Book editors help you ‘see’. They understand what you’re trying to do better than you do; find the words that will help you do it; are your ‘go to’ person; and, best of all, are on your team. They bring so much to a book. I don’t know if that’s true of all editors, but it is certainly true of mine. And here she is:

Amy Thomas grew up in Adelaide before moving to Melbourne to study. She has worked in publishing for nearly ten years and has edited children’s books for most of this time (and quite a few books for adults too). She has been lucky enough to work with authors and illustrators such as Shaun Tan, Sofie Laguna, Colin Thiele, Neil Curtis and Isobelle Carmody, to name just a few. She always wanted to have a job that involved books and reading, even from an early age, so being a book editor was perfect for her.

Book editing is not proof reading, is it? Can you give a brief overview of what an editor does?

The role of the editor is to take a book from manuscript through to finished book, guiding the author along the way. This sounds pretty straightforward and not too involved, but it can mean a lot of different things depending on the book an editor is working on. It can sometimes mean taking a manuscript through a number of drafts, giving structural/story feedback along the way, and then giving the manuscript a final edit. It’s not just about picking up errors in punctuation and spelling; it’s also about picking up inconsistencies/weaknesses in story and the narrative arc of a book, and often involves making suggestions to strengthen these elements of a book.

With fiction editing, it’s also about asking the right questions.

Sometimes I ask:

• Would this character really say that?
• Is that really how their relationship would unfold?
• Does their voice feel real?
• Is that repetition deliberate?
• Do the characters sound like different people or is it easy to confuse who is speaking?

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To me, ‘design’ is the functional, working arm of art. Creativity within constraints, like time and money. As a huge reader, I’m influenced by book design all the time. I’d heard of David Mitchell, knew he was a great writer, but I never would have picked up Cloud Atlas if it wasn’t for the fact I loved the cover.

So how do you decide what goes on the cover? How do you convey a story with one arresting image?

Tony Palmer has worked as a book designer for various publishers since 1986, designing and crafting beautiful books for children and adults. He also worked as a teacher with Victoria University, teaching typography and design. Not only did he design the cover of Raw Blue (which I think is amazing), he also generously agreed to answer a few questions about his working process.

There’s more to book design than just the cover, isn’t there?

I sometimes look around the Penguin studio and wonder what draws and keeps designers here. I suppose there’s a variety of reasons, but a common motivation is books – those wonderful, three-dimensional, interactive, pieces of sculpture. The designers I know read them, make them, collect them and live them – so creating great book covers are often just the natural expression of a life that already exists.

What’s your general approach to designing a book?

Design is commercial. It’s not fine art. Any book I work on is not my own original and creative force. So, design starts at the beginning – the manuscript. There’s quite a bit of intuitive thought nudging before I even begin to think of any visual ideas: Who wrote it? Why did they write it? Is it any good? Why are we publishing it? What is it really about? Who is going to read it, and who is going to pay for it – two quite distinct questions… More