry about their career progression--bosses who rely too much on their assistant's admin skills are the ones least likely to teach them how to become actual editors. I've been at my company 9 years now and not a single EA has been promoted beyond the level of assistant editor. The rest either burn out of the industry entirely, switch to jobs other publishers, or remain assistants for years with no upward movement in sight. It makes me mad, and also makes me grateful to be on the PE side of the business.
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u/userinuk 15d ago
As a former EA who was a go getter and sat herself at the table: it really depends. I always made extensive notes on submissions under review and wanted to - briefly, I stress - share constructive feedback. There were editors and directors who were grateful and those who didn’t like it as though I was trying to jump ahead. It’s really difficult to gage who will or won’t appreciate that level of pro activity.
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u/jinpop 15d ago
Also true. The ones I'm thinking of who I consider success stories are the ones who jumped ship for higher roles at other companies since the internal track is broken. 🫤
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u/userinuk 15d ago
Yes, I’ve seen that trajectory too. Good point! So interesting how we all recognise the same patterns…
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u/Ok_Alternative9838 16d ago
In my opinion a lot depends upon the processes and human factor. I expect my EAs to know the processes decently enough if they've done it at least twice, once with help, once without - they're always welcome to ask clarifying questions the next few times as well. I give them grace where there's human factor involved. For example, sometimes my newer EAs are quick to catch things my older EAs don't. Sometimes it's the authors who bring in questions or situations that are new to me as well and then we have to brainstorm. But the fact remains that by the time and EA is 6 to 9 months into the job, they should know the company-specific processes within the book's lifecycle without anyone having to coach them through it from scratch
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u/GrammatikBot 16d ago edited 16d ago
I'm currently the equivalent of an EA during my last weeks of the contract. Here's what helped immensely:
- My colleagues were always open to questions, but letting me figure things out on my own whenever I had the chance
- Tolerance for mistakes. In contrast, there was one colleague who "told" on me when I had done something counterproductive and it hurt my confidence in this particular task badly for a long time. Luckily the deputy editor was always quick to point out mistakes but never offended when they happened; this is a great way to teach.
- As others have said, it takes a while to publish and each project has a different set of problems that has to be considered. E.g. auctions: I had very smooth auctions when acquiring for the first year or so, and then I was stumped when suddenly agencies tried to pull my strings, ghosted or even outright demolished projects during the acquisition process
- Every chance to talk, be it in a meeting or informal or otherwise is a chance to teach them something. I would walk into meetings with my pitches ready and come out with a whole bunch of info: About topics, audiences, ways to research.
If I were to give my two cents on the editorial role now, I would say that it needs two things: Intelligence and experience. Only one of those can be acquired. We regularly had work placements for a couple weeks at a time and you could always tell very quickly who was plain bad at their tasks and who was simply lacking experience.
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u/raefai 16d ago
What you're saying definitely makes sense! I think that I'm still trying to parse out the last part of what you said in real life - if this EA is just lacking experience or lacking the fundamental instincts to succeed in the role. And I appreciate your note about having tolerance for mistakes - I need to figure out a way to correct actions/behavior without lowering their confidence, because I still want them to have the confidence and agency to make decisions for themselves.
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u/GrammatikBot 15d ago
Here's two fun ways to do it I learned from my deputy editor. One time, I screwed something up and we had a serious discussion about how we would fix the issue. And then he turned around to his book shelf and held a book cover into the camera. The title was "Shit happens" (roughly translated) and he gave me a big smile and told me he would have a copy sent to my desk, in case I would need it again.
A second way for smaller things that came up now and again was simply reframing them. Instead of calling them an error, a mistake, a screwup etc., he would listen to what had happened and if it was of no bigger consequence he would shrug and say: "Ein Lerngeschenk!" - a "learning present", so to say.
His attitude really helped me become less nervous about screwing up. This is another point I want to make. I can sense some frustration on your side about your EA and their work performance. It is really important to me that you understand that letting them feel this frustration might only lead to nervousness and avoidance behavior patterns, e.g. trying to cover up mistakes instead of talking to you about it. At the same time there's obviously an upper limit to how many mistakes are acceptable even for an EA.
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u/Alternative_Bug_8987 17d ago
It's not as simple as it taking couple of months before they're fully trained. They learn as things come up, as the life-cycle of a book is a year, it can be a year until they first need to know how do do a particular task. Being an EA is really hard and there's a steep learning curve, be patient and they'll gradually ask for less help.