There's usually an Acquiring Editor position. They might do the subsequent editing themselves or they might pass it off to another editor once the book is acquired. In terms of the agent sending a book to the publisher WITH a cover? I have no idea. There are definitely agents who do a lot of editing before the book goes on submission, but I've never heard of submitting a book with a cover attached - seems weird to me.
In this case the agent was involved in getting the book ready for publication then selling it to the publisher. It sounded like for her agency in particular, that meant print ready. I'll have to go find the program to see which books she's been involved with.
It was this publisher panel discussion but I'll have to listen to it again to find the pertinent section. The question was, how long does it take from acceptance of a manuscript until publishing. The answer was more than a year. At minute 41 they talk about the publishers and agent coming up with titles if the author has chosen a bad one, and that is needed before the book jacket is designed. Graham Green said it would be easier for him to change publishers than change titles on Travels with my Aunt. OK, it appears the agent was discussing selling the book and the publisher and editor were talking about covers so perhaps I wrongly conflated who does what. Starting about minute 25: Bonnie Nadell talks about how long it take from submission to print ... "we are a hands on agency ... we get it ready to go" ... Minute 51 cover discussion Little and Brown, they do the covers, every one joins in with cover anecdotes.
I'm not sure what we're talking about... Editors work for the publishing company. So if you're looking for a contract with a big publisher, you submit your MS to an agent, (or send it to your agent once you've got one) and then the agent contacts editors at different publishing companies. And then once the editor decides to buy the MS that editor might be the first one to work on it, or it might be passed off to another editor for actual editing. Was that what you were asking about?
See my edits about the cover. I was asking about the list of editors and no publishers that were in the panels one pitches to at the upcoming conference. I think I have the idea now, the editors are the people in the publishing houses that represent the publisher.
Okay, I listened to the cover part - so that makes sense, now? The publishers are the ones who do the covers, not the agent. I think some of the confusion about the "editor" part comes from the fact that there are freelance editors, too. So not all editors work for publishers, but all publishers have editors.
Re the editors, this is the impression I now have: there is more than one role editors play. The one you hire to clean up your work (something I think is useful once your writing is at a certain professional level and you expect to market it as such) is not the same editor as the ones that work for the publishers and agencies who work with authors to make changes in the work they want to pay for.
I think it's roughly the same role - they're both in charge of getting books ready for publication. But depending on your publishing path, you may pay for your own (self-publishing) or you may have a publishing company that pays for them. There are some writers who hire their own editors even though they're planning to try to find a publisher, but this is fairly rare and seems to be a pretty new phenomenon. But there's additional confusion within the ranks of editors because of different types of editing. And sometimes the name for the different types is different, too! Managing Editor, Acquiring Editor, developmental editor, substantive/line editing, copy editing... in a smaller company, the same editor might do all those jobs, but in a bigger company, there could be a different person doing all of them. Or they could blur the lines, with one person doing two of the jobs at one house, but at a different house a single person does two different jobs. It gets a bit confusing. But when authors talk about "my editor" they're usually talking about the person doing substantive editing, as this person, whatever their other jobs, also seems to be in charge of guiding the author through the process. At least this has been my experience. I'm sure there are even more variations than what I've come up with!
