Writers, scholars, grad students, and book-lovers hoping to enter the publishing industry share similar questions for an acquisitions editor: How do you become one? What does an editor do? Why do they publish one book over another? In this profile of Timothy Mennel, Metcalf intern Kyle Lin reveals Timothy Mennel’s path to becoming an editor. 

At the outset of his career, Timothy Mennel wanted to stay far from academia after witnessing his father’s work as a professor during his childhood. Yet today he serves as an executive editor at the University of Chicago Press, focusing largely on political, urban, and intellectual history, with a focus on ambitious trade books. 

After graduating from college, Mennel enrolled in a graduate program in documentary filmmaking, only to find that he was in the wrong institution, the wrong field, or both. He pivoted into an internship at a comic book company, though he was less than pleased at the time (“Terrific! I’m gonna go and starve to death,” he thought). When the company went bankrupt nine months later, he pivoted to Princeton University Press as an editorial assistant and learned about academic publishing. Later, upon moving to New York, he worked for several publishers, including Random House, only to pursue a PhD in geography (to the surprise of his childhood self). On the other side of graduate school, he was armed with the networks and relationships an acquisitions editor needs to succeed, leading him to join the American Planning Association in that role. 

Five years later, he arrived at the University of Chicago Press, where he’s been ever since. He views this as a culmination of his previous jobs, the role that finally offered him everything he was looking for. “I get to choose the projects, or have a lot bigger say in them. There’s a lot of responsibility that goes into figuring out what the books we want to do are, and what we don’t,” said Mennel.

“I am someone who gets a little bored pretty easily, and that’s a good quality of this job because if you’re getting a little bored, then maybe [the book’s] not that great, then you have to move on,” said Mennel. That boredom is often a symptom of a book that is derivative of the field it covers; in contrast, he’s always looking for a book that brings something new to the table. “Where are you taking this? How are you changing things? What are you challenging?” Mennel said. He’s more likely to acquire work that not only contributes something new, but is in conversation with other literature. Books worth acquiring give Mennel a sense that an author possesses both a level of self-awareness that their work may reach a greater audience and the ability to write a comprehensive analysis about the field they’re engaging.

Mennel’s attraction to what he calls “ambitious trade books” follows a similar logic; it’s not merely that an argument is interesting or formally inventive, but that the book “explains something that people have felt but haven’t been able to articulate,” he said. Often these books have manuscripts that “don’t make a maximal amount of sense, but they could,” says Mennel. The process of translating those ideas into coherent writing is a challenge that authors need to be prepared for to push a book to publication. 

Some books-in-progress, whether trade or specialist, look inward rather than outward toward their potential far-reaching impacts. While there is a place for books written for a very specific demographic, Mennel is most interested in ambitious projects that combine an author’s unique knowledge, experiences, and style to create that elusive “distinctive voice” that editors are often looking for. 

Fire and Clay, written by a former middle school drama teacher named Will Quam, is one such book. “He’s just a guy who’s completely obsessed with bricks,” said Mennel. In fact, Quam wasn’t even writing a book; he was leading popular tours of the bricks in Chicago neighborhoods. Yet he was aware of conversations occurring within the scholarship and had a deep obsession that he could turn into the hundreds of pages needed for a book. 

Once Quam’s manuscript was complete and had made it through peer review, the Press had the staff and appetite for risk to turn the project into a beautiful object. “We are a fairly creative press. We take on risks, things that aren’t run of the mill, and make things more distinctive. Many other presses wouldn’t embark on these kinds of projects or would ask for a more normal trim size, less color, or more of a handbook,” said Mennel. 

While exciting projects like Fire and Clay fit the popular image of an acquisitions editor’s work, other tasks are more mundane. In Mennel’s experience, only about two-thirds of the time is he thinking like an author and a scholar regarding where a field is going, what is being published, how to address a particular subject matter, and so on. That remaining third is dedicated to spreadsheets, profit and loss statements, juggling various production and design schedules, and working with marketing. It mixes logistical, administrative, and financial work that looks unglamorous from the outside. “Actually, moving among these things is very stimulating. I can look at a book and say, ‘Wow, this is really interesting, but I don’t think anybody’s going to buy this. How do we change that?’ What considerations do we need to take into account to make the book happen?” said Mennel. 

Mennel’s recently acquired Thirteen Sisters is a forthcoming book that delves into the series of murders in Boston in early 1979. While the book presents itself as a true crime story, it sensitively explores the cultural moment and the activist Combahee River Collective. Together these elements create an interesting tale that is both “gruesome to read in some places but also deeply inspirational in others,” according to Mennel. In many ways, the book is another example of the risk-taking that he identifies with his job and the Press itself.